Phew, what a weekend! As usual, I’m feeling quite a bit drained from three long days of experiencing the dizzying highs and physical tolls of attending a music festival. It doesn’t get any easier as you get older, I can tell you that. Judging by the average age of the attendees this year, I’m beginning to fall on the older half of the spectrum. In spite of this, I’m never less than excited to attend the Pitchfork Music Festival each year, as I consistently claim it is my favorite weekend of the 52 that take place annually. So I may be tired and writing about the festival in a timely manner has brought its own set of unique challenges, but I’m not anything less than satisfied with how everything turned out. I’ll have my final set of thoughts on how I think the festival went this year, along with a massive photo set from the entire weekend, coming up in the next few days. In the meantime, please enjoy this summary of all the acts I saw perform on Day 3 of the festival, aka Sunday.
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It always bothers me when things don’t work out according to plan, and the start/end to my Saturday at the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival was one of those times. In what was supposed to be an early arrival to catch sets from White Lung, Pissed Jeans and Julia Holter, bad traffic turned a short drive into an extraordinarily long one. Thank goodness I finally made it in time for Phosphorescent. Then of course there was the weather. On checking the weekend forecast on Friday afternoon shortly before heading out on Day 1, it said a chance of severe storms on Friday night, then partly cloudy for the rest of the weekend. All was going according to plan until about 9 p.m. on Saturday when it started to pour. Of course it would. Let’s hope the park stays dry enough for Sunday that there’s not mud/sand pits everywhere like last year. As for the music itself, most everything on Saturday was an improvement over the somewhat shaky or mediocre sets on Friday. Let me break things down for you, band by band.
Most things about Day 1 at the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival could be considered challenging. Or, perhaps described a little differently, most things except the performances. The main factor on Friday was the weather. A glance at the temperature would tell you the heat index was in the upper 90s, and therefore it bordered on oppressive. Then again, it’s nothing particularly new for this festival or mid-July in Chicago. Still, the volunteer staff could be credited as doing a fair to good job of distributing bottled water to the sweaty masses, even walking around with cases of it through the crowd during sets. Yet if you went to one of Union Park’s few water fountains, the lines were long. The same could be said for all the beverage tents. Everyone was in need of some fluids. And while outside of the heat it was a nice and sunny day, it became less so when severe storms rolled in during the evening hours and effectively shut down Bjork’s set 30 minutes early. It hadn’t rained a drop when organizers pulled the plug on the evening, but there was a pretty great lightning show that could hypothetically have put people in danger. The actual rain, as it was reported to me, started about 30-45 minutes after the park was cleared. Hopefully it won’t be a soggy mess for the rest of the weekend. Beyond weather and lines though, let’s talk about the music itself. Here’s a recap of the artists I saw:
I’m pleased to say that we’ve arrived at Day 3 of the Pitchfork Music Festival preview guide. This of course falls during Pitchfork Music Festival Week here on the site, which kicked off on Monday with an Artist Guide, and featured a preview of Day 1 on Tuesday and a preview of Day 2 on Wednesday. So yes, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground so far, and there’s plenty more to go. After today’s preview guide of Day 3, I’ll have day-by-day recaps of all the festival action, and we’ll wrap things up with a final look back at the weekend, plus look at a whole bunch of photos. This is going to be fun! If you’re headed to Union Park this weekend, please remember to dress for the weather (it’s going to be HOT, but will get progressively cooler with each day, and with the potential for severe storms all day Friday). Sunscreen, bug spray, etc. will be your best friend. Also remember to stay safe. Drink plenty of water, and if you’re moshing at any point, keep an eye out for your neighbor. This is one of the friendliest, nicest music festivals you’ll ever go to, so please don’t be “that guy/girl” and take away the enjoyment factor for so many. Sit back, relax, and party with great music and amazing vendors. Here’s your preview guide to all the artists you’ll see on Sunday at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival!
