Pitchfork 2010: Let's dance?
Indie-rock arms come uncrossed and asses shake at the fifth annual festival
Sally Ryan
In the year of the super-sized Lollapalooza, the fifth Pitchfork Music Festival continued to make its case as the best music festival not only in Chicago, but the nation. The event’s forward-thinking lineup went lighter on the nostalgia acts this year by dumping the “Don’t Look Back” night, where bands play seminal albums in their entirety, and featuring a bevy of buzzing acts, such as Sleigh Bells, Free Energy, Titus Andronicus, Major Lazer, Local Natives, Surfer Blood, Beach House, and numerous others. With temperatures hovering in the 90s all weekend, this year’s festival faced the usual heat-related complications, but adjusted nicely, first by reducing the price of bottles of water from $2 to $1, then making them two-for-one Sunday afternoon. For a festival of its size and stature, Pitchfork remains completely manageable and enjoyable, the best of its kind. The A.V. Club descended on Union Park en masse this weekend to capture some of the festival experience.
FRIDAY
YES
• After a few years of touring on solo projects, it was refreshing to hear some proper new Broken Social Scene material. It still feels like the same show that the band has put on for the last half-decade—minus notable contributors Leslie Feist and Emily Haines—but with about half of the nearly perfect setlist drawing from BSS’ latest, Forgiveness Rock Record, the band was able to keep it more relevant. Album producer John McEntire, of Tortoise and The Sea And Cake fame, played drums and rounded out the good chunk of the band that hailed from Chicago, or as singer Kevin Drew called it, “our home away from home.” Maybe it was the sound problems early on or the heat, but the band didn’t have that over-the-top energy that normally charges Brendan Canning’s karate kicks. Even raucous moments like the double-guitar attack in “Cause=Time” only seemed to go so far with the crowd. But everything clicked in the end, when BSS jumped into “Meet Me In The Basement,” which Drew declared “our new anthem.” The band finally had that spark, as did the crowd, hence the girl behind me who squealed, “It’s their fucking instrumental song!” [MJ]
• Glaring sunlight and 90-degree heat are not necessarily conducive to a dance-party atmosphere, but Swedish dance-pop pixie Robyn brought it hard with a high-energy late-afternoon set that put most of the weekend’s headliners to shame. Backed by twin drum sets and keyboards, Robyn quickly transitioned the typically passive Pitchfork crowd from tentative swaying to enthusiastic bouncing with opening number “Fembot.” By the time she shed her blazer for a one-woman dance breakdown midway through “Cry When You Get Older,” she officially had the park’s attention, which she rewarded with a set of high-energy, good-natured dance music that incited everyone—including the usually stoic VIP section—to ignore the heat and move their asses. Ass-moving would turn out to be a trend at this year’s surprisingly dance-happy fest, with equally rousing sets from Major Lazer and Big Boi proving that Pitchfork-goers are capable of movement beyond subdued head-bobbing and toe-tapping. [GK]
• “You guys like puppies?” asked El-P as he jumped on the Aluminum Stage in the afternoon and opened with the relatively subdued “Smithereens,” from 2007’s I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead. The crowd ate it up, but didn’t fully engage until the second song, “Deep Space 9mm” (from 2002’s Fantastic Damage), which transformed into much more of a banger live than it sounds on record. [KR]
• Hannibal Buress kicked things off at Pitchfork's first (and last?) comedy stage before a crowd who'd all found a shady place to laze around. Unlike the comedians to follow, he managed to keep his energy and the crowd's high, having chosen bits well-suited to the Pitchfork crowd--jokes ranging from his time in Chicago ("Public schools are hard up ... Look at the bean!") to handlebar mustache trends in New York ("You can have a handlebar mustache, but don't talk to me like you don't have a handlebar mustache."). [EW]
NO
• Liars began their evening set on the Connector stage in surprisingly subdued fashion with singer Angus Andrew—wearing a vintage sleeveless Men At Work T-shirt and red, white, and blue running shorts—actually singing while the band remained mostly quiet, except for some (attempted) harmonizing. Andrew’s never been known as a strong vocalist—the new Sisterworld practically revels in that—and the flat harmonizing was a bit cringe-inducing. Not that the other option was preferable: Once the band kicked it up and locked in for the rest of the set, Andrew’s caterwauling could be heard bouncing off the buildings around Union Park. Liars deserve praise for following their muse no matter where it takes them, even if that place is sloppy, abrasive, and tuneless. It takes guts. Too bad it’s pretty terrible. [KR]
