Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Concert Review - Pitchfork Music Festival (Friday) [PopMatters]

The good people at PopMatters were nice enough to send me to the Pitchfork Music Festival and, in exchange, I wrote some words about it. Check out a sample below, then get your full fix at PopMatters.


Another year, another three days of sweating to odd time signatures and buzzy guitars in Union Park—that’s right, it’s time for the great indie gathering that is the Pitchfork Music Festival. Because a little needless competition makes everything better, this year PopMatters decided to break down the festival into geographic teams based on each band’s home city. Every set was judged on a “win, lose, draw” system based on a complex system that factored in timing, instrumentation, energy, delivery, personal grooming and how their music made me feel inside. Like any umpire’s ruling, the decisions may be rushed, based on bad information or just capricious but they are final, although feel free to argue and kick dirt if it makes you feel better.

On Friday morning it was announced that the entire state of Illinois was officially experiencing drought conditions. So one might assume that it was good news that a wall of clouds rolled into Chicago Friday afternoon to deposit some much-needed rain on the city. Of course, this being an outdoor music festival, it wasn’t good at all and by the time the gates opened the rain had departed but left the the fields muddy, created visible clouds of sticky moisture and left the grounds with a mildly fetid odor. No matter though, dryness, comfort, a festival goer cares not for these things and so it was with a light heart and damp shirt that I entered the fray for another year.
Full article here. 

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