Pitchfork Fest 07, Friday 7/13

You know I had planned on doing a write up on the Pitchfork Music Festival that I went to like a month ago but it just kept slipping my mind. Here then is my experience, possibly embellished because now I don't remember anything. In fact, most of this never happened.

Friday 7/13

Slint "Good Morning, Captain"

I arrived at Union Park on Friday evening, just in time to see Slint perform their Spiderland record. Here I was, a bright eyed go getter ready to do whatever i took to catch at least a glimpse of every single artist performing over the weekend. This attitude would change very quickly. Despite not being loud enough, Slint's performance went off without a hitch. When Brian McMahan screamed "i miss you" at the crescendo of "Good Morning Captain" it had just as much emotional resonance as when I first heard the record years ago. Big time stuff.



GZA "Shadowboxin"

It was around the time of GZA's Liquid Swords set that I started to realize that this concert was going to be way more crowded than I had expected. Hipsters abounded, and there was also a surprisingly large thirteen year old element. I haven't done the festival scene in a long while, and the last one I went to (All Tommorrow's Parties at the Queen Mary in Long Beach) had a seemingly empty crowd so I was already getting edgy. I hate large crowds you see...

GZA's set had far too much going on at once. The problem with a lot of hip hop concerts is that a lot of the time there are just too many dudes on the stage shouting at the same time. These performances are best when they're kept simple, as I would witness later in the weekend. Sonic Youth was introduced by the MC as a "middle aged riot" as they launched into their seminal Daydream Nation. I saw them perform this the following friday in LA and it was much louder. The crowd around me was chanting "turn it up" and I agreed with them. Never have I listened to Daydream Nation at such a low volume. I left before their Rather Ripped encore upon being frustrated by my lack of some kind of ear loudening device.