• Pitchfork’s comedy stage was plagued by main-stage sound bleed and tepidly tittering audiences, but no one was more plagued than Michael Showalter. The former Statesman hit the stage icy cold, spending minutes at a time stammering and awkwardly attempting to DJ from a laptop. The result was excruciating, especially when he actually made it to telling jokes, which came off as dated dad humor. (“Why don’t soccer players score more goals? It looks like they couldn’t hit the side of a barn. They should make the goal slightly bigger than the side of a barn!”) Showalter ultimately bit the bullet and told what crowd remained that he was cutting his set short, telling those that yelled for him to stay, “Why do you want to see this carnage continue?” He later tweeted that those “suffering through my suffering… deserved better,” and yeah, we sure did. Poor guy. [ME]
MAYBE
• Modest Mouse has a kajillion songs to choose from, so it seems a little strange that the band would go for the deep-ish cuts at a festival gig like this one—where it’s probably safe to assume that the crowd would rather shimmy than jam. But after starting strong with “Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes,” Isaac Brock led his big ol’ band—which no longer includes Johnny Marr, because you were wondering—through semi-unfriendly jams like the recent “Autumn Beds” and “The Devil’s Workday.” It wasn’t bad, just not the kind of set that ought to put a cap on a huge festival like this one. They did play oldie “Dramamine,” though, which was nice. [JM]
• Sure, Broken Social Scene’s “Shoreline” is a pretty good song, but The Hood Internet completely ruined it for me by mixing it with R. Kelly’s “I’m A Flirt” for what rates as one of the top five mash-ups of all time. When the band played it early in its set, I secretly hoped for Kellz to bound onstage. [KR]
• As we entered the festival, we heard Sweden’s The Tallest Man On Earth playing mellow, dude-with-an-acoustic-guitar folk, easily my least-favorite style of music. Kristian Matsson is apparently good at what he does, but it’s a drowsy way to kick off a summer festival. [KR]
SEEN & HEARD
• “I like burritos more than I like Jesus. They’re delicious and real.” —Hannibal Buress [MJ]
• Life advice from Broken Social Scene: “Vitamin C and water, people—it’s the only way to live!” and “Hope isn’t a word—it’s a fucking responsibility!” [KR/MJ]
• “Broken Social Scene is like some indie-rock farm team: They pump out stars, recruit new ones, and keep what they need for the win!” —Some guy waiting for Modest Mouse [SM]
• Guy with a giant Red Hot Chili Peppers logo tattoo taking up the entire middle of his back. That tat is more Lollapalooza than Pitchfork... unless it’s ironic. [KR]
• “You hate music? I can’t one-up that. I better take this mustache off.” —Wyatt Cenac [MJ]
FESTIVAL NOTES
• When Pitchfork announced last month the addition of a comedy stage on the first day of the festival, it seemed like a good idea. After all, plenty of similar events, like Bonnaroo and Sasquatch, have comedians perform. But just because they can doesn’t mean they should, as Friday’s sets by comedians proved with a finality that should make this the first and last Pitchfork comedy stage. Even with the Balance Stage a good distance from the main music stages, sound bleed continually interrupted and distracted the comedians. [KR]
• To add to Kyle’s thoughts on the comedy stage, I thought it looked great on paper and started out nice enough: Local Buddy Holly doppelgangers The Modern Sounds warmed up the crowd with some fun, breezy swing music. Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav acted as the emcee and began thanking “sponsors” like Celebrex (“Indie is celebrexelant”) and Sweet & Low. (“A lot of people that are into electronica love Sweet & Low.”) And then things just got weird when he started handing out vodka-infused hot dogs and hosted a marshmallow-eating contest that ended in fake color-changing vomit. It seemed like a lot of people were there just for a shady spot to sit, which didn’t help with crowd engagement. [MJ]
• Last year’s fashion-forward Pitchfork must-haves included cowboy boots and porkpie hats (not together). This year the trenderatti can’t seem to reach a consensus. A few ironic mustaches linger from 2008 alongside a couple of superfluous scarves, but the overall look here is going-to-see-a-show-in-90+-degree-heat. It’s just too hot to attempt a statement. [KP]
SATURDAY
YES
