Pitchfork Music Festival 2012 – Saturday
Between the seemingly endless list of must-see sets and the disagreeable weather conditions, day two’s festivities alternately took on the feel of a grand-scope adventure and a punishing endurance test. Sets from Hot Chip, Sleigh Bells, Wild Flag, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and more reviewed and photographed inside.
Instrumental psych/noise rock trio The Psychic Paramount opened the Green stage Saturday afternoon with a heavy, relentless set. Their barrage of tight drumming, pummeling bass lines and unhinged guitar was simultaneously overwhelming and engrossing. The songs were long, but rarely stayed in one place for more than a few minutes; noise-jam suites if you will. If the early arrivals were still half-asleep from Friday night, they were certainly awake by the end of this set.
Lockett Pundt’s Lotus Plaza (the first of Saturday’s back-to-back Deerhunter side-projects) brought both the shoegaze swirl and the day’s first round of torrential rains over at the Blue stage. A true solo project for Pundt on record, Lotus Plaza expands to a full band for live shows, including a second guitarist, bassist, keyboardist and drummer. The group conjured a hypnotic wall of reverb-soaked sound, characterized by heavily distorted guitars and Pundt’s distant vocals. There wasn’t much variety to the set, but the band’s ability to establish and sustain an atmosphere made that feel unimportant. It was perfect music for closing your eyes and absorbing as the rain poured.
The deluge let up long enough for me to make my way over to Bradford Cox’s Atlas Sound set on the Green stage, only to resume after only a few songs. Cox didn’t let it get him down though. A relaxed and freewheeling set saw him bantering about the weather of his native Georgia and getting kicked out of the Boy Scouts for “being queer,” as well as rendering stripped-down performances of highlights from Logos and Parallax. Cox’s loop-building one-man-band formula for live Atlas Sound performances doesn’t work quite as well on a gigantic festival stage as it does in a club setting, but “Walkabout,” “Amplifiers” (dedicated to “my brother Lockett”) and others sounded perfect under the grey and rainy skies.
An appropriate resurgence of sunshine greeted Boise, Idaho’s Trevor Powers, aka Youth Lagoon, back at the Blue stage. Youth Lagoon’s debut album The Year of Hibernation gives off an intimate, bedroom-crafted vibe, but the live show shakes off some of the record’s haze in favor of a clearer and more pronounced sound. Powers, on keys and vocals, is joined live by guitarist Logan Hyde. With the help of booming drum machine beats, the two maintained the spirit of Year of Hibernation highlights like “Montana” and “17” while injecting enough extra energy to produce a suitably swaying, head-bobbing set.
I passed by a winding down but incredibly fun looking Flying Lotus performance on my way to the Red stage for Wild Flag, who would proceed to deliver Saturday’s purest and most badass rock show. A cover of the classic Television tune “See No Evil” opened a set which also covered a couple of new songs and highlights from the band’s self-titled record. Carrie Brownstein and Mary Timony switched off on lead vocal duties, with keyboardist Rebecca Cole and drummer Janet Weiss on backup. Brownstein and Timony exude rockstar charisma, and their dueling guitar work was among the weekend’s finest. Weiss’ powerful, propulsive drums held down the rhythm section, while Cole’s organ tones added texture or took on a central role with songs like set-closer “Romance.” A mega-extended take on “Racehorse” was the set’s most awe-inspiring moment, ending with both guitars held aloft and waved through the air to bring forth swaths of distorted feedback. Wild Flag may be the indie rock equivalent of a ‘supergroup,’ but they come with none of the label’s ill-conceived or self-indulgent associations. They’re a group of seasoned musicians who have mastered the art of putting on a killer show.
Shortly after Wild Flag left the stage, Sleigh Bells’ eclectic selection of entrance music began blaring from the Green stage’s PA. Akinyele’s indescribably filthy 90s hit “Put It In Your Mouth” would be followed up with a cut from Lil B’s God’s Father mixtape; a fitting preparation for this band’s particular flair for the weird, the flashy and the abrasively confrontational. The stage was set with a cartoonishly large and probably-mostly-fake wall of Marshall stacks and unnecessary lighting. Sleigh Bells essentially deal in nothing but excess. Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller (plus an additional live guitarist) took the stage with a storm of blazing riffs, blown out drum machine beats and rapped/chanted/yelled vocals that rarely let up. The slightly more restrained sound of Reign of Terror has evidently done little to soften the band’s overall aesthetic. Both guitarists played it cool, but Krauss was enough stage presence for the three of them and then some. She worked the crowd into a frenzy over songs old and new. You may not buy into what Sleigh Bells is selling (I found standing in the crowd rather taxing after twenty minutes), but you have to admire their eye and ear for brash, attention-grabbing performances.
Back at the Red stage, Hot Chip quickly got a dedicated mass of festival-goers dancing with a stacked set of their most beloved tracks. The band’s dance-rock sound is fueled by multiple keyboards, synths and guitars, a bass and live drums. The formula is often compared to disbanded pals/tour-mates LCD Soundsystem, but Hot Chip trade the meta music geek vibes for something more straightforwardly dancefloor-ready. They played a few cuts from this year’s In Our Heads (including earworm single “Night and Day”), but also treated the crowd to favorites from each of their back catalog records (“I Was A Boy From School,” “Over and Over,” “Ready for the Floor,” etc.). The crowd was loving it, and for my money it was the weekend’s most infectious dance party.
When it was all over, the mood on the festival grounds immediately shifted for the beginning of a headlining set by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Ultra-minimal stage lighting, zero crowd interaction or acknowledgement, no live video on the big screen; this was not going to be your typical headlining festival performance. The seven member band began its performance with a slow-building drone, coaxing the slightest of sounds from guitars, a violin and what looked like an upright bass for upwards of twenty minutes before easing into “Albanian.” Godspeed’s formula relies on a pattern of tension and release. Their compositions ascend from quiet dirges to roaring peaks, and take their time getting there. After an intense day of rain and heat, many of Saturday’s attendees seemed to lack the patience for atmospheric post-rock. This combined with the draw of newcomer Grimes on the Blue stage to make Godspeed the lowest attended of the weekend’s three headliners by far. The dedicated and the faithful stuck it out though, and were treated to a stunning set as darkness descended on Union Park. The half-empty and mud-entrenched field, lit mostly by streetlights beyond the festival gates, felt like a perfect setting for these simultaneously apocalyptic and life-affirming pieces of music. Once the sun had set, the band were only visible as silhouettes against a backdrop of sepia-tone film snippets emanating from a row of projectors at the mixing booth. An unexpected shift to bright orange footage of burning buildings at the climax of “World Police and Friendly Fire” was a moment of true transcendence. Godspeed left the stage at precisely ten (the festival’s noise curfew) without a wave or a glance toward the crowd. Uncompromising and brilliant as ever.
