Pitchfork Day 1: Wrap-up

Pitchfork Day 1: Wrap-up

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Pitchfork Music Festival gets underway (photo by Kate Gardiner/NewsHour)

Officially getting underway in the West Side’s Union Park amid 90-degree temperatures and under a bright blazing sun at 3:30 Friday afternoon, the Pitchfork Music Festival was slower to kick into gear in terms of musical excitement today than it was during any of the five preceding years (or six, if we count its origins as the Intonation Festival in 2005).

Pitchfork 2010 abandoned the “Don’t Look Back” concept of revered indie-rock heroes holding forth on opening day by playing one of their classic albums in its entirety, which was not necessarily a bad thing, given the mixed results of recent years (Slint and GZA, a let-down; Mission of Burma and Public Enemy, pretty darn great) and the taint of nostalgia that always lingered over that endeavor.

Unfortunately, in starting a few hours earlier, promoters seemed to assume that the crowd would be slow in arriving–it wasn’t; the fields in front of the main stages were respectably full from the moment the gates swung open—and that things would be pretty sleepy early on. At least, that’s the only logic I can think of for starting with two sets by snoozy performers playing solo acoustic.

Born in New Jersey, raised in Tennessee, and now based in Brooklyn, singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten was here on the strength of her perfectly pleasant but far from remarkable 2009 debut, “Because I Was in Love.” Onstage in front of the vast open space of the festival setting, her charms were lost, and she came across as Cat Power imitating Laura Nyro, but minus the bizarre spectacle of the former’s onstage melt-downs.

Just as uninspiring was the Tallest Man on Earth, a.k.a. Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson, who did his best Dylan circa ’65 imitation, but unfortunately lacked about 95 percent of ol’ Bob’s powers as a songwriter. But at least he moved around a bit more than Van Etten.

Tallest Man on Earth (photo by Kate Gardiner/NewsHour)

If one subtracted the significant power in this crowd of an endorsement by the Pitchfork Web site—a phenomenon parsed for the umpteenth time just the other day in The New York Times—there honestly was no justification for either artist holding such a prestigious festival slot. Both would have been better suited to a Tuesday night at Uncommon Ground.

By virtue of his own music and his championing of inventive underground hip-hop via the late, lamented Def Jux label, El-P certainly was deserving of his place on the bill, though it was ill-timed: The dense, dark sounds of his solo output and heavy themes of his lyrics would have been better suited to the nighttime hours, with a more party-hearty emcee taking his place in the sun. But after a rocky start, the artist his mom calls Jaime Meline found his groove and rode it out, helped by the fact that he seemed to be sober—not a given during his live shows by any means.

The Liars ((photo by Kate Gardiner/NewsHour)

When the Liars took the stage at 5:30, it seemed as there finally might be some adrenaline pouring from the main stages. The New York dance-punks/noise-rockers started in rollicking, hard-hitting form, but their set all too quickly derailed into jammed-out pseudo-dub excursions that provided yet another excuse to yawn.

Part of it, sure enough, is the heat: Bands have to work even harder when it’s this sweaty to impart a sense of excitement. But Pitchfork organizers, fearing even more brutal temps tomorrow, are doing their part: I just got word that they’ve told vendors to drop the price of bottled water from $2 to $1. Stay hydrated, kids.


Robyn at Pitchfork Music Festival (Photo by Kate Gardiner/NewsHour)

The first serious signs of life on day one o came courtesy of the 31-year-old native of Stockholm, Sweden, Robin Miriam Carlsson, better known simply as the dance-pop artist Robyn.

Bounding about onstage as if she was leading an aerobics class, Robyn’s defiantly retro, synth-laden grooves and chant-along choruses were nothing new: Think of Cyndi Lauper fronting an amalgam of every ridiculously coiffed English pop band in heavy rotation on MTV circa 1984. But the sheer exuberance of it all was invigorating and undeniable, and the sun-baked crowd of 18,000 came to life as the unassuming Everywoman led them through a high-octane workout.

Lollapalooza can have Lady Gaga. Robyn owned day one of Pitchfork.

Broken Social Scene (Photo by Kate Gardiner/NewsHour)

As the penultimate act of the day on the main stages, the Canadian orchestral/power-pop supergroup Broken Social Scene suffered slightly from the same problem evidenced on its last album “Forgiveness Rock Record”: A weakness in the songwriting that doesn’t always justify the grandiosity of its arrangements. But the sound of the band was bigger than ever at Pitchfork as John McEntire of Tortoise and Soma Studios added a second drum set and percussion and the group brought out horn and string sections that included local hero Paul Mertens and heroine Susan Voelz, and the lushness of the sound coinciding with the setting of the sun and the first kind, cool whispers of a breeze made for some magical moments.

Finally, Modest Mouse closed things out with a set that was… perfectly okay.

Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse (Photo by Kate Gardiner/NewsHour)

The long-running Washington state art-pop band seemed like an all-too-predictable booking for Pitchfork: Since the release of its last album, “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank” (2007), the group has to have played Chicago at least half a dozen times, and some of those with Johnny Marr. Even with the Smiths legend on guitar, the group has never been an exceptional live act: On really good nights, its skewed rhythms and off-kilter hooks can make your head spin, but there aren’t a lot of those, and this wasn’t one of them. Aside from the one truly inspired tune of the night, a version of “Dramamine” from the band’s first album, the set was an underwhelming way to end the day.

With the strongest overall bill on Sunday, and the most anticipated single set of the fest on Saturday night with LCD Soundsystem, the story of Pitchfork 2010 may just be one of a slow but steady build.