• The highlight of the entire festival may have arrived earlier than expected Saturday night, when LCD Soundsystem went from “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” to “All My Friends” early in its set. During the opening piano chords of “Friends,” the crowd erupted, and James Murphy’s bittersweet tale of an aging cool kid sounded positively joyful. With the crowd singing along to “Where are you friends tonight?” at the end, it was a moment I wish would’ve lasted 10 times as long. When LCD closed with “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” (with an “Empire State Of Mind” coda) it was a rough comedown, especially without an encore. But goddamn it was great while it lasted—and isn’t that the underlying theme to LCD Soundsystem’s catalog? [KR]
• Wolf Parade seemed incredibly pleased to play for such a large crowd—and one that included 15-year-olds body-surfing, no less. The Pitchfork sound finally seemed loud enough for the Canadian band’s set, which offered a sweaty hour of bombastic alternate-universe hits. When it came time to play the last song, the set was actually only about 80 percent over: The monumental “Kissing The Beehive” ended the set, and went on about three minutes longer than it should’ve. But that’s a small gripe for an otherwise solid set. Something occurred to me, and maybe it’s totally off-base: I prefer Sunset Rubdown (Spencer Krug’s other band) to Handsome Furs (Dan Boeckner’s other band) by a mile, but I find myself more drawn to Boeckner’s Wolf Parade contributions. Discuss. [JM]
• The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion—which became just the Blues Explosion with 2004’s Damage—petered out of existence in a way unbefitting an outfit with such incredible energy and presence. This show is one of just a handful this year, inspired by deluxe reissues of the JSBX’s entire catalog. “Bellbottoms” (from the classic Orange) and “Attack” (from the underrated Acme) kicked off a sweaty set—especially sweaty for Spencer himself, who wore black leather pants. How did he possibly get them off after playing? That’s showmanship, Mr. Spencer. [JM]
• Three things Pitchfork 2010 proved the festival needs more of in the future: dance pop (thanks, Robyn!), nihilistic noise (ouch, Lightning Bolt), and punk bombast. Titus Andronicus delivered that during a frenetic afternoon set that dismissed the oppressive heat with rowdy abandon. The band focused most of its attention on its latest, the Civil War-themed The Monitor, with rail-thin frontman Patrick Stickles frequently bounding into the audience. When the band careened through “No Future Part Three,” “You will always be a loser!” became the festival’s best singalong. In the hands of Stickles and company (featuring members of indie band Hallelujah The Hills), it was a joyful expression of pride. [KR]
• One of the few local acts at Pitchfork, Netherfriends performed a layered, psychedelic set that was also one of the few small-stage bands whose sound was good, if not great. Bandleader Shawn Rosenblatt donned his best Brian Jones bob and led his “hired guns” through a tight set of material mostly culled from the Calling You Out EP. Some of the slower, hushed passages lagged for me, if only for the fact that Netherfriends are so much more engaging when frantic and churning through their hooks with punkish abandon on songs like “Mom Cop” than they are calculating tension with Menomena-like looping. Despite playing Pitchfork without a proper full-length release (the long-awaited Barry And Sherry is still on hold with the record label), the band kept the large crowd attentive. Rosenblatt sheepishly admitted he “had nightmares last night five people would be standing in the crowd. That was a close one.” [SM]
• It was all smiles and some very enthusiastic gyrating early Saturday afternoon when Free Energy opened the Aluminum Stage, where the band’s producer, James Murphy, would headline later. Despite being the new kids in town, they started strong and kept the power popping through the entire set, peaking with “Bang Pop.” It’s not often Pitchfork snags classic-rockers, but sometimes it’s nice to listen to a band that plays instruments the old-fashioned way. [AC]
NO
Joel Withrow
• Text to A.V. Club staffer Steve Hyden during Panda Bear’s set: “How do you sleep at night liking Panda Bear? This shit is sooooo boring.” A few minutes later, he writes back: “Great records. Horrible live show.” He’s got that right. Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear of Animal Collective, stood by himself onstage with a guitar around his shoulders, a synth and some equipment atop a road case on a keyboard stand, and basically dicked around for what felt like an eternity. Here’s how he opened his set: Hit note on keyboard, hold it down for several seconds. Hold out long vocal yelp. Repeat.This went on for a good six minutes at least, but it took less than half that time for the audience to trade “Is this it?” looks. There’s a scene in High Fidelity where John Cusack argues with Jack Black about what music to play in the story that day. “I just want something that I can ignore!” barks Cusack. Panda Bear would be perfect for that. [KR]
• Saturday was plagued by sound issues across all three stages, but the biggest casualty of this was Raekwon. Thanks to what seemed to be some faulty/overheated onstage wiring, DJ Symphony spent the first 15 minutes of the set fiddling with his equipment and bantering with the increasingly agitated crowd. (“How many of you motherfuckers bought 36 Chambers?” he asked the crowd, who cheered dutifully. “Liars! Go buy it again!”) After two false starts, Raekwon finally emerged, promising a set full of classics, which the crowd enthusiastically endorsed by throwing up “W” hand gestures as he launched into “C.R.E.A.M.” But the sound soon cut out again, leaving Raekwon and his hype man to repeatedly query the crowd about their feelings on “real hip-hop,” Wu-Tang, and having a good motherfucking time today. (They were generally in favor of all three.) After another bout of buzzing from the speakers, Rae grew visibly annoyed: “Put your hand in the air if that shit is pissing you off.” Raekwon and Symphony eventually rallied, launching into “Can It Be All So Simple” and “Ice Cream,” but by that point the damage was done, the delay sapping the heat-addled crowd of whatever energy it had to spare. [GK]
• Dâm-Funk spent the first 20 minutes of his set fiddling with equipment onstage and occasionally throwing T-shirts to the crowd. Things never really recovered from there; Dâm slouched across the stage, nodding his head and rhyming. The only real highlight (and to be fair, it was a highlight) was when he disappeared offstage for awhile, only to return with a keytar that he then banged while grabbing his crotch. If the whole set had managed to rein in that energy, it might've been saved. [EW]
MAYBE
• Delays have a domino effect, so the time accrued during Dâm-Funk’s late-arriving set on the small Balance Stage still slowed down Bear In Heaven several hours later. I arrived 15 minutes late, and the band was still line-checking gear. In our preview, we described the band’s sound as “big and dense, awash in reverb and filled with pulsing electronic menace,” which in a festival setting translates into “muddy.” Live, Bear In Heaven was a surprisingly quiet, indistinct mix of synthesizers, guitar, percussion, and frontman John Philpot’s vocals, which recalled Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac and Thomas Mars of Phoenix. It didn’t do justice to the band’s recently released third album, Beast Rest Forth Mouth. This is a band that’s better seen in a club. [KR]
SLIDESHOW: Pitchfork 2010: Saturday
SEEN & HEARD
• Unfortunately for Titus Andronicus’ fans, the band played during the hottest part of the day, so the crush up in front of the stage for the group’s intense performance took a dangerous turn with temperatures hovering in the mid-90s. One kid surrounded by EMTs backstage looked in particularly bad shape—limp, unresponsive. Maybe Pitchfork should schedule bands according to intensity, with the more ponderous bands playing during the hottest part of the day and energetic ones under cover of darkness. It seemed so wrong having Delorean perform in broad daylight anyway. [KR]
• “I believe half of what I say and none of what I hear. I ♥ hip-hop.” —Raekwon’s T-shirt [KR]
• The guy next to me literally nodded off while standing up during Panda Bear. Most people gave up watching him, lit up, and fixed glassy eyes on the psychedelic inkblot images bleeding in and out of the video monitors. [EW]
FESTIVAL NOTES
• Union Park lies in an area dominated by businesses dormant on weekends, and without nearby residences. So why is the Pitchfork Music Festival so pathologically quiet? It’s been a problem since the beginning, and reached its nadir when Sonic Youth played Daydream Nation in 2007, as complaints about the low volume forced festival organizers to make adjustments. “Why isn’t this louder?” asked one concertgoer during LCD Soundsystem’s set. “This should sound huge right now.” It’s not that the sound wasn’t balanced or poorly mixed; it just wasn’t very loud. To restrain the epic sweep of “All Your Friends”—easily Saturday’s highlight—is to do it a disservice. [KR]
• A small, extremely small, buzz built around Ryan Shultz, a Chicago-based artist recognizable to viewers of Work Of Art: The Next Great Artist who was in attendance. Shultz was seen talking to fans then standing next to a tree smoking a cigarette as the woman accompanying him to the festival took pictures of him. [KP]
SUNDAY
YES
• Big Boi might have caught some flack for turning in an Outkast-heavy set after having just released a solo album, but really, is there any better way to get a crowd hyped than by blending together and running through hits from ATLiens (“ATLiens”), Aquemini (“Rosa Parks”), Stankonia (“Ms. Jackson”), and Speakerboxxx (“The Way You Move”)? By the time Big Boi hit his excellent new material, the crowd was primed and ready.
