Pitchfork Music Festival 2007

Mastadon
Brightblack Morning Light
Cadence Weapon
Junior Boys
Voxtrot
The Field
Cool Kids

lol clipse

-- and what, Friday, March 9, 2007 4:51 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

<I>Mastadon
Brightblack Morning Light
Cadence Weapon
Junior Boys
Voxtrot
The Field
Cool Kids</I>

where did you find this?! i don't see anything on the official website, but i do see on jr boys myspace that they're down to play.

It was on the podcast

http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/PMF07-Backline04.mp3

cheers. i see it's on the official site now, too - some good additions! looks like a disappointing lack of dance music compared to last year's lineup, but i'm looking forward to it in any case.

Being a fogey, I'm psyched about the Friday night show. However, I'm still not sold on the other two days. I'd love the see Deerhunter, De La Soul, Yoko Ono, and Battles, but the other acts just aren't doing it for me and I don't know if it's enough to justify it. Also, the thought of even one penny of my ticket charge going to Girl Talk is enough to turn me away.

Anyone else coming to this?

Puppet Show and Clipse

im going friday only

I will be there.

im going friday only

So in other words, you're going for GZA.

I'll be there. Looking forward to it a lot.

i also enjoy 'teenage riot' and could see passing out on the grass to the laid back hippie vibes of slint

No, you only like hip-hop. And Thin Lizzy.

you broke jaymc

the xls is incorrect

we'll be there.

yah im going....i had a good time last year so i'll try my luck with this one

hey john et al, anyone have a ticket i can buy off of you??? i'm in town and would love to go.

(email me off list if anyone's got something.)

(p.s. how are you?)

Hi Am! I'm good. I know someone who might have to give up her ticket, but she's not sure yet. I'll e-mail you if that turns out to be the case. (It's for Saturday only, I think.) It'd be great to see you again.

It was cute when the kid next to me asked my friend Renee and I if this was our first time seeing Sonic Youth. I said, "No, sixth." She said, "More than that. I'm old." She's 30, we figured he was 19 or 20. He and his friends kept high-fiving throughout the set.

Very disappointed pitchfork. The whole Dan Deacon/Girl Talk debacle was poorly planned. You had to know that they would draw a large crowd.

Man, I hope they have water in the washing stations outside of the portapotties tomorrow. It was gross watching everyone come out of the toilets today, try to pump some water out, and then walk off. I also felt bad for those who put a bunch of soap on their hands before trying the water. Also, I wish someone would put a tarp over the baseball diamonds, or water it down. The record fair was adjacent to the dust field, and we were wiping dust off our records and covering our beer cups all day.

No water in those things after 2 hours is what happens at every festival ever, though

if this didn't happen yet somebody get at me re tickets for sonic youth

the 3rd stage really did suck - we would have stayed a lot later today if seeing the field had seemed like a realistic possibility, and the girl talk situation yesterday was stupid.

still, easily worth $50 overall. clipse were the highlight, i think.

So did Pavement reform at this? Because my friend just got back and I can't tell if he's just bullshitting me, trying to make me jealous.

17dots.com

I was not feelin' Mastodon.

Pavement didn't "reform" at this but half of Malkmus' set was Pavement songs and Bob Nastanovich came out and played drums on Trigger Cut and In The Mouth A Desert. It was pretty cool until some press motherfuckers pushed their way to the front of the crowd and asked people why they weren't screaming along like he was.

Plus, seeing The Field wasn't that hard, but you had to sit through Cadence Weapon to get a good spot. Cadence Weapon's set was depressing as hell.

nah, it was on the highlights of the whole festival for me. Why did you find it depressing?

It just felt like he was trying way too hard, and the crowd just ate it up and couldn't see that he really wasn't very charismatic at all. It was really just an annoyance.

I guess I ate it up. It was good, helped me get the awful Cool Kids performance out of my head.

His cover of "Pink Triangle" sounded like crap but scored big points for being a cover of "Pink Triangle." I enjoyed watching him, but the crowd was rather worn out after the vastly inferior Cool Kids.

The Field's set needed to be about twice as long. Or they could have gotten more than one dance act.

The Field was great. I agree it could have been much longer. I guess thing's were running a little behind by that point. Why as there a 1+ hour gap before the Cool Kids started? I didn't think their setup would require that much time.

I missed Yoko Ono's set...who was the special guest?

Why as there a 1+ hour gap before the Cool Kids started? I didn't think their setup would require that much time.

I didn't realize this was the case. I thought that everything was running late because Brightblack Morning Light went on at 2:30 instead of 2:00.

Yeah, everything had been pushed back.

