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pitchfork music festival, day one
14Jul07
Friday was nostalgia night at the opening of the Pitchfork Music Festival, a chance to for-reals out-dork, out-know and out-class everyone on music snobbery and it be (somewhat) accepted. Quick: who most quickly identified the closing, non-
Spiderland track of the Slint set? Who could identify more than three people on stage while the GZA played? Who knew the tunings of every one of Thurston Moore’s guitars?
This is a little bit snotty, but the lineup for the opening night — Slint playing
Spiderland, GZA playing
Liquid Swords and Sonic Youth playing
Daydream Nation — definitely lent itself that sort of vibe. These were Important Albums that must be Appreciated. It was at times a bit stifling. And listen, this is coming from someone for whom all of these albums meant a tremendous amount. We’re talking prime high school era: headphones in the bedroom, hurt feelings, salvation. Just to hear “Washer” from
Spiderland — one of the most emotional songs I have ever heard — I was a bit worried that I might break out in acne, gain 40 pounds and start wondering why my parents got divorced, right in the middle of everybody.
So let’s start with this:
Spiderland is not an outdoor record. Shit, it’s not even a
live record. The best way to consume and enjoy
Spiderland, based on my 13 years of experience listening to it, is late at night, driving too fast on way off-the-grid roads either alone or with your best friend. There are many ways to listen to it, but notice how different that is from outside in the late afternoon at a music festival with thousands of people standing around. It just doesn’t translate.
The band played well, this is for certain. I really dug the performance, but if anyone was supposed to, it would be me. Outside of “Good Morning, Captain,” the poppy cut that closes the record, I really don’t think Slint newcomers enjoyed the set all that much. We should ask Joe: he had never heard
Spiderland before yesterday, and he walked away halfway through the set.
GZA playing
Liquid Swords followed Slint. This was much improved, with some really — excuse the hyperbole — transcendent moments, especially “Shadowboxer” and “4th Chamber.” The set pretty much lived or died by his hype men — as is too often the case, they didn’t have any pitch or volume control of their voices while using a microphone. Their guest lines and backing support was way too shout-y, lousing up the sound mix, drowning out the RZA’s backing tracks and even swallowing the GZA’s smooth baritone pretty easily.
The GZA knew exactly what he was doing. One of the hardest things for a hip-hop artist to do is rap live while maintaining their normal pitch and timbre. It’s hard to not resort to shouting or barking — I have seen very few do it, but GZA was fantastic in this regard. Needless to say, folks went nuts during his set — shouts of “WU! TANG! WU! TANG!” rang out regularly — and parts of it definitely deserved it.
Finally, closing the night’s festivities were Sonic Youth playing
Daydream Nation. It was, without reservation, perfect. The sound was huge, the songs were (still) ridiculously amazing and absolutely everyone in Union Park was transfixed. I was pinned to the side of the stage where it was impossible to see all that much — and the sound wasn’t that great either — but even from that poor vantage point it was astounding. More to come tomorrow.