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Post by Nathan Fieldcяab on Jul 21, 2024 11:23:20 GMT -5
Skipped out early before Jamie because I'm a moron... Jessie was the highlight but everything was pretty great overall! Really enjoyed the DBT cover Wednesday did
Post by garageland on Jul 21, 2024 14:17:36 GMT -5
I’ve said this before but Joanna Sternbeg is not just an incredible performer, she’s just an incredible person. I could see her a million times and would always see her again.
There’s a guy here wearing a shirt that says “Who do you want to see play Pitchfork 2025?” that people have written on and I can only see part of it but I see The xx, D’Angelo, and Joey Valence & Brae. Which of you has come up to this man
There’s a guy here wearing a shirt that says “Who do you want to see play Pitchfork 2025?” that people have written on and I can only see part of it but I see The xx, D’Angelo, and Joey Valence & Brae. Which of you has come up to this man
if I see them I'll be sure to write in Young Thug just in case he's out by then
There’s a guy here wearing a shirt that says “Who do you want to see play Pitchfork 2025?” that people have written on and I can only see part of it but I see The xx, D’Angelo, and Joey Valence & Brae. Which of you has come up to this man
There’s a guy here wearing a shirt that says “Who do you want to see play Pitchfork 2025?” that people have written on and I can only see part of it but I see The xx, D’Angelo, and Joey Valence & Brae. Which of you has come up to this man
Wonder if its a Conde Nast plant lol
I saw him again and the largest name was SOULJA BOY in the center so I don’t think so lol
And credit where it’s due, it is packed the fuck out for Alanis.
They crushed it on this booking. I've been coming to this fest for over a decade and tonight was the first time I was able to get my wife to join me. Alanis was fantastic, great way to close out the fest.
If this was the last day of pitchfork then it was a good day to go out on. Joanna -> Nala -> Model/A was god-tier. Alanis was a perfect ender. Have a good week y'all.
If this was the last day of pitchfork then it was a good day to go out on. Joanna -> Nala -> Model/A was god-tier. Alanis was a perfect ender. Have a good week y'all.
I did a few songs of Alanis but my soul left after Les Savy Fav. I walked up to Tim screaming at me “ARE YOU COMING TO THE SHOW” while riding around the audience on a Lime Scooter. He jumped ADA and stole a drink from someone. He got down to his underwear and preached to whoever was in earshot. It was glorious.
Friday began like most Pitchfork days. Sunny, warm, and with some “weird” local band opening the Green stage. This year’s band was Black Duck aka guitarist Bill MacKay, bassist Doug McCombs, and drummer Charles Rumback playing an eclectic but dynamic set.
Steeped in the avant-guard, Black Duck plays experimental rock music- with a heavy emphasis on “experimental.” The group is multi-faceted with all three contributing; taking the listener on a thought-provoking journey.
Angry Blackmen were also thought provoking but that’s where the similarities stopped. Where Black Duck was subdued and toned down, Angry Blackmen were a balls-to-the-wall mix of hip-hop and punk energy.
BZ and Quentin displayed a unique and intense sound with unapologetic lyrics about race, identity, and systematic injustice all while giving those voices that are marginalized a platform to be heard.
ABM was an incredible set. End of sentence.
Danish experimental pop artist, ML Burch, quietly laid soundscapes to a hushed crowd. Her voice was both captivating and haunting, both of which she showed off. My only regret for this show was the stage placement and wishing this was a more intimate show on the Blue stage, though I doubt anything could have overcome the thunderous boom that was Rosali there.
Tkay Maidza was mesmerizing as expected. Blending hip-hop, electronic, and R&B she dazzled with her performance. Focusing on newer material, she kept the crowd pumped with a charismatic set.
I’ve said it before when talking about Billy Woods. Somebody needs to build that man a statue as he’s one of our national treasures. Paired with Philadelphia’s Kenny Segal, he was in tip-top form; deep introspective rhymes with moody atmospheric beats.
There was a time I wasn’t planning on seeing 100 Gecs. Don’t get me wrong, I love the albums but they were playing opposite of Sudan Archives who was one of my favorite shows last year. Last minute decisions heavily influenced by Revolution’s “Cold Time” changed my mind.
The sheer sensory overload of that set was incredible. For everything that was happening in the outside world, you’d never know it at that show. It felt nice to smile and laugh and sing. Truly a highlight of day one.