If you’re headed to Union Park this weekend, I sincerely hope you’re following along with this 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival preview guide. There’s a lot of great and interesting artists playing the festival this year, as there are every year, and I just want to make sure you have the absolute best time possible. That’s why I try my hardest to educate you on all the artists on the lineup and try to help you make choices about what bands to see during what hour of each day. Yesterday we previewed Friday, and that’s a shorter day than Saturday and Sunday. So now here’s the guide for Saturday, which is longer and ideally more compelling. I think much of the day on Saturday is beset with fascinating conflicts, so you may want to skip around and catch pieces of different sets all day just to get a fully rounded experience. Now then, without further ado, let me present to you a guide to Day 2 at the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival!
Welcome to Day 1 of the preview guide to the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival. In this guide, the purpose is to take a look at the artist schedule hour by hour and recommend the which acts to see when. I’ll be doing this for each of the three days of the festival, for the next three days leading up to the festival. That will be followed by daily recaps of all the action happening in Union Park in Chicago each day. In case you missed it, yesterday I started off Pitchfork Music Festival week with an Artist Guide, providing web links, audio streams, mp3s and even a Spotify playlist to help get you more familiar with the full lineup of this year’s fest. It’s gonna be a great one, I suspect. Now then, let’s get right into this preview of Day 1 (Friday) at the Pitchfork Music Festival. If you’re going, I hope you find this guide helpful!
Welcome to Pitchfork Music Festival Week! For the next seven days, you can count on more coverage of the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival on this site than you can shake a stick at. What does “shake a stick at” mean and how does it apply in this context? It doesn’t matter! Just go with the flow. Anyways, as a grand introduction to this whole week’s worth of coverage, I wanted to help you get fully acquainted with all of the artists performing at this year’s festival. There’s somewhere around 45 or so (I’m too lazy to count), and depending on your tastes there’s a chance you might fall in love with all of them. Of course you’ll never know unless you listen to all of their music and judge for yourself. With that in mind, click past the jump to see a listing for every artist on the lineup, complete with links to their websites, songs you can stream on Soundcloud or Spotify (depending on your preference), and in some cases mp3s or full album/mixtape downloads. It’s quite comprehensive, and I hope you’ll discover something new and great as a result. The listings are ordered by day and (technically) set time, though I haven’t listed the set times here. Additionally, if you’d like to find almost every artist put together in a handy playlist that’s organized by genre (for flow purposes), look no further than this Spotify mix that I put together. Check back tomorrorw for the start of the day-by-day preview guide, where I’ll suggest what bands to see each hour of each day. And I promise that WILL include set times.
Japandroids like to refer to themselves as a touring band. They’ve said in many an interview that if they could get away with it, they’d simply tour all the time and never actually record new albums. As such, in the last year since the release of their second record Celebration Rock, they’ve been around the world and back a couple times. They’ve played shows in Chicago at least three, if not four times in the last 365 days and show no signs of slowing down. Crowds love the band, and in turn the band loves the crowds. Their albums purposely sound like their live performances, because they design them that way to achieve maximum quality control. A Japandroids show at this point has become less of a concert and more of an event. You don’t just go to a Japandroids show, you experience it, and that requires preparation. They’re such a thrilling live act, especially for a duo, that they can sell out the 1,100 capacity Metro well in advance, even though they already came through town a few months earlier. The people that love this band truly LOVE them, and their dedication shows when they turn up in force time and time again.
Before getting to the intense and dynamic show that Japandroids put on this hot summer night in mid-June, I want to turn the attention to the band that opened the show, Crocodiles. If you’ve never heard a Crocodiles song before, you’re missing out on one of the great lo-fi, garage rock revivalist bands of this current era. That’s intended to be a compliment, however this band hasn’t exactly won the affection of a lot of critics as they draw unfavorable comparisons to The Jesus and Mary Chain and Echo & the Bunnymen. The basic reaction from many seems to be that they’re a one trick pony who have found their sound and plan to stick with it, each new album providing slight variations on the same melodies. It’s not hard to agree with that sentiment, however the real truth is that this band has been refining and focusing their talents with each new album on a quest to be the best at what they do. Their situation (and sound, actually) remind me a lot of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, another band that’s been critically misunderstood over the years, but who have managed to establish a strong, loyal fan base anyways. We can’t help what attracts us to a particular sound, even when we know plenty of others will disagree with us. While I’ve heard their first three albums as well as their fourth coming out in August and can definitely verify that they keep getting better on record, what I can’t tell you is if the same thing is true for their live shows. This was my first time seeing Crocodiles perform live, and in that regard I can proclaim it a rousing success. The band sounds absolutely great, not only accurately recreating the sound of their records, but doing so with additional energy and aplomb. The four guys on stage appeared to be having a good time, and with a set that featured old favorites and a couple of intense new ones, the crowd seemed to soak in that same vibe. While most were undoubtedly there to see Japandroids, there were some that already knew what Crocodiles was capable of and wanted to make sure they were present for that set as well. Those such as myself who had never seen them before but had heard good things were pleasantly surprised at how accurate the rumors truly were. These guys remain a band to keep an eye on, with the thought that maybe sometime soon they’ll be able to sell out a venue like Metro all by themselves.
Buy Crocodiles’ Endless Flowers
The first thing I realized when watching Japandroids launch into their song “Adrenaline Nightshift” at the start of their set was that this would mark the very first time I’ve ever seen the band perform a full set. I’d seen them three times prior to this, but each took place at a music festival or radio session, meaning they had limited time and could essentially only play half-sets. Granted, those 45-minute half-sets were really damn good, but suddenly now that they’ve got 90+ minutes to do whatever they’d like the focus automatically turns away from the immediate new album concerns and instead towards the breadth of their seemingly small catalogue. But despite the fact that they’ve only got two full lengths to their names, they made sure to give each one its due while also tossing in non-album cuts and covers to keep it spicy. So while there was “Heart Sweats” and “Wet Hair” off the Post-Nothing record (those song titles also describe how the band and crowd would feel by the end), there was the great inclusion of “Art Czars” and the brief reference back to “Press Corps” off the band’s little-known 2007 EP All Lies which also later appeared on the Japandroids compilation No Singles. So there was quite a bit of diversity in the set list, with the requisite Celebration Rock cuts like “The Nights of Wine and Roses” and “The House That Heaven Built” fitting right in next to “Rockers East Vancouver” and such.
As great as it is to see a crowd sing and sometimes shout along with the band, the set list itself didn’t matter nearly as much as the band’s blitzkrieg approach in their live shows. See, the duo of Brian King and David Prowse make a whole lot of noise and perform with a whole lot of force to the point where you refuse to believe that they didn’t leave everything out there on the stage that night. No wonder they love performing so much, because the crowds soak it up like what they’re doing is magic. In many ways it is, because so few bands play with such intensity and vigor. Well, maybe passion is the right word to use. How anyone can get excited about performing almost the same set of songs night after night is a mystery to me, but in the end it probably has more to do with the fans than anything else. They want to make sure that when you walk away from their show, you’re going to have a lasting memory of it etched into your brain. Hopefully all the moshing and other intense movements the crowd was doing for most of the show didn’t give anyone brain damage (though if you ask me, if you’re in a mosh pit your brain might already be damaged). Normally those sorts of things are frowned upon at shows, but as King himself yelled at the start of the set, “Tonight there are no rules!” There were even a couple of people that climbed over the barricade and took stage dives, because I’m sure the band is used to it by now. Overall it wound up being a crazy yet incredible evening of live music, and one I certainly won’t soon forget. If you have the chance to see either Japandroids or Crocodiles perform live, jump at the opportunity, for the very reasons I just described.
