Pitchfork Music Festival: Day 3/Wrap-Up

The final day started with Deerhunter and I was interested to see what they would do on what was probably one of the biggest crowds they’ve played to. They brought their A game and Bradford Cox shined on stage. They even got some of Grizzly Bear to jam with them at the end. There’s something special about seeing two of the best young bands today teaming up like this and gives me even more optimism about the state of music today. We watched The Ponys from far away and they sounded good with the exception of the entire PA system going down for half of it. Seriously, Pitchfork Fest’s sound system seemed to get even worse as the days went on and I’ve never seen anything like that at a music festival. Next up we watched Menomena put on a really good show. They seemed especially loose and maybe over excited or something but that seemed to work favourably for their sound. This is another band that if you haven’t got into yet, i strongly urge you to check them out. The next band I went to see was The Sea And Cake. It was hard for me to believe how bad it was considering how much I like this band. In their defense, the sound system did seem to be especially terrible for their set, but I do not like the direction this band has gone in. The show and the new album both seem like their missing the magic this band used to conjure up. I caught a little bit of Stephen Malkmus playing a solo set. It was good but it’s just not exactly my thing. The best show of the day for me was Of Montreal. This band combines art with fun like no other. They did a few new songs, Kevin Barnes wore a few outfits, they even played a little football on stage. I waited a really long time to see Klaxons next. They were good but the weak sound system on the third stage made it seem more underwhelming than it should have. We ended the night watching De La Soul do a solid performance.

Overall, the fest was fairly interesting and a good experience. They must do something about the sound system because it was way too amateur for a festival of this size. I know the ticket prices were low, but if I have to pay another ten or twenty bucks to get to listen to more than the band’s monitors for half the shows, it might be a good idea. The actual line-up mostly delivered on the hype, but I think Pitchfork could do a little better job scheduling. The venue was nice but if they want this event to get any bigger they’re going to need to relocate. I will say that the security was extremely light and well behaved, and I am always a big fan of that. Overall, Pitchfork Fest gets a thumbs up from me but need to improve some things for next year.

Friday Free-Style

We start today with a video of The Smashing Pumpkins comeback show:

I never covered the Pitchfork Fest additions of Mastodon, Junior Boys, Voxtrot, Cadence Weapon, Brightblack Morning Light, The Field, Cool Kids, and William Parker Quartet. Now with the combination of a night with legendary artists performing some of the best albums ever written and two days of the people making the very best albums of the last 2 years, I think musically this is by far the best festival of the year. On top of that, it is only 50 bucks for three days so it is also the greatest bargain of the year. I often have my quips with Pitchfork’s opinions but they sure nailed this line-up. Here it is in case you forgot:

Friday, July 13:

Sonic Youth perform Daydream Nation
GZA/Genius performs Liquid Swords
Slint perform Spiderland

Saturday, July 14:

Yoko Ono
Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues (w/ members of Dirty Three, the Delta 72, and Blues Explosion)
Clipse
Mastodon
Iron and Wine
Battles
Grizzly Bear
Voxtrot
Califone
The Twilight Sad
Girl Talk
Dan Deacon
Oxford Collapse
Professor Murder
Fujiya & Miyagi
Beach House
William Parker Quartet
Ken Vandermark’s Powerhouse Sound

Sunday, July 15:

De La Soul
The New Pornographers
Of Montreal
Stephen Malkmus
Jamie Lidell
The Sea and Cake
Junior Boys
Menomena
The Ponys
Deerhunter
Klaxons
The Field
Cadence Weapon
The Cool Kids
Craig Taborn’s Junk Magic
Nomo
Brightblack Morning Light
Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Lightbox Orchestra

Anybody you don’t recognize on that list, you should look into immediately. More info on Pitchfork Fest here. We will be there and you should too.

The hometown fest that is still the most fun of the decade, Bonnaroo, has announced its cinema tent schedule.

The New Pornographers have a new track floating around the internets: My Rights Versus Yours

Ween releases a new EP, The Friends EP, on June 8th.

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are looking for a drummer to sub-in for their European tour.

Creative Loafing did a cover story on Atlanta blogs this week and profiled our friends over at Cable And Tweed. Props for repping the B’s in da A.

It’s been a busy week for me and I don’t have that much news for you, so I’ll hit you with a bunch of vids:

Here’s a Cat Power on Jolls Holland:

Here’s a Califone video:

Here’s an Iron And Wine video:

Ween live:

Here’s the new Voxtrot video:

Here’s Arcade Fire covering a Clinic song:

And I leave you with a De La Soul video that will get you through your day: