Pitchfork 2010: Day 1 review
Video produced by Kevin Pang
View pictures from Pitchfork 2010.
Jack Black, circa “School of Rock,” would’ve appreciated this face-melter. The Pitchfork Music Festival got underway Friday in Union Park with enough heat and humidity to prompt promoters to cut the price of bottled water in half to $1 for the rest of the weekend. Pitchfork, we salute you. And festivalgoers (all 54,000 of you by the end of the three-day festival), make sure to hydrate and apply sunscreen liberally.
As for the music, my overall impression of Day One was that we were off to a slow start, with a few exceptions.The big winners: Sharon Van Etten, Broken Social Scene’s Chicago-centric set, and aerobics instructor/Euro-pop anti-diva Robyn.
The big outrage: Headliners Modest Mouse didn’t perform their biggest hit, “Float On.” I’m guessing their relationship to that 2003 breakthrough song is similar to what Warren Zevon’s was to “Werewolves of London” or Radiohead’s to “Creep” — it’s a once-popular song the artist who wrote it no longer loves. So are they obligated to play it? Me, I want to see a band play songs it is still emotionally invested in, no matter what the setting. If Modest Mouse is going to go through the motions performing “Float On” (much the way Van Morrison does when he phones in “Brown Eyed Girl”), I’ll pass. What’s your take? Let me know in the comments below.
I’m betting that Saturday is going to be just fine with much-anticipated sets by Gary, Ind., MC Freddie Gibbs, the Smith Westerns, and especially LCD Soundsystem. And Sunday should save the best for last with a murderer’s row of St. Vincent, Pavement, Big Boi, etc.
But let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of Friday. Below you’ll find an hour-by-hour account, with entries from yours truly, Greg Kot (GK), and my ever-enthusiastic colleagues Andy Downing (AD) and Kevin Pang (KP):
3:30 p.m.
Sharon Van Etten could be forgiven for just wanting to run and hide as she takes the stage shielded from the Sun only by a veil of bangs. She is alone except for her electric guitar and she looks tiny amid the vast setting. She glances at the big screen flanking the stage and says, “There’s a bigger version of me over there,” as if she’d like to trade places with her video image. But, wow, what songs. Her butterfly voice floats over — take your pick — hypnotic/repetitive/trancy guitar strumming. She’s not attempting more than a few chords per song. But the effect is mesmerizing. She writes about broken relationships – an old, perhaps hackneyed subject — with switchblade insight. “Don’t you think I know you’re only trying to save yourself/You’re just like everyone else.” In the space of those two lines she moves from empathy to disappointment. Great stuff. The voice is direct, unvarnished, the sound of truth. “First day, first act, oh, my God … I feel like I have something to prove,” she says with disarming frankness. Mission accomplished. (GK)
4:10 p.m.
From a spot near the soundboard, the Tallest Man on Earth appears to stand only about 5-foot-8. Kristian Mattson, the Swedish singer-songwriter who performs under the moniker, openly struggles with both the heat and a bad case of jet lag: “I haven't slept in two days,” he announces from the stage. Not surprisingly, his voice — clear, if somewhat nasal on record — seems to sport three-days growth. There's definitely more than a touch of Dylan in acoustic numbers like “Wild Hunt” and a particularly strong “King of Spain,” which finds the troubadour strumming his acoustic as though he wants to reduce the instrument to kindling. With the sun shining and clear blue skies overhead, it's fitting that so many tunes touch on the natural world; Mattson fills his songs with references to floating bluebirds, sunning lizards and flower-dotted meadows. Heck, even relationships sound more like big game hunts when filtered through Mattson's worldview. “If I don't get you in the morning,” he sings over dancing guitar on “Thousand Ways,” “By the evening I sure will.” (AD)