A review I read said Thurston Moore was Yoko Ono's special guest

xpost

I was working at the record fair right by the B stage, and we didn't hear any music coming from that direction for over an hour. Unless the group before the Cool Kids were really quiet, I suppose. I didn't have the schedule on me at the time, so I don't know who was playing then.

Girl Talk is the worst thing ever. Cadence Weapon Trying too hard? I wouldn't say that, I liked his set. really fun. The Field was fabulous. Sonic Youth \m/.

did people really not enjoy this that much? everything i've read is more or less uniformly 'meh' but i can't tell if it's because the bands just weren't that great or if it's that concertgoers had unreasonable expectations for a three day festival.

Yes, Thurston came on about half-way through Yoko's set. They did an improv a la Life With the Lions. Yoko said something to the effect of she'd performed it with John and Sean, and Thurston was going to be the last time. He stuck around and jammed on the rest including the second "Don't Worry Kyoko" of the night.

anyway I had a great time. Sonic Youth, Mastadon, Craig Taborn, Brightblack Morning Light and Battles all slayed. Malkmus was a lot of fun, and I really haven't paid attention to the dude for a decade. But I think I'm gonna check out those solo records now. Was fun seeing Bobby N. get up there with him. We thought that since Mark Ibold was in town (played with Sonic Youth on Friday) there might actually be a full-fledged reunion afoot. Could hardly care less about any of the new indie kid ironic headband bullshit bands.

It did suck that the schedule on the side stage fell behind on Sunday. Because I tried to time catching Craig Taborn, but I ended up standing there for a half-hour when I could have caught the end of Sea and Cake. Not that I'm a massive Sea and Cake fan by any means, but it beats standing there like a bump on a log watching dudes soundcheck. and then to make matters worse, once Taborn finally started all the headband douchebags showed up because they were expecting some shit called the "Cool Kids" and basically talked through Craig's set. bit of a bummer.

but yeah, I don't see how you couldn't have a good time at the thing. Despite what I've been reading, I didn't think the lines were that long at all. I don't know what people expect, to be able to walk right up and piss? ever been to a ballgame or a stadium concert? The lines weren't really any longer than those things.

oh, but I guess the one complaint I can agree with is the sound. Way too quiet for Sonic Youth, and you practically couldn't hear Slint at all. I'm perfectly happy with the memory I have of the 2 excellent shows I caught on the 2005 Slint tour, so their set didn't bother me. But the sound definitely robbed da Yoot of some power. but they still fucking slayed.

I was generally really impressed with the festival as a whole, not so much the crowd. Actual complaints would be the sound, the lack of communication about the third stage being late (even huge signs on posterboard at a few areas would have been enough to stop a lot of confusion), and the weird planning/positioning of the third stage. If you're going to have a lot of the people who are known to be a crowd that moves around a lot during the show, it'd probably be best not to have them next to a temporary fence that is a couple feet from the street.

Does anyone know how the volunteer system worked? My friends talked to a guy with a volunteer t-shirt who apparently just walked up on the first day and worked for a half hour and then was walking into the restricted area in front of the stage for every show.

Stormy is otm about lines. I heard people complaining about practically everything that was common at festivals. A couple of my friends were right next to the stage for Girl Talk and they thought it was a lot less packed than similar crowds they'd been in at Coachella a few months back, and there's always the toilet/handwashing situation which was pretty decent but seemed to freak people out. I thought the food/drinks area was pretty good, and I wish I'd brought a bag because there was a fair amount of cool stuff for sale. The poster area was great even though I didn't buy anything -- I think I walked around for a good half hour checking out different posters for concert tours I'd seen.

I'm not sure why people were complaining so much about the lines this year, I'm wondering if they've never been to Lollapalooza or any other huge mega-fest. Long lines are part and parcel of the festival experience, but I thought they were relatively short at Pitchfork. Of course I did feel like the lines were longer this year than either of the previous two, so that may be a part of it.

The sound was definitely a problem for Sonic Youth. If you weren't close enough to the stage, it was way too quiet. My friend and I were standing about 20 yards behing the sound tent and able to talk to each other at normal conversational levels. That just shouldn't happen at a Sonic Youth show. I think the sound, with the exception of The Ponys mess, got much better as the weekend progressed. Clipse sounded ten times better than GZA's set.