Pitchfork Day 2
The second day began with Lifeguard taking the stage. A friend had texted me from Brooklyn, who had seen them earlier in the week, and told me not to miss this set. I wasn’t planning on it but that was encouraging. He also told me the lead guitarist/singer, Kai, had a broken foot and sat the entire show.
What followed was 40 minutes of passionate post-punk with raw and gripping stage presence. Plowing through several EP’s of material, it turned into one of my favorite sets for the weekend.
L’Rain managed to capture a mesmerizing and immersive show for 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Her band was a crack unit as she playfully worked through the songs from her new album, “I Killed Your Dog.” Emotionally charged, it wasn’t for the faint of heart.
There are times that in festival settings it is hard to see more intimate performances (eg., ML Burch). There’s so much going on around with other stages and fun chatter, the live performances get drowned out and lost in translation.
Fortunately, Kara Jackson was not one of these. Blessed with an incredible voice and even more incredible lyrics, Jackson’s show was one for the books. The immense storytelling and heartfelt lyrics led to everyone connecting within earshot.
After a few hours though, I was ready to rock and Pittsburgh’s Feeble Little Horse was there to oblige. Led by singer and bass player, Lydia Slocum, they pushed their brand of lo-fi indie rock.
Running between stages has never been easier. The two mains sit about 100 yards from one another and alternate so there is no sound bleeding. Immediately after Feeble Little Horse, tracks were made in order to get a good spot for Wednesday.
They turned the brash noise pop up to 11. Hammering songs between the Twin Plagues album and 2023’s Rat Saw God, attendees were treated with 2 new songs and a cover of The Drive By Truckers’ “Women Without Whiskey.”
By the time Sweeping Promises took the Blue stage, I was ready. They had soundtracked my life in the pandemic and I had yet to see them. Hunger for a Way Out was a remarkable album; angular guitar for a post-punk meets in-a-garage sound.
Live, they delivered. What I wasn’t expecting was the onstage chemistry that gave a dynamic stage presence.
When dealing with music festivals there’s bound to be conflicts. This year’s was worse, it felt. On one hand there was the disco era Jessie Ware and Carly Rae Jepsen vs. Bratmobile and Unwound. There was no right or wrong answer here.
I’m glad I chose Bratmobile. Nostalgia kicked in after the first few notes. Blasting through the set, it reminded me how much of a powerhouse they were. There was even a Tiger Trap cover (considering Rose is in the band, it made sense) and a finale of The Runaways cover of Cherry Bomb.
A somewhat recently reformed Unwound reminded you of why they were the kings of west coast (post) hardcore. Blistering through a 45 minute set, there was little chatter. Trying to play as many songs as possible before their time was up. They got through 10 before it was over.
The night was rounded out by Jamie xx. He blended a wide range of genres while including his own songs and collaborations into the mix. The park was an absolute party.
Pitchfork Day 3
If you want a commanding stage presence and a huge voice, look no further than Akenya. The Chicago native has collaborated with many of the cities big names and with reason; seamlessly blending neo-soul and jazz motifs into something almost spiritual.
Joanna Sternberg is always a great performance. They create such a genuine experience within the folk that’s being played. Minimal guitar with lyrics about isolation and loneliness. It’s a hard pill to swallow at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Thabkfully, their humor broke the anticipation of an ugly cry coming on.
Nala Sinephro is one of the rarest “gets” of this festival. With only a handful of dates in the US this go round, 2 were in Chicago. Nala brought her take on ambient jazz to the park leaving everyone who saw it feeling transcended.
If you were looking for church services on Sunday, you found it at Model/Actriz. I was a few songs late coming from Nala Sinephro but walked into singer Cole Hansen walking the crowd and serenading anyone he passed by with industrial meets post-punk sound.
Mannequin Pussy is always a a real treat for anyone that hasn’t seen them. Ferocious, challenging, and sincere, it’s everything punk should be. For 45 minutes they put in everything to break the wall between entertainment and thought provoking.
If there was an award for ‘Most Thankful,’ Muna would win hands down. There wasn’t a song that ended that singer Katie Gavin wasn’t thanking someone. From fans to the festival to tour manager and publicist to everyone in between. It was genuine and you felt the sincerity in every word of it. They truly fest blessed to not just playing the festival but to be playing for everyone.
There was a playful type of chaos at a Les Savy Favy performance. Theatrical performances with the singer, Tim Harrington, donning colorful outfits while engaging the audience to the point where it felt like church. You were greeted with Tim riding a scooter through the crowd before the set started. Throughout the show he ended up in the ADA booth serenading the crowd, pulling the “how much time do we have” clock off the stage and wandering in the crowd singing to anyone and everyone within arms’ reach. The set ended abruptly and no one was sure if the microphone broke or they cut the power.