“To make tonight’s show a more intimate experience, the artist has asked that you refrain from taking photos, talking or opening and closing the venue doors during the performance. We will also be closing the bar at the back of the venue in the next few minutes for the same reason, so please purchase any drinks you might want during the show now. Thank you.” That was the announcement made shortly before Rhye took the stage on a rainy Thursday night in April at Schubas. In case you hadn’t heard the message, there were also signs posted all over the venue that said “The artist requests no photos during tonight’s performance.” As such, there is/are no photo(s) accompanying this show review. Ironically, there are very few photos of the duo known as Rhye in existence, live or otherwise. They’re a band somewhat built on mystery, at least in the sense that they’d rather let the music speak for itself rather than bombard you with other associations to attach to it. For their live performance, the last thing you should have been doing was staring at the stage through the screen of your smartphone. That creates an invisible wall between the artist and the audience member. The goal is to devote your full attention to what’s coming out of the speakers, and it’s similarly distracting if you run to the restroom, chat with a friend or go order more drinks. Rhye make intimate, bedroom music that’s earned plenty of comparisons to Sade and The xx, and it’s difficult to achieve the intended effect if your head is somehwhere else.
So from my vantage point towards the front of the venue, everyone complied with the band’s instructions (except that one guy standing next to me, who snapped a very quick photo during the final song). Was the show better as a result? I’d say absolutely. As much as I try to respect and give all my attention to the stage, most shows I snap a few photos and might grab a drink mid-set if I’m close to the bar. With a hushed room and nobody standing in front of me with their phone or digital camera in the air, I didn’t get annoyed a single time during the full 50 minute set, which is an accomplishment. Much more accomplished however was what happened on stage. The lights were set to a minimum level, to the point where an exit sign next to the stage was the brightest thing in the room, and there were lit candles everywhere from atop amps to the stage floor. It was a wonder nobody kicked one over. Rhye is the duo of Mike Milosh and Robin Hannibal, but in a live setting it’s only Milosh with five backing musicians because Hannibal doesn’t tour. It made for a fascinating set up, primarily because the songs on the band’s debut album Woman are so minimalist in their construction. To have six people on stage for that ultimately meant expanding what was already there. That wound up applying to not only the overall sound, but the length of the compositions as well. “Last Dance” got a fun little trombone solo thrown in during the bridge that not only got the crowd riled up, but the rest of the band too. Milosh signaled his keyboard player to keep playing at the end of “Major Minor Love,” which he did for a bit while the rest of the band looked on amused. The strings and drums each got their own times to shine during the bridge of “Open” as well, really hammering home the point Milosh made between songs mid-set: that hearing extended or different takes on songs you’re familiar with brings them to life in new and interesting ways. It keeps the audience and the band on their toes, which is really what you want out of every live show.
Not everything about Rhye’s set worked. It felt like there was a key misstep relatively early in the set during “The Fall,” one of the band’s key singles and most upbeat tracks. What could have turned into a small dance party instead stumbled when the tempo of the song purposely slowed to a crawl for its midsection. Basically, one minute there was a good groove going, the next it was a stoic ballad, and the next the crowd was hit with smelling salts as the pace returned to normal. Why such a choice was made is a mystery, though it’s likely for the same reasons the extended jam sessions on other tracks happened. Everything else, including “3 Days,” “Shed Some Blood” and “Hunger,” were perfectly situated in the set and sounded fantastic. Because they’ve only got one album, things started to get a bit dicey towards the end. There was no opening band, which also helped give everyone the feeling like there should be so much more to go. Alas, after about 40 minutes Milosh candidly apologized to the crowd as they cheered for more, explaining that they were out of songs and were going to have to wrap things up without an encore. Technically speaking he was wrong, because the band never played “One of Those Summer Days” or the title track “Woman,” but to be fair those are also the slowest and weakest tracks on the debut album. They closed things out with the song “It’s Over,” which is actually a song off of Milosh’s 2006 solo record Meme, which I’m sure most if not all of the crowd hadn’t heard before. It was a perfectly lovely ballad, but also felt a little out of place and lacking the pure beauty and charm that the Rhye tracks have going for them.
