Yorum

Originally posted at http://www.ninetyninetyfour.org

Fri 18 Jul – Pitchfork Music Festival 2008

With no rain in sight my decent upon the final day of Pitchfork began with walking into the festival just as Japanese rockers Boris took the stage. It began sounding like stingingly fast punk rock. I walked through the crowd towards the beer vendors for wristbands and tickets, all the while hearing the cries of Atsuo across the field.

After rendez-vousing with friends and giving a twice-over on DEPART-ment, we sat in the shade and talked and drank a bit. It was soon that we saw a small crowd gathering at the curb across from the Robinson's stand.Les Savy Fav frontman Tim Harrington sat upon a powder blue blanket with various cds (obviously illegitimate copies) such as Spoon's "Girls Can Tell", strewn across it. He held up a plastic wrapped Xbox 360 game, it appeared to be some sort of foot ball game. Harrington declared it a great game and it will play on any system and that he was only selling it for two dollars. As the crowd began to grow my friend and I concluded our gawking and made our way to the stage where we would be seeing Mr. Harrington shortly.

I'm a newcomer to Les Savy Fav and I have to say I was really impressed. The sun was at a high point and just as Harrington stormed the stage in some strange yellow with fringe onesie, I retreated to the shade and watched what I could from afar. The sound where we were was still quite good and my ears were assaulted by Les Savy Fav. Harrington went through several costume changes including this really great pair of black cherry colored spandex pants (one and a half legs) and what appeared to be long underwear that he may have gone painting in at some point? Not quite sure, could have been a glare. He frequently went into the crowd to sing while the band carried on behind him. It was a frantic and energetic set to see.

After this it was safe to head back into the depths of the shade and people watch while listening to the Occidental Brother's Dance Band International. All I can really say is, meh, it didn't really compel me to dance. I saw some very interesting outfits including one girl with these some kind of reptilian skinned shin guards. She looked like a surfer with a fantasy identity crisis. I also saw an Indian Chief and Firefox. As 6 pm creeped and the sun was becoming slowly reacquainted with the west I made my way over to watch M. Ward who came out on stage and played two songs alone until his backing band joined him. He effortlessly played and crooned through songs of a few of his albums including Post-War and Transistor Radio. I was enjoying watching fellow blogger thesurferrosa geek out completely for M.Ward.

With El Guincho's cancellation Ghostface and Raekwon's set time was switched to co-incide with M. Ward and both sets were immediately followed by Spiritualized which I wanted to get in eye-shot for so I moved with some songs to spare. In 2005 Jason Pierce (Aka J Spaceman and Spiritualized) had a severe case of pneumonia and contracted an infection which caused him to go into respiratory failure twice. He had to be revived twice. Spiritualized latest album Songs In A & E (A & E standing for Accident and Emergency Ward) is the first to be released since 2003's Amazing Grace. Pierce backed by a band and two gospel singers played songs like "Sweet Talk", "Come Together" and one of my favorites "Lord Can You Hear Me." Sadly the sun wasn't down enough as Spiritualized played, so the ambiance was lost but the performance was dead powerful. I walked away from that set thinking that I'm no religious person, but that music "spiritualizes" me in that it has a churchiness to it while maintaining this grander symphonicness. I mean hell, Jason Pierce has been back from the dead, twice. J Spaceman-1. Jesus - 0. Ten years well worth that wait and can't wait to see them again.

Highlight act of the festival for me was Cut Copy who I'd been waiting to see for ages. I sadly made the judgement call of bypassing Dinosaur Jr. in favor of finding a spot where I could camp out and dance for Cut Copy at the back stage. I could hear echoes of "This Is All I came To Do" and felt I could relate, one because that's my favorite song off their latest album and two because I had been jazzed about concluding my Pitchfork experience with Cut Copy. As 8:25 came and went, Bradford James Cox of the Atlas Sound took the stage and announced that Cut Copy had been detained on account of a flight delay at the airport. In the meantime though he would keep us entertained. At the same time Spoon was closing out the festival on the A stage, I could hear "Rhythm and Soul" as Cox continued to speak and was then joined by King Khan of King Khan And His Shrines. They improvised a couple of songs including one exhaustingly long Blues jam. As I saw some crew members bring bongo drums onto the stage I grew disenchanted and forfeited, heading over to watch at least a couple of Spoon songs to maybe raise my spirits before I left. That lasted one song.

My friend and I were waiting for Spider to get his bike and he rides up telling me Cut Copy just took the stage. "You're shitting me" I say to him, but he isn't. I become frantic worrying about the whole re-entry issue and see that people are filing out of the loading area for vendors and so amidst the chaos I dart through and back to the stage. Cut Copy began playing "Light and Music" and the crowd, including myself, goes wild. We begin to pulse as they punch their keyboards and hit their drums. Everyone is jumping and as word gets out across the festival via texts and phone calls, the crowd gradually grows. I wouldn't say they stole the show from Spoon necessarily, but they definitely took a hefty chunk from the crowd. A short but really fantastic set of four or five songs was played on account of the curfew. "Out There on the Ice" and "Hearts on Fire" from this year's release In Ghost Colours (one of my top five favorite albums of 2008) along with "Future" and "Going Nowhere" from 2004's Bright Like Neon Love were played for the crowd who loved every minute of it and wanted more after (and just announced today more can be had at Metro September 17th when they co-headline with fellow Aussies and Modular labelmates The Presets). In the same vein as The Klaxons set last year, Cut Copy made use of their seemingly underdog status and really turned the festival out on a really high point.