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PItchfork Music Festival 2009

By Chance Dibben

Originally published August 14, 2009 at 11:56 a.m., updated August 14, 2009 at 1:10 p.m.

Because of a busing snafu I missed Friday's Write the Night set featuring fan-voted setlists by Tortoise, The Jesus Lizard, Built to Spill, and Yo La Tengo. However, from the people I talked to Saturday, it seems that I didn't miss much--with the exception of Jesus Lizard frontman David Yow stripping and leaping into the crowd within minutes of the band's performance. One festival goer described the shows on Friday as boring.

Photo Gallery

2009 Pitchfork Music Festival

Shots from this year's festival held in Chicago's Union Park

If Friday was a snoozer--which I doubt it was completely--then Saturday was a rude wake up call. The first band I had the pleasure of seeing was Cymbals Eat Guitars, who, despite offering jagged telegraphed noise, were fairly bland and boring in their own right. I was caught off guard by Chicago's Disappears, a band I discounted just by the awfulness of their name. Their performance surprised the hell out of me; they were both muscular and melodic, negotiating passages of sped up metal and slower cool-down moments like old pros.

An early highlight though, was of course, the Canadian punk band F*cked Up. Lead singer Pink Eye proudly displayed his hirsute potbelly, chewed through the constant steam of cheap beach balls that were vaulted his way (eventually wearing one as a hat) and ventured into a full moshing crowd. All while the rest of band played pummeling, bruising punk rock.

Another surprise came by way of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart whose live presence far outmatched their fluttered skeleton pop on record. Much fuller, heavier, noisier. Live-versus--record was also true of Baltimore's Ponytail, whose swelling beatific noise was less contrived and more potent, even as singer Molly Siegel's mostly wordless trills, squelches, and bleats were all the more exaggerated. Ponytail made for a great party band as the crowd danced to the band's spastic abrasive beats.

Though he released a terrific album earlier this year, entitled Born Like This, silver-masked rapper DOOM's performance was thunderously flat; menacing, true, but all roar without finesse. Festival goers didn't seem to mind, however, and DOOM and his crew brought the house down, so to speak, attracting one of the largest crowds Saturday.

Far and away the best performance of the Saturday was Brooklyn-based The National, who added a whole other dimension to their brooding melancholic pop. Live they were fleshed-out and purposeful, without losing any of the emotion they hone in on so well.

I only went to five sets on Sunday because I staked out for The Flaming Lips quite a few hours before their 8:40 PM run time. But nevertheless Sunday was marked by quality performances all around. Representing only the finest of hip-hop, Pharoahe Monch and his crew put on an amazing set, with the rapper displaying his lyrical prowess delivering hilarious and emotional pieces that had an early crowd enthralled.

Armed with their vintage instruments, NYC-based The Walkmen managed a theatrical set peppered with cool, inviting moments, as well as larger swells of emotion. Powerhouse singer Hamilton Leithauser can sell a croon and well as explosive exchanges and the band’s heavily indebted sound came across genuine.

On record M83's precocious shoegaze can feel a bit pretentious and contrived. But live they became a blistering, piercing noise band; dynamic and electric, with full-on disco beats to boot. They soundtracked the sunset and mesmerized an exhausted and worn crowd.

I had seen the pictures and heard the stories. But nothing quite prepared me for The Flaming Lips' elaborate live show. Even though I had plenty of opportunity to seem them at many a Wakarusa, for some reason I had never seen The Flaming Lips live. The first thing that tells you this is going to be big, if not downright ridiculous, are the many orange-jumpsuited stagehands who make adjustments to the stage, test pneumatic tubes, confetti guns, etc. Band members make congenial appearances, calmly greeting a salivating crowd already primed and pumped.

Then it begins: frontman Wayne Coyne roves around the crowd in a human-sized hamster ball and then returns for the next song. Playing in front of a large LED light display, throwing giant balloons into the crowd, and Coyne shooting confetti from long narrow tubes, the band amped up the psychedelia at every turn. The only demerit on the band was Coyne's needless stage banter that quickly derailed from endearing to awkward.

There were many regrets and hard choices made last minute, but the festival proved to be exciting, exhausting, and surprising.

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