As with any festival there’s a mix of both euphoria and exhaustion at the end of a music festival. Pitchfork is no different. You’ve spent three days basking in the Chicago sun, eaten some of the best festival food, had the best conversations with random strangers, and seen an uncountable number of the world’s best bands giving everything they have.
There is always a positive. You’ll do it again next year and can start counting the days. I’ll see you then, Chicago.
—-
If anyone asks me if I’d do VIP again, the answer is “Yes with a few adjustments”.
- Let VIP use the Plus entrance to get in the festival. Having to walk around the park was completely assigning. While I get it, it would make things a ton easier for the festival goer. I used the Press/ADA Entrance for that very reason. Holy shit what a hike.
- Have a designated Bar for VIP in the stages area of the festival. Sure, you get 6 free beers but lost 10/15 minutes having to walk back to the VIP area each time. Food was fine both in location and the eateries but beer situation fucking sucked.
- I go back and forth on the double decker. I liked the idea in theory but when I saw it, I didn’t like it so much.
The bottom line was I had an amazing time and already looking forward to next year.
Geez, has it already been a week since this festival started? [NOTE: It has now been 3 months since I wrote this original writeup.] I certainly thought I’d have gotten around to writing my thoughts up more quickly than that [NOTE: LMAO]; on the other hand, it was also pointed out to me last week that in writing I may have thoroughness in spades but not speed [NOTE: LMAO LMAO]. But on the plus side, this should be much quicker since I’m not trying to make a whole travelogue out of this thing. So, here we go.
A brief note: this is the 10th Pitchfork I have attended, so I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years. I miss the Whole Foods stand because there were so many times this weekend I just wanted to eat a single banana and nothing else, and I don’t miss the old water bottle troughs since I’ve never wanted to wait half an hour to fill up a water bottle. I remember when it was a crazy novelty that they booked a pop artist with Carly Rae Jepsen in 2016, and now poptimism is so widespread Pitchfork booked one pop day for gay guys, one pop day for lesbians, and one pop day for uhhhhh Black Pumas fans. However, the core of the festival remains more or less unchanged. The record fair and craft fair are still pretty much the same even if smaller, Flatstock still holds up as a nice diversion, and the schedule arrangement has gone virtually unchanged since 2017. The constant stasis makes any change more noticeable and there were a few. Goose Island was sorely missed as a sponsor this year because when it comes down to it the Revolution beers were simply not as good for being more expensive. (Side note: I am a Revolution hater so some may disagree here.) This year, we also said goodbye to the Blue stage bar. Gone and probably quickly forgotten since there were zero drink lines everywhere else this year. I have no idea how they did it. Last and certainly least, we give a big fuck you to Nrg, who have been at every goddamn festival in this city this year being as goddamn pushy as possible about if you want to switch from ComEd. Oh, and of course, we have to acknowledge the 100 foot tall elephant in the room of the VIP viewing platforms. They were eyesores, but they weren’t much more than that: when I was to the side of one, I didn’t find it impede my view any more than the sound booth had in years past. If people really think that experience is worth it and it helps the festival stay in the black, I can tolerate it. It’s better than huge roped off areas in the front, *especially* considering how many audience interaction bands there were this year.
Okay so tldr same festival different day. Let’s talk about the music!
—Friday—
Black Duck - I mentioned that initially the crowd for this was tiny; it did get bigger but not by much. I really liked listening to the record following the lineup release but it just didn’t translate super well live to me. If they still had 1 PM Blue Stage acts this would’ve been perfect for that but oh well.
Angry Blackmen - But *this* was the real way to get the festival started. Brian Warren and Quentin Branch are both insanely charismatic performers, made more remarkable by the fact that in person they just look like two guys you’d seen around. Their style of industrial rap isn’t as common as it was 10 years or so ago, and watching this show made me wonder why that is - it’s fun to listen to, still probably has a lot of room to be explored more, and it’s fun to mosh to at any hour of the day. Shout to their DJ, Derek, who also just looked like some guy you’d see around.
ML Buch - …. ……. ………… I wasn’t totally sold on this one, sorry guys. I know there’s touring-economics factors at play here, but this is the kind of set that would’ve benefited from a bigger band to make it more compelling. The vocal harmonies were insane though; ML Buch would make a great country singer.
Rosali: Wait, hold on, let’s rewind for a second.
