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Pitchfork Day 1: Slint crawls, GZA meanders, Sonic Youth screams
The three-day, 39-band Pitchfork Music Festival opened Friday night in Union Park with three acts (including Sonic Youth, at left) each performing one of their classic albums. Here’s how it looked and sounded:
6:30 p.m. The layout of Union Park is pretty much the same as last year’s festival. Two stages, one on the north side of the park, another on the east. A tent at the south end will hold a third stage, starting Saturday. One difference from last year’s festival: a big video screen for each of the two main stages. It’s a welcome addition, given the size of the crowd. Once again, the corporate advertising presence is pretty low key.
6:45 p.m.: Louisville’s Slint takes the stage with the sun hovering just above the tree line on Ashland Avenue. Glorious. It’s likely that the audience of 13,000 exceeds the total number of people who saw the band perform during its first incarnation, which ended in 1991. That was the year “Spiderland” --- tonight’s main course --- was recorded.
7:02 p.m.: The musicians are seated for “Don, Aman” and the crowd’s attention drifts. Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo strolls by yakking on a cellphone.
7:28 p.m.: The quintet works through its disquieting, meticulously arranged songs with the look of condemned prisoners about to be led to the gallows. Their claustrophobic songs are allergic to sunshine; they’re more suited to a quiet, dimly lit room. That said, the execution can’t be faulted; it’s methodical, flawless. Close your eyes, and it might as well be the CD. The five musicians, fanned out in a half-circle on the stage, work out intricate guitar figures. Even the drum parts sound carefully orchestrated, right down to each tom-tom rumble and cymbal wash. The aura of remoteness is finally shattered with singer Brian McMahan’s cracked cry of “I miss you” on the finale, “Good Morning, Captain.”
7:50 p.m.: Wu-Tang Clan rapper GZA tells the crowd he’s blowing off a Wu-Tang gig in Amsterdam to be here. Big cheer.
8:05 p.m.: GZA leads the first of many “Wu-Tang” chants during his set. He’s here to perform his 1995 solo album, “Liquid Swords,” but he shares the MC chores with at least three other rappers, including Cappadonna. The crowd up front looks pumped and chants along, but the sound mix is poor for those of us farther back. One of the allures of “Liquid Swords” is its sinister RZA production, but it’s reduced to a thump and a bump in Union Park, the backbeat for a party. Except “Liquid Swords” is anything
but a party album. It’s creepy, in an utterly nuanced, carefully detailed sort of way. Like “Spiderland,” it sounds best oozing out of headphones in a basement, not booming outdoors over a dodgy sound system.
8:15 p.m.: “Gold” proves to be the high-stepping highlight of GZA’s set.
8:32 p.m.: I never paid much attention to Cappadonna’s erratic solo work until now. With a furious freestyle, he upstages GZA, and salvages what is otherwise an unfocused set.
8:50 p.m.: Long, slow-moving, 20-people-deep lines at the toilets at the southeast end of the field. An outrage! I walk a little further west, and problem solved: The wait is considerably shorter for the portable restrooms ringing the softball field. The same cannot be said for the beer lines; they’re long everywhere as everyone tries to stock up for the night’s headliner.
9:05 p.m.: Sonic Youth rolls into “Teen Age Riot,” the first track from its 1988 double-album, “Daydream Nation.” The chords bring a cheer from the crowd, but the sound is muted, and the energy quickly dims. Dissatisfied, frustrated, and ticked off that what I see on stage is not translating through the speakers, I work my way from the north end of the field to the south side, and finally to the side of the stage. This should be much, much louder, but at least now I can see the band work up close, and they’re obviously into it. It’s a shame that energy is not translating to the far corners of Union Park.
9:14 p.m.: The mid-song meltdown in “Silver Rocket” is vintage Youth, with Thurston Moore torturing his guitar against an amplifier and Lee Ranaldo throttling a foot pedal. In the middle of it all, bassist Kim Gordon sways front to back, as if trying to stand her ground in the hurricane of guitars.
9:30 p.m.: “Cross the Breeze” sounds positively visionary: jazz intricacy at speed-metal velocity. Ranaldo and Moore weave single-note lines in and around each other, while drummer Steve Shelley lays down an impossibly fast groove, yet somehow manages to toss in subtle syncopations.
10:15 p.m.: “Eliminator Jr” sends Gordon into shivers, gasps and groans. Moore channels the boogie of ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, double-time. Ranaldo rubs his sleeve up and down the neck of his guitar as if applying barbecue sauce to a side of ribs. “Daydream Nation” goes down screaming.
Readers, now it's your turn: Got any questions about what happened on stage or behind the scenes at Pitchfork? I'll read and discuss them in a live video chat at noon Monday at chicagotribune.com. What was the best band? The worst? Strangest moment? How well was the festival run? Any hassles getting food or water? Tell us about your experience in the comments below. I'll be blogging all three days in this space, and then we'll wrap it up at noon Monday. Thanks for the feedback.