Highlights From Pitchfork (Day #3)

Monday, July 21, 2008 | 1:26 AM

No rain today, just a lot of hot summer sun to end this year's Pitchfork Festival. Here's a quick recap of Day #3:

The Apples In Stereo
Robert Schneider and crew treated everyone to a fun afternoon set. C'mon, how can you not have fun with the bubbly, positive, and upbeat Apples In Stereo? Schneider seemed to be a wee bit affected by the heat, guzzling down water after every few songs. At one point in the set he apologized to the fans, "Sorry I'm drinking so much water, but I'm sweating a lot and you can only sweat so much until you run out of it." Schneider's best piece of stage banter though came moments before playing "The Rainbow." Schneider told the audience, "Here's a true story for you, every time we've played this song at a festival a big rainbow has appeared in the sky--I keep my eyes closed--but yes, a rainbow appears every single time."

King Kahn and the Shrines
King Kahn's best piece of audience advice? "C'mon sing from your ovaries! Scream from your balls!"

Les Savy Fav
Let's just say LSF's frontman, Tim Harrington, made use of every second of his band's set. Going through various stage costumes (which also included a head-band with a special head-band-cam), Harrington body surfed in a garbage can, rolled around in the mud, made jokes about Prince being in attendance ("Hi little guy--you can't see him cause he's so short), and spit water onto the audience claiming it was "special dream making juice."

(right: Les Savy Fav's Tim Harrington all cleaned up after his mud-drenched performance.)

Ghostface Killah & Raekwon
So-so performance. I appreciated the fact they wore red color coordinated t-shirts (with matching white towels draped over their shoulders), but it's hard to turn the crowd into a full-on tizzy with only two-ninths of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Spiritualized
The band whose music sounded most like their band name today. No better way to describe it.

Dinosaur Jr.
I'm a little behind on my Dinosaur Jr. updates, but I didn't even realize Lou Barlow had reunited with J. Mascis. Good to see him back in the band. And good for Lou Barlow, gettin' double the payday at this year's Pitchfork (playing with Sebadoh a couple nights earlier).

(left: I was a little bummed that J. Mascis wasn't wearing his signature pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses, but he was back with Lou Barlow, so I guess I can't complain.)

Cut Copy
I was actually scheduled to interview Cut Copy today for an episode on Lunchbox until I got the following e-mail from their management:

I just found out that Cut Copy is dealing with ridiculous flight delays leaving San Francisco (do to amongst other things a broken air conditioning system on the plane--I kid you not).

We have to cancel the press they had scheduled before their set as they won't be landing in Chicago now until 6:30PM.

(right: Thousands of people waiting and waiting and waiting to see Cut Copy.)

At 8:35PM, when Cut Copy was scheduled to perform, they were still missing in action. In a rather odd twist of events, Deerhunter's Bradford Cox (in an out-of-character t-shirt and pair of blue jeans) came on stage and said that the band was still at the airport. King Kahn then joined him as they took part in an impromptu jam session.

More than half of the fans waiting to see Cut Copy made a mass exodus across the concert grounds to watch Spoon close out the festival. At approximately 9:38PM, Cut Copy rushed on stage, plugged in their keyboards, and played four songs before hitting the 10PM curfew. It was a glorious four songs, but alas, it was only four songs, which made me wonder if the Pitchfork organizers only had to pay Cut Copy for four songs-worth of material?

(left: No better way to take the edge off a 3-day music festival in the hot summer sun than sipping a frothy chocolate milkshake at Chicago's legendary Margie's, established in 1921! Gotta love that bonus cup too!)

By Jim Shearer in LIVE | Link | 5 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: Cut Copy, Dinosaur Jr., Ghostaface Killah, Les Savy Fav, Live, Pitchfork, Raekwon, Spiritualized, Spoon, The Apples In Stereo