—Thursday—
GL very generously got me a ticket for the David Nance & Mowed Sound/The Sueves show at Empty Bottle the night before. In the days leading up to the festival, I learned that Mowed Sound is Rosali’s backing band AND that the Sueves, who don’t perform very frequently, share a drummer with Mowed Sound, and thus transitively with Rosali. All of which is to say, there was a very specific chain that led to these musicians getting booked around town this weekend! But more importantly:
The Sueves: Rocked the fuck out. This was one of my favorite sets of the weekend; a little garagey, a little power-poppy, a lot of snare fills and big riffs and loud vocals that I always love. Highly recommend seeing them if they’re around. Unfortunately:
David Nance & Mowed Sound: Didn’t connect with this as much but it’s not really the band’s fault; David Nance is a really great guitar player but the sound was so much more relaxed after The Sueves that it ended up being a total 180 that I just didn’t like as much. I might have any other night. But there were great moments, mostly involving Rosali coming out and doing the INXS cover. Two fun facts: one, as we entered the Bottle, GL was staring at the merch table for a second and then kept walking; I pointed out Rosali was selling merch and he didn’t notice her at all in spite of knowing apparently everything else about her. Later, I texted GL while he was out smoking that Rosali was coming on stage. He didn’t respond, and then I met him outside after the show, while he was still smoking. He finished one cigarette, came inside, saw the Rosali parts, and managed to get back outside again to light another cigarette. 😭😭 Say what you will but that man moves with a quickness.
Anyway, back to Rosali:
—
Rosali: I cut out of ML Buch early to catch this and it fucking ripped; it was the exact perfect midpoint between The Sueves’ uptempo rock performance style and David Nance’s folksier instincts (because there’s members of both bands present lol), backed of course by Rosali, who is a great singer. When there’s rootsier type acts at a festival, this is the kind of shit I want to see.
Tkay Maidza: I’d seen her earlier this year and the sets were similar in terms of what songs she did, but oddly she had a different DJ this time. This time it was a guy who did a lot more hypeman ad libs which changed the set in a subtle way that I wasn’t expecting. I think it worked better at a festival in the day but if it was at a club at night I might’ve been a bit more annoyed. Tkay Maidza is kind of underrated as a really good live rapper; more often than not she’s hitting pretty dense lyrical clusters at club beat speeds!
Doss: I was really looking forward to this and it didn’t disappoint; though I wish she performed more original music. This was really, really bass-heavy especially for a Blue Stage set which led me to notice something about Doss’s DJ sets I hadn’t really noticed before and I didn’t recognize the songs well enough to know if she was playing remixes/edits or layering tracks on top of each other, either way she’ll often have a really bass heavy house beat with a more familiar melody layered on top over it, she did both with her own “Look” and Benny Benassi’s “Satisafction”. Anyway by this point I was feeling really lit and was dancing like a maniac this entire set, so that’s all that matters.
billy woods & Kenny Segal: I remember billy had a couple of really funny stage banter bits that I wish I had written down but didn’t. (I ended up writing down several GL quotes though this day which I will not be including here, not because they’re inappropriate but because the only way to get a good GL story is to see him IRL.) Otherwise the performance was fine. I saw him last year do a set spanning his solo stuff, his stuff with Kenny Segal, and his Armand Hammer stuff and there wasn’t a whole lot of daylight between these sets.
Amen Dunes: Ok I said in the Hopscotch thread that I didn’t think this was bad but because the band’s sound was way more suited to the Freedom material than it was to his last album I was a bit disoriented. Friends, I am watching videos of this set on YouTube and I am pleased to report I was wrong: I don’t actually like it at all. As time goes on, I increasingly hate being a hater of smaller indie artists like this especially since I’m just Some Guy who can’t perform much better than anyone at this festival, but looking at it now nothing is clicking: he goes so close for the Sam T. Herring thing (which would be interesting) but doesn’t; his voice is weirdly close to avacaidis and baninis territory and the band sounds so disjointed for the darker, sample heavy material from Death Jokes? I don’t get it. (If it makes anyone feel better I walked by yaeji for a minute and didn’t like it either.)
100 gecs: In yaeji’s defense, I get why someone would want to perform with just a backing track, but if you’re going to do it, you gotta do it like 100 gecs do it: as loud, brash, and goofy as possible. I sort of miss the weird stuff they used to do at their ca 2019/21 sets but it’s so hard to have a bad time at a gecs show I’ll forgive them.