• Dancing Chinese dragons. Ballerinas. Booty shorts. All figured prominently in Major Lazer’s balls-out insane stage show, which was presided over by DJ Diplo and, more notably, his mohawked, Hennessy-gulping hype man, Skerrit Bwoy. Skerrit Bwoy and his two posteriorly gifted backup dancers whipped the crowd into a frenzy that reached halfway across Union Park, pausing only to bring out a ladder for an onstage exhibition of daggering (dancehall speak for “pummeling one’s genitals into those of your dance partner, preferably from a great height”). Most of the audience looked simultaneously delighted and terrified at this display—particularly the male spectator who was brought onstage to be the recipient of the female dancers’ daggering expertise—but Major Lazer’s high-energy, dancehall-inflected beats kept the whole crowd bouncing through their bewilderment. [GK]
• Surfer Blood’s really the perfect festival band: breezy, bouncy, and carefree. It took the stage during Lightning Bolt’s uproarious cloud of noise, which threatened to knock over anything in a one-mile radius. Surfer Blood pulled it out, though (the volume at Balance Stage also seemed to have been cranked up a couple of notches), and by the time the band hit second song “Take It Easy,” John Paul Pitts’ voice was easily soaring over any background bleed. The set stuck pretty close to the way things were laid down on Astro Coast, sending the crowd into a friendly, dancing singalong. The group was enthused to be onstage at Pitchfork this time, having “watched it online last year.” [EW]
• I left the Laurel Canyon good vibes of Local Natives on the small Balance Stage for the scorched-earth hellscape of Lightning Bolt on the Aluminum Stage, where the festival’s audience proceeded to have its guts ripped out by the Rhode Island band. The duo created a relentless squall of noise, propelled by drummer-vocalist Brian Chippendale’s manic beats and bassist Brian Gibson’s schizophrenic playing, which bounced from earth-rattling lows to the tinniest of highs that would impress Steve Albini. Even more disturbing/impressive, Chippendale played with a mask with the mic mounted inside, a ballsy move with temperatures in the 90s. [KR]
NO
• It’s been a quick ride to indie-rock fame for Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells, which went from playing its first shows last September to headlining the Balance Stage Sunday night. The blown-speakers pop of its debut, Treats, has charmed critics and fans alike, and a large crowd crammed into the stage’s smaller area to watch the band. After a 15-minute delay, guitarist Derek Miller and vocalist Alexis Krauss took the stage but faced equipment problems. Not until the third song, “A/B Machines,” did Sleigh Bells and the crowd really connect. (The increase in volume helped, too.) Still, it was a little underwhelming to watch the duo while backing tracks did so much of the heavy lifting: percussion, synths, and vocals. Krauss spent a fair amount of time simply shouting over a recording of her own voice. Maybe I didn’t stick around long enough—mayhem apparently erupted toward the end of the set, when Krauss jumped into the audience and the crowd grew especially rowdy. [KR]
MAYBE
• Those of us who got super excited when Pavement announced reunion shows were perhaps a little caught up in the moment. We came down with a case of collective amnesia regarding the fact that Pavement concerts way back when were always a crapshoot—and the band very frequently crapped out. (The best Pavement show I ever saw was a Jicks show in 2003 that consisted of all Pavement songs, but that’s another story.) This story is about a band that has pretty clearly reunited to make some cash—and that’s fine—but is still up to its old tricks. The setlist for Pavement’s Pitchfork headlining slot was pretty amazing, but the execution was iffy throughout, with bright spots coming in spite of what seemed like an effort onstage to keep the excitement level low. Drag City’s Rian Murphy actually started the set with a long, dry, hilariously antagonistic ramble in which he pretended to be a former shock jock. (He pulled something similar in Los Angeles.) The band’s set started…not so well. “Cut Your Hair,” probably Pavement’s best-known song, was