For a show that was so restrictive/demanding in its requests for audience behavior, it’d be easy to think that you weren’t allowed to have any fun or that it might be difficult to have fun given the circumstances. It really was the band’s candor and Milosh’s moderately comedic banter between songs that put everyone more at ease and helped turn the show from stoic intimacy to playful intimacy. If you ask me, that’s the best kind of intimacy. And that voice! There were audible gasps from the crowd the moment Milosh first started to sing, because it seemed so unlikely that the voice you hear on the record could be replicated with such ease. He made it all look and sound pretty effortless, and beyond that the rest of the band would occasionally add five-part harmonies that made perfect use of the venue, the atmosphere and the quiet, attentive crowd. It’s hard to believe that this band can sound so great and so professional when they’ve only played a handful of live shows in their existence. With any luck, there will be hundreds more to come, complete with fans who understand that even music’s most intimate moments can be charming and great when performed live so long as you’re respectful and attentive of the material.
Buy Rhye’s debut album Woman from Amazon
Set List
Verse
3 Days
The Fall
Shed Some Blood
Last Dance
Major Minor Love
Open
Hunger
It’s Over (Milosh cover)
To be perfectly honest, I’m not the biggest Darwin Deez fan in the world. I don’t dislike the guy (whose real name is Darwin Smith), and I think he makes some remarkably addictive and sometimes goofy indie pop songs through a simplistic lens, but there are times to me when it seems like he’s trying a little too hard. That’s much more apparent on his second album Songs for Imaginative People, which beefs up his sound a bit more but forgoes some of the lighthearted and silly elements that made his self-titled debut such a treat. Obviously he wants to move beyond whatever labels that have plagued him in the past, however if he’s not true to himself then you get those forced situations that turn people off. That serious, all-business side of him thankfully failed to show itself during his show at Schubas Tavern this past Friday night. It was clear right from the get-go that Deez and his band had every intention of putting on an off-the-charts fun show, and I’m pleased to report that they did just that.
It started with a choreographed dance number. All four guys in the band stood across the stage and grooved to a beat in unison for about 30 seconds, before going to pick up their instruments. The crowd loved it, so of course they’d do it a couple more times during the set. Consider them little interludes connecting the songs, because there certainly wasn’t a whole lot of between song banter. Deez didn’t need it though, because in many ways his songs said everything he wanted them to anyways. It was a very smart set list, split almost evenly between his two full lengths to date, and he hit all the necessary highlights. The crowd went nuts for classic cuts like “Radar Detector” and “DNA,” but moments like “You Can’t Be My Girl” and the ballad “Redshift” off the new album struck like lightning too. That a weaker track or two like “Good to Lose” and “All in the Wrist” popped up and didn’t really detract from the overall success of the set either suggests they improve in a live setting or are raised to a higher level thanks to the songs that surround them. Whatever the reason for that, things went very smoothly overall and there was rarely a lag in the energy or mood on stage or in the crowd. When they weren’t doing choreographed dances, most of the band members were bouncing around in the small space of the Schubas stage. Everyone in the audience was in a tight spot too, as the show was sold out, but that didn’t stop the toe taps, hip thrusts and alcohol-infused sing-alongs. You really couldn’t have asked for much more out of a Darwin Deez show, and why would you? The guy may not be the most brilliant musician in the world, but he knows how to leave you wanting more both on record and on stage. To many, that’s worth its weight in gold.
Darwin Deez – You Can’t Be My Girl
U.S. Tour Dates
March 26th – Pittsburgh, PA at Stage AE
March 27th – Cleveland, OH at Beachland Tavern
March 28th – Buffalo, NY at Soundlab
March 29th – Toronto, ON at The Garison
March 30th – Montreal, QC at Casa del Popolo
March 31st – Burlington , VT at Signal Kitchen
April 1st – Northampton, MA at Iron Horse
April 2nd – Allston at Brighton Music Hall
April 3rd – New York, NY at Bowery Ballroom
April 4th – Philadelphia, PA at First Unitarian Church
April 5th – Washington at Black Cat
St. Patrick’s Day is a big party holiday. Just take one good look in any bar and you’ll likely see it packed with people drinking green beer. Call it tradition or whatever else you want, so long as there’s an excuse to have kegs and eggs at eight in the morning. This year the holiday fell on a Sunday, which with most people having work the next morning, might make you think things would be calmer. Not so much the case, from my experience. The reason I bring it up is because many probably woke up with a severe hangover on Monday morning, which led to a long day of vowing to never drink again. That wasn’t my Monday, but for many of my friends it was. It’s telling that none of them were available to attend an evening of girls with guitars on Monday night at the Empty Bottle. The two bands on the bill were Supercute! and Kate Nash, a show that had been sold out for months in advance. Before the show, I found myself asking, “Is Kate Nash really that popular?” because honestly I know very few people that might consider themselves fans of hers, and those that are tend to reference her debut Made of Bricks more than anything else. She came out of the stew of Myspace discovered artists back in the mid-00s and sort of followed in Lily Allen’s footsteps but as more of a second or third fiddle to her “fuck you” pop star act. Yet here we are in 2013, and Allen is all but a faded memory having retired from music a couple years back. Meanwhile Nash presses onward and carves her own unique path and apparently a die hard fan base with it. I’ve liked all her records, but also tend to forget about them after six months. I went to the show for a couple reasons: 1) Nash has a new record out called Girl Talk that’s pretty good. 2) I’ve never seen her perform live before, and that’s something I’ve been meaning to do. 3) Supercute! was opening for her, and I was particularly interested in hearing what they would have to offer.