Jai Paul: I’ll reiterate this again because my opinions aren’t that much different from my thoughts after Primavera: Jai Paul is Good, Actually. He’s no Mariah Carey but his band is great, it’s fun to see the songs live, he’s got confidence now, and when the festival has a good sound system everything clicks! (I’m looking at you, Portola.) This was a nice way to end the night.
Kaiser Tiger: A pretty good restaurant! We had the charcuterie plate and loaded fries and both were delicious post festival appetizers and probably saved me from having a brutal hangover the next day.
—Saturday—
Lifeguard: Well, first of all, fuck the CTA for this one since it took me 90 fucking minutes to get to the festival from my house this day because they were running one green line train every 30 minutes. On a fucking Saturday! Come on! Either way since this was my second time seeing Lifeguard. They’re a really great live band! The FACS connection gets mentioned a lot because it’s a fun familial reference point but they also share a common thread with a lot of surprisingly complex instrumental parts given that they’re basically making indie punk music. A treat to see these guys live.
L’Rain: Another surprise for me. I saw L’Rain for a minute in 2022 and it was very…chill so I was surprised by how jazzy and loose this was until it got really noisy towards the end. The two shows were like night and day so I’d recommend checking her out now if you’ve seen her before.
Hotline TNT: Not much to say here, it was fun, zippy shoegaze music, played by a band who were clearly having a really, really good time, who ended way too early. [OCTOBER 2023 update: During this set at Pitchfork, I kept texting Allison “Wow these guys look so young. After seeing them last week at the Empty Bottle again, you can see Will Anderson’s goatee visibley graying. I’m not sure why I said that previously.]
feeble little horse: “As time goes on, I increasingly hate being a hater of smaller indie artists like this especially since I’m just Some Guy who can’t perform much better than anyone at this festival.” I’ll make one exception.
Wednesday: However, this was fucking great. While I was watching this set, I wrote a crazy ass paean of a text to Allison about how good I thought everybody in the band was and I while I’ll say that again in casual conversation with anyone here I think it’s a bit much to put in ink. Karly Hartzman and MJ Lenderman get the bulk of the praise for obvious reasons but I also want to give credit to steel guitarist Xandy Chelmis who was excellent.
De La Soul: This was maybe one of my most anticipated set of the weekend, but it ended up feeling a bit more depressing than I’d expected. I’d seen the ATCQ set that happened at this festival after Phife Dawg died and I thought that was appropriately celebratory and mournful, but something felt off the whole time without Trugoy there, and the fact that there was a huge crowd of totally indifferent pop gays around me didn’t help at all. I ended up feeling more sad than not and headed out early to camp for Jessie, but to his credit, Pos was keeping the energy up as best he could.
Jessie Ware: Okay, it’s time to get hagiographic. Like I said, after Jessie’s set I was chatting with some people around me and I was joking about how I didn’t want to get that way. Someone encouraged me to say what I was thinking anyway, and I came up with “That’s the Diana Ross of our generation,” to which he said “Yeah. That sounds right.” I wrote about really loving Jessie Ware’s set last year, but adapted for a festival it becomes even more intensely hi-NRG: no ballads, no bullshit, just an hour of great performances from Jessie, her backup singers, and dancers. The mid-set Running/Hot n Heavy/What’s Your Pleasure? Mashup was truly astonishing.
Carly Rae Jepsen: This woman needs an Eras tour at this point, probably, if not just for the sheer volume of material she’s put out. As always, with Carly sets there’s not a lot going on visually or choreography wise as you might expect from a pop star of her position; with her it’s all about the songs. I was looking at her setlist earlier this summer and was getting a bit worried but I shouldn’t have been: she’s better in an extended setting but for a 15 song fest set it was great. Psychedelic Switch into Surrender My Heart into Run Away With Me was made up in a lab for me, and we got some interesting choices towards the end with Stay Away into the Loneliest Time into, of course, Cut to the Feeling.
Jamie xx: I feel privileged to say that I’ve seen enough Jamie sets by this point to get the general formula, but it’s fun to see him in this extended setting because he’ll do fun things to pander to his audience; in this case that meant playing a lot of footwork during the faster BPM part of his set, and I always appreciate an out of town DJ playing that style. The new songs were fun, the crowd visuals were fun as always, though of course I thought I could be the guy in Adidas streetwear dancing not he screen they kept cutting to.
—Sunday—
Akenya: Against all better judgment, I got here early on Sunday, and I’m glad I did. I wasn’t sure how Akenya was going to fill up 45 minutes since she only has 2 songs on streaming and the answer was with covers, mostly. However, the covers were great and appropriately long and accompanied by a truly great backing band. Hard to be mad at starting off a Sunday with that.
