Pitchfork Music Festival 2007: Day 3

Deerhunter at Pitchfork Music Festival

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Post-rock: Though still delivering the best summer festival experience in the city, there was a sense on Pitchfork's second day that the fest was starting to experience growing pains. Though Pitchfork has been involved in bringing a rock fest to Union Park for three years now (two under its own banner), this is the fest's breakout year, with tickets selling out two weeks in advance and drawing more curiosity-seekers than before. Lines for food and Port-A-Potties are longer this year, and many people taking care to be seen backstage. Last year's throngs at the third stage have become this year's crowd control problem (during Dan Deacon and Girl Talk's explosive sets), with the air of general politeness occasionally giving way to a rush to the beer line. Pitchfork Fest still offers the best fest for the money, and arguably the best overall experience for those who come solely for the music. But this year, there's a lot more going on to distract you from what's happening onstage.—Scott Smith

Deerhunter: The early birds hitting the festival are greeted by a very skinny guy in a copper cocktail dress conducting a noisy space-rock band. Atlanta’s Deerhunter has been one of the most buzzed about bands on the festival-going blogger-circuit. They might be playing on the early side, but today they’ve got great sonics on their side. As they cruise deeper into a galaxy of My Bloody Valentine-worship, the fuzz bass grows louder and the vocal delay more disorienting. For the final tune, they invite out members of Grizzly Bear for a kind of animal-themed jam session. The crowd is pretty pleased on the whole, but I can’t help thinking that Ride was doing this pretty damn well 15 years ago.—John Dugan

Fred Lonberg-Holm's Lightbox Orchestra: Attendance for today's opening jazz set is somewhere near half of yesterday's Powerhouse Sound set. Possible explanations: PFork attendees have acute Day 3 hangovers after a long, and sunstroked, Day 2; or curiosity seekers are intimidated by, relative to yesterday, a distinct lack of song structure. To those who missed it, all I can say, sucks for you. Director (and avant-garde cellist) Fred Lonberg-Holm listened and kibbitzed with his nine-piece ensemble instead of directing them, coaxing unusually inspired performances from dual drummers Michael Zerang and Frank Rosaly and dry ice wizard Michael Colligan. Colligan applied metal pots and objects to a hissing block of dry ice, creating a gnawing, grinding improv assault. Perhaps it's the added rush of performing for not-your-typical jazz audience but all the Pfork jazz sets thus far have been magical.—Matthew Lurie

The Ponys: Holy shit, have these guys changed! Now, they've got this abrasive space-rock sound, and they possess the most abrasive fuzz bass tone this side of Larry Graham...wait a minute, did they add a member? And who's that dude in the dress? Oh, I get it, that was Deerhunter over yonder on that other stage, and since their set went slightly overtime, the Ponys waited until they were finished. Okay, take two: The Ponys have evidently progressed from being one of the many post-garage bands to being a respectable guitar rock unit. A lot better than remembered, but while the musicianship has tightened up, the songwriting is a bit on the anonymous side. The crowd greeted the opening strains of each song like it was a popular radio hit, but then again it was a hometown crowd. Think they'd be this enthusiastic if the band was from Wichita Falls, Texas?—James Porter

Menomena: For a band frequently tagged as experimental, Menomena knows how to present themselves live. As opposed to Slint, who looked and sounded like they'd rather be stranded in the studio, the keyboard-heavy Menomena knew the power of dynamics. Melodies and vocals that sounded like Elton John being produced by Robert Fripp, their quiet moments were met with stone silence, the midday audience steadily waiting for their next move. Arty rock music with an arena-rock attitude.—JP

Brightback Morning Light: In Brightback Morning Light’s world, quiet is very loud and the lead flute of extreme importance. The last time I saw this band I thought they felt like a pastoral version of Spiritualized, they conjured an image of J. Spaceman holed up in a hand-built shack on an Indian reservation with a Fender Rhodes electric piano and some heavy duty weed. Today, they were but a hush amid the breeze-blown tree branches that surrounded the stage—they actually had wooden branches propped up against the keyboards—but with two-pieces of brass, restrained percussion and vocals that approximate primal breathing exercises, they won me over again. This time, they flirted with jazz improv—maybe they’ve been playing some Miles Davis in the tour van.—JD

Junior Boys: At first Ontario’s Junior Boys are not much to look at, but at least this hybrid indie-dance band has brought along a live drummer for visual interest. He sounds fantastic backstage but he’s indistinguishable from the programmed beats out front. No matter, the kids lock in on the electronic beats and blissfully lightweight melodies. The lead vox betray a heavy reverence for the dramatic electro-pop of OMD and Depeche Mode, but every tune comes off like an overlong remix. The mix sounds just fine, but the material is instantly forgettable. If only the kids would get a clue and just rave along, it might make sense.—JD

Jamie Lidell: Beatboxing and a well-timed delay machine. Nice. Now maybe some other hidden genius thought of this concept before, but it's totally new to me and this UK musician knew how to use it. Lidell's brand of retro-soul, on wax, is the model of studio meticulousness, so how's he gonna top that on stage? By bringing his giant-sized echo box on stage and duetting with himself (in addition to performing one new song, "Wait For Me," done to prerecorded tracks done by other musicians that he credited from the stage). And it worked, too! Even when he accidentally pressed the wrong beat for a minute (or was that "mistake" planned?). The catchiest song of the set was the title track to his Multiply album, which sure enough had the entire front row shaking ass, singing along and wagging their index fingers in the air. BTW: Sun Ra would have beamed from the heavens if he peeped Lidell's gold-lame headdress and jacket. Definitely would have made up for Nomo's rather jam-bandy version of "Rocket #9," the lowpoint of an otherwise good Afro-funk set.—JP

The Sea and Cake: This veteran Chicago quartet—an underground supergroup if you will—uses a lot more stomp-box on its recent recordings for Thrill Jockey, but it wisely dipped deeper into its catalog for its festival set which had elements of Afrobeat and jazz in a mature indie sound. “Jacking the Ball” and tunes from its popular album The Biz even made an appearance. John McEntire commanded and controlled the drum kit in mirror shades and trucker hat while frontman Sam Prekop mentioned that he rarely gets outside. The band’s most enduring tune, “Parasol,” came off as lively as it ever was, clean guitars and tricky rhythms coming together for a bit of a summer breeze. The Sea and Cake may be easy on the ears, but they work for it. —JD

Stephen Malkmus: The former Pavement frontman has no Jicks to back him up this evening, just a small-scale acoustic guitar and a distortion pedal. He takes the opportunity to review highlights of his career. Considering that Malkmus has had bands of wildly varying competency over the years (where is the amazing original Pavement drummer Gary these days?), it actually ends up being quite a treat to hear “Heaven is Truck,” “Spit on Stranger,” “Trigger Cut” and “We Dance” done by the man himself. The pink shirt and khaki-clad singer's between song banter is impossible to decipher and Malkmus plays up his eccentricities in the tunes. There are probably few new fans converted when he slips in a Silver Jews tune, but the loyal devotees of his influential ’90s output are aplenty.—JD

Of Montreal: Funny how 1980's new wave sounds better the second time around than it did 25 years ago. Strange, but a modern-day band like Of Montreal sounds 1000x better than a Depeche Mode or some other synthy Reagan-era band and that's just the way it goes. Fusing '70s glam through '80s new wave and shitcanning the pseudo-Bowie vocals for chiming harmonies, Of Montreal more than proved themselves (particularly with a set-ending version of the Kinks'"All Day & All Of The Night"). But this isn't a record review, and you'd probably rather hear about the onstage circus. Yes, they did the old bouncing-balls-from-the-stage routine, and had all sorts of unsavory characters littering the stage, but it was way sleazier than, say, the Flaming Lips (who had a similar setup at Lollapalooza last year). Not to be outdone by his guitarist bandmate (who rocked this attention-getting red, white and pink mod-looking outfit with a ruffled collar), the other guitar player looked like a Mardi Gras angel in oversized pink wings. But then Mr. Red, White & Pink stripped down to an S&M hooker outfit (eventually dropping down to a G-string) and likely outdid 'em all. Not to take away from those who were just...there: the two guys dressed in Grim Reaper body suits (complete with hoodies) and the lady rocking the gold body suit. Good thing the temperature didn't exceed 95 degrees or they would have fainted dead away. —JP

Cadence Weapon: Maybe Cadence's slot here is a make-good by the Pitchfork powers-that-be who fired him a while back. Or perhaps they see something that I don't in the Canadian (I know, I was surprised too) rapper. He's got ferocity to spare, not so much rapping his lyrics, as attacking them. And he's got a college-boy charm in a Phoenix Suns jersey and denim shorts. But after four or five calls to the audience to let him hear it, I started to wonder if perhaps he couldn't shoulder a bit more of the burden. The cat's got talent - if you can make a rap song about closing a real estate deal sound any tougher, here's the mic - but it didn't quite come across here. —SS