So let’s start with Supercute!, because they were first up for the evening. If you’ve never heard of Supercute! before, they’re an all-teen, all-girl four piece band from NYC. Their ages range from as young as 13 to as old as 19. The band was started in 2009 by Rachel Trachtenburg (who played drums as a member of The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players starting at age six) and her friend Julia Cumming. They wrote some goofy songs about candy and boys and such together using ukuleles and keyboards, which then led to performances and studio recordings. They’ve only expanded from there, adding new members and releasing singles and building a fan base show by show. Kate Nash has been a Trachtenburg family friend for several years, and she’s really taken Supercute! under her wing and done most of her touring with them in recent years. Nash also produced their debut album DON’T PoP MY BUBBLE, which will officially be released on June 11th. In their short 20 minute set, they mostly stuck to new material, though some of what qualifies as “new” they’ve been playing live for quite awhile now. Still, even the songs they’ve been performing for years got some new life injected into them thanks to their beefed up and more aggressive approach. The ukuleles and keyboards are still present, but play much less of a prominent role thanks to the addition of bass and electric guitars. Their songs, while often lighthearted and goofy, were also thrown a little off-kilter into a darker and more psychedelic territory. It’s fascinating because the girls have on these colorful outfits and makeup, and you’ll wind up with their songs in your head, but your brain is equal parts impressed and scared. While they’re clearly very talented and have a big future ahead of them, there’s also a weird sense of concern that maybe they’re growing up a little too fast. You could say they’re almost a modern-day version of The Runaways, though not as brash or sexualized. Their live show is solid, but also needs a little bit of fine tuning that will work itself out the more they tour. I may not be anywhere near the teenage girl demographic that Supercute! are aiming their music towards, but I still enjoyed and appreciated their set. Others in the 21+ crowd did as well, as I overheard a guy behind me say to his friend in near disbelief, “They were really good.” So chalk up another ringing endorsement for this band, they’re one to keep an eye on.
Watch the video for the new Supercute! single “Love Love Leave Love” off their forthcoming album
Buy Supercute! music on Bandcamp
Check out the Supercute! website
Oh, what can I say about Kate Nash? She’s an absolute delight, and it’s easy to understand why her fans are so devoted to her. Devoted to the point where they crowd funded her new album Girl Talk after she fell from the graces of a major label record deal for wanting to take a different direction with her sound. It’s eerily similar to what Amanda Palmer pulled off a few months earlier, though Nash didn’t get a million dollars in donations like Palmer did. In the end it really doesn’t matter how much money you make, so long as you make enough to keep doing what you want to do. And now the completely liberated Nash wants to play the bass and prove she can rock just as hard as any guy. To me, such an evolution was inevitable for her and I had no doubt she could pull it off, but apparently her label was looking for the next Regina Spektor instead of the next Courtney Love. Okay so she’s not a hot mess with more drugs and alcohol in her veins than blood, but she does have a similar vocal range to pull off syrupy sweet one moment and a rage-