My only complaint, one that has nothing to do with the organizers, was the amounts of annoying concert-goers this year. We were trying to watch Of Montreal when a group of really drunk high school kids (couldn't have been much over 18) pushed their way in front of us and proceeded to talk very loudly while exchanging all kinds of weird, elaborate frat-boy high fives. A guy next to us (rather calmly I thought) asked them to be quiet and a girl with the group said, "we plan on talking through the whole thing, so leave if you don't like it". A few other people around them jumped in to protest and she went on this spiel about how she spent her money just like everyone else and had the right to talk over the set if she damn well felt like it. It was super annoying.

Yeah, I was trying to stay in the festival mindset of "if something bothers you, just move elsewhere" but I was really wondering if that'd work after a while. There needs to be a set of unofficial festival rules, like don't crowd to the front unless you actually like the band or are willing to at least look like you're enjoying it.

There are always jerks, but I had to put up with this guy over my shoulder during Junior Boys going "AWWW YEAH" all the time. This was after his 'funny' comments about "white people love red hot chili peppers!" and "these guys better be good like rhcp!!" I guess he really thought he was being funny, though, so I wasn't about to burst his bubble.

I don't know if I could pick out a particular highlight since I was biased and went to the front for all the bands I knew I liked and hung back for most of the others... I think judging by dollars, the beer might have won.

That RHCP line actually does sound funny, as long as it wasn't ironic.

It was totally and completely in the "I am being ironic" voice, otherwise I would have just been amused and happy he was enjoying the show!

I think a lot of the complaints this year arose in contrast to previous Pitchfork Music Festivals, rather than festivals in general. What was so great about the first two years of the festival is how everything went off so smoothly, it was cheap as shit, the lines were short, etc. This year the festival, in part because it attracted a larger crowd, didn't always rise to the exceedingly high standards of the first two years.

My only complaints were for the Dan Deacon / Girl Talk sets. Just seems like it could have been easily avoided.

I was there for bits of Saturday and Sunday and thought it was damn good for an outdoor festival. We had too much other stuff to do since I love, love, love Chicago but I definitely could have stayed for most of both days. Clipse was great, as were S.M., Of Montreal, and the New Pornographers. Oxford Collapse got screwed by the second stage sound (they might not be that good live anyway), and the scheduling issues with the second stage on Sunday sucked--I really wanted to check out the Field but got as far as the record tent and the dude onstage seemed pretty annoying. Seeing Of Montreal again wasn't a terrible fallback.

Still, have to emphasize the good stuff--decently behaved crowd, tons of food options, $4 beers, cool record fair (boxes of backstock from good labels). Maybe it was a bit more hectic than years past but still very well done by all.

It's depressing that $4 beers are considered good, but I guess relative to sporting events, it's cheap.

Relative to sporting events, outdoor "shed" venues, and certain bars and clubs.

Good call. You havent lived until you've had a $7.50 Budweiser at an NY Jets/Giants game.

I wouldn't expect to get a Goose Island for less than $3.50 anywhere in Chicago, unless it was on special. It's not like they were selling Bud Light for $4.

We had a good thing going with the food/drinks area, I spent at least $48 on beer tickets

word jaymc, I'd never had Goose Island before but I was on the 312 all weekend. Tasty stuff.

How much of Malkmus's set was Pavement?

God, I wanted to go to this, but I couldn't afford the plane tickets so I just caught the free Menomena show in NYC instead.

Um, he did Trigger Cut, Mouth of Desert, Heaven is a Truck, We Dance....those were the Pavement songs I recognized.

ugh why doesn't Pavement just get back together already. with Gary Young, please.

he also did "Spit On A Stranger"

Is Gary Young even alive?

The Field guy looked annoying when he was onstage? I'm pretty sure all he did was look at his laptop and glance up at the dancing crowd every 10 minutes or so to acknowledge the enthusiasm. Seemed fine to me.

More annoying was the guy who yelled "I'm not GAY but I'd let you stick your FINGER up my ASS!" after the set, to show his approval.

there seemed to be a lot of annoying outbursts like that throughout the festival... i heard someone yell "you broke up the beatles" when yoko ono walked out. i guess thats kind of expected though. i left shortly afterwards.

The only musicians/bands that I would pay to watch outdoors, in the sun, crammed around sweaty people are all dead or retired.

i heard someone yell "you broke up the beatles" when yoko ono walked out.

i'm sorry, but that's just fucking funny

To whom? Is it going to enhance the enjoyment of anyone around to hear that? "oh, this is THAT Yoko Ono? lols!" Is Ono supposed to be embarrassed by hearing it and bring joy to the audience by blushing, or slinking off in shame and not performing?

Now, there were funny outbursts though. I ended up talking to the guys behind me at Battles who kept saying, "Man, I can't wait until the BEATLES come on!"
Of course, after a couple minutes I realized they were fellow iowans so we probably have the same sense of humor.