The Field: On record, one can lock on to several aspects of productions by Stockholm’s Axel Willner: the samples he appropriates from popular music, the stylized minimal rhythms he programs and the occasional waves of distortion the tracks surf on. Tonight, none of the above—save perhaps a sample from Scandinavian dance-pop star Annie—was making an impression. Instead, the crowd flocked to the lesser of three stages for sturdy uptempo techno tracks that Willner blasted off his Sony laptop. His set started with a rumble, then a blast and went hardcore rave-gasm just after 8pm. There’s more fist-pumping than actually dancing, but that’s more of function of the dense crowd forming as Of Montreal wraps it up. —JD

The Cool Kids: So if you rhyme slow and drop 808 claps, all of sudden it’s fresh? I don’t mean to crash anyone’s party but Chicago’s own the Cool Kids (Chuck and Mikey), innocuous as they were, represent the exact kind of cannibalizing of older styles that leaves me feeling hollow. Indeed, they brought ’88 back, via references to MacGyver, Streefighter, pagers and other kitschy products but sorely missed that era’s urgency. Imagine Vh1’s I love the ‘80s, with its wink wink humor, commissioning its own hip-hop group. The crowd seemed more excited by their product references and evocation of an era than by the pedestrian rhyming (“I’ll take you to school / That’s What I do”) and no wonder. Producer and MC Chuck Inglish’s band-in-a-box ‘80s appreciation also provided an instructive contrast with the Clipse, who made their minimal production yesterday sound original, scary and convincing.—ML

Craig Taborn’s Junk Magic: Dave King, the Tasmanian Devil drummer from the Bad Plus and the underappreciated Minneapolis pop band 12 Rods, tried his darndest to get this heap off the ground but to no avail. Leader Craig Taborn, now playing with Chris Potter’s group and other brilliant post-boppers in New York, had an innovative setup (Rhodes, analog synth and a bevy of effects) but his vamps simply did not go anywhere. Playing long drones and tentative solos, violist Mat Maneri and saxophonist Aaron Stewart seemed to be waiting for directions that never arrived.—ML

NOMO: The number of sing-a-longs and pro-peace exhortations may have set off a few people’s kum-ba-ya alarms for this afternoon set. But despite their slick sound—conspicuously missing the sweaty grime of the best Afrobeat ensembles—this Ann Arbor, Michigan nonet (possibly tentet from my obscured position) gave a spirited set. Featuring an exceptional horn section, which constantly breathed life into their funk and Afrobeat repertoire, Nomo was deft, smooth and perhaps a little too clean. Props to saxophonist Elliot Bergman and drummer Dan Piccolo for keeping each groove chugging.—ML

New Pornographers: The last time I caught this Vancouver power-pop sextet, they played a (to my ears) lackluster midday set at Lollapalooza, lost in the momentum of all the trendier acts. Here it is about a year later and the band sounded positively inspired, probably due to a more enthusiastic crowd and a way better time slot. Would have loved to have heard more of the keyboardist's melodica (this mouth-powered keyboard instrument got a raw deal through the PA), but other than this, no complaints. Glad to see one of the better bands on the scene come through like they should. —JP

Klaxons: The Balance stage was running 45 minutes late all day, which was an irritating inconvenience until it meant Klaxons occupied the same slot as De La Soul, which didn't serve anyone well. No matter. London's Klaxons played like a closer for a packed crowd along the Ogden fence, pounding their punk rock dance music into the loins of their tired audience, and firing them up for one last rave-up. Holy vocal choruses swirled around dirty guitars, leaving any faults of their album far behind. - SS

De La Soul: I believe it was Maseo, one third of maybe the most consistent backpacking hip-hop group of all time, who offered up this specious plaudit (I paraphrase): "I really like these kind of festivals cause we get to learn from each other." Yes, young white folk learning from young white folk. Let the dialog begin. Although De La Soul's last record was one of my favs of that year, it did kinda come out in 2004, making them an odd choice to headline the final slot of this year's festival. But thanks to their smart humor, ferocious mic skills and the help of one hip-hop pioneer—Prince Paul— De La wrapped up the Pfork in sufficiently reckless style. Paul is a reclusive public figure—even though he's still releasing brilliant solo records and producing here or there—but you could argue he built the whimsical De La brand as much as anyone. So getting him onstage here was a coup and he DJ'd and behind classic De La (most of which came out when this crowd was somewhere between 3-4 years old, no?) as well as more recent Grind Date material. Both Pos, Trugoy/Dave and Maseo had incredible energy throughout, jumping up, playing dead and constantly sparring with the crowd. In the end, they provided a fitting, let-loose ending to an exciting, exhausting weekend. - ML