Joanna Sternberg: I didn’t catch all of this because I was wandering off in the record fair/getting food for a bit but I really enjoyed this. I caught all of Joanna’s songs I liked most at the beginning but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed listening to them just sit up on stage and play songs in a uniquely idiosyncratic voice. I always prefer the kind of acoustic singer songwriter who veers more towards storytelling mode than dreamy stuff, so I was a big target for this.
Nala Sinephro: I’d listened to a bit of her and wasn’t sure how “ambient jazz” was going to go over live like this but the answer is it went crazy and wasn’t all that ambient, at least in a calming sense: Nala was doing some fascinating tempo-changing synth work and her saxophonist especially was fantastic. Really liked this.
Model/Actriz: The last time I saw this band they were playing for a tiny crowd at Portola; I was able to get really close up to Cole Haden but here the crowd was so big I couldn’t come close. But of course they’re on some capital R Rockstar shit right now; they honest to god had to turn down the volume because they came close to blowing out the speakers. That’s hard.
Hailu Mergia: On the other end of the spectrum, this was some especially funky shit. Hailu mostly played keys during this set and there wasn’t a whole lot of riffing, which was fine since it proved to be more danceable than I would’ve anticipated.
Jessica Pratt: Came out for a bit of this. It was very pretty, and a little weird to see Jessica Pratt with such a full band. Don’t have much more to say.
Mannequin Pussy: Just as we’ll be coming up on maybe the most crowded main stage act I’ve seen at Pitchfork, this was maybe the most crowded Blue Stage act I’ve ever seen at Pitchfork. At first, I was tentative: I’ve seen Mannequin Pussy a lot recently and the fact that they’ve eliminated Drunk II from their setlists is maybe understandable but a bit sour, but unfortunately they are really leaning into the slow, kind of unremarkable songs at the beginning of their sets, which is a shame since it drags for a bit before it really kicks up near the end when they go full punk mode again. Fortunately, at least in between songs Marisa Dabice and Colins Regisford bring the appropriately rage-inducing stage banter between songs.
Grandmaster Flash: during the slow part of MP, I walked out to see a bit of this and saw he was mostly playing a standard rap DJ set which kind of irked me so I went back to Mannequin Pussy and finished watching their set. When I went back, though, I saw how many people were having a good time as he played a mix of classic songs (most of which weren’t rap) and it was hard to be mad. Was this the kind of feel-good, all-over-the-place DJ set that sort of feels like it’s wasting time at a music festival with limited space? Yes. Did I still feel good about the all-over-the-place DJ set anyway? In the end, yeah.
MUNA: I’ve seen MUNA a lot over the past few years on this tour and they’ve kind of perfected this incredibly polished, festival-ready stadium-ready act that is mathematically impossible to have a bad time at. The playing is really tight, Katie Gavin is a star in her own right, there’s the exact kind of video pieces playing behind the band you’d expect to see at a big show like this; it hits all the right notes. But I’ve seen it enough by now. So I headed over to…
Crumb: Which was about as ‘chill’ as I expected it to be, with a degree of technical virtuosity I didn’t really see coming. Not much to say about this but I left impressed. On to…
Brittany Howard: Way slower, less funky, but a lot more psychedelic than the last time I saw her in 2021. Brittany Howard has gone through a lot of different sonic identities during and since the Shakes dissolved, and I’m not quite sure this was my favorite iteration of hers but I respect her for going for it anyway. So I headed over to…
Les Savy Fav: I was a bit let down by Tim Harrington’s lack of antics in a club setting in Barcelona, but in the US af a festival? You better believe he’s going to bring it. I missed him whizzing through the audience on a scooter, but I didn’t miss him taking off a T-shirt to reveal the same message written on his chest (“I’M JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE”) before backflipping over a railing to land in the ADA platform. I feel sort of band for LSF - there’s always going to be a certain of expectation of just how, for lack of a less overused word, chaotic their shows can get, and they just won’t always be able to live up to it, which is a shame since even without the antics they’re a really good punk band. But they lived up to it tonight.
Alanis Morissette: What more is there to say? She had a huge fucking crowd, she brought out a visibly nervous Katie Gavin, an otherwise totally unflappable rock star, to do “Ironic”, she belted like no fucking other. There’s a reason why people want to keep seeing Alanis again and again 30 years later, and it’s obvious 30 seconds after she walks on stage.
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