a shambles, as was most of “In The Mouth A Desert.” By “Kennel District”—Spiral Stairs’ only lead tonight—they had climbed at least to competence. From there, they wavered upward (“Perfume-V,” “Stop Breathin”) and downward. (“Frontwards,” probably my favorite Pavement song, suffered from slop.) It was tough to tell if the crowd was into it: Unlike earlier sets in the fest, there wasn’t a lot of movement in that sea. I’m heading to the Matador 21 Festival in October, where Pavement will headline, and I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll tighten up between now and then. This had moments of greatness, but never tipped the balance all the way in its favor. [JM]
• St. Vincent’s Actor was one of the highlights of ’09, but making its airy atmospherics engage at an outdoor festival proved challenging. Opening with “The Strangers,” Annie Clark and her sizeable backing band recreated the song well, but its slow pace set the tone for what would follow. Aside from the propulsive “Actor Out Of Work” and a feedback squall later in the set, St. Vincent kept the mood subdued, making it easy to let your mind wander. Clark and her band played well, but something wasn’t there. Or maybe it was and just needed a quieter, cozier room. [KR]
• Possibly the only Lightning Bolt song I can recognize by ear is the electrifying “Crown Of Storms” from 2003’s Wonderful Rainbow. I can tell you with complete confidence that they didn’t play that. What they did play has to be heard in order to believe that a drum-and-bass duo can make that much ear-splitting noise. This was awesome for the first 10 minutes or so, particularly because of Brian Chippendale’s thrillingly violent drumming. Then it just got brutally repetitive. Plus, Chippendale’s Scarecrow-meets-Raggedy Ann mask is sure to give me nightmares. [MJ]
• Teen Dream is gorgeous, and “Norway,” that’s a damn good song. But not even the relative brightness of that was enough to prevent Beach House’s set from feeling sluggish. I get it, it’s supposed to be music to chill to, and everything sounded great, but the day had barely started and I already felt sleepy. [MJ]
SEEN & HEARD
• “I wanna be into this so bad. This is not loud enough.” —Guy watching Sleigh Bells, echoing the No. 1 complaint about Pitchfork Fest. [KR]
• Dude in a constrictive hot dog suit rejected from VIP entrance. [EW]
• “Need rideshare to NY after Pitchfork. Can split gas, contribute MP3s.” —sign a guy was holding while waiting for St. Vincent to start. [MJ]
• From Major Lazer: “People gonna get drunk... people gonna get high... Somebody's gonna have sex and get pregnant.” [EW]
• Major Lazer again, sign of a good show: “These dragons are crazy. But where my ballerinas at?” [EW]
• Pint-sized breakdancers Chicago’s Finest lingered backstage during St. Vincent’s set, busting moves that couldn’t have been more mismatched to the music onstage. But it was pretty goddamn adorable seeing a little girl bust out a headspin while Annie Clark cooed through the PA. [KR]
• “You look like Michael Moore, jerkoff.” —An angry fan in response to Rian Murphy’s Andy Kaufman-esque routine before Pavement. [MJ]
• Festival mainstay Ice Cream Man had his van parked backstage as usual, dispensing free ice-cream treats to those lucky enough to have the necessary laminates. This year, he blew through his entire stock in two days, so he had nothing to give come Sunday. “You people are serious fatties,” said a sign on his empty van. [KR]
• Major Lazer’s stage show came very close to reproducing the hilarious sex-dancing of its video for “Pon De Floor”: If you weren’t there this is as close as you’ll get. Just imagine Chinese Dragons and ballerinas dancing on the sidelines. [EW]
FESTIVAL NOTES
• I think I say this every year, but Pitchfork is the best outdoor festival I’ve ever been to. It’s manageable, it’s comfortable, it’s in a beautiful setting, the acts are at the very least interesting and most of the time excellent, and there’s generally just a good vibe all around. This year seemed a little more crowded than years past, but still not the crush of bodies that some fests (and clubs, for that matter) offer. The B Stage was really tough to get to, as well. But beyond that, Pitchfork Fest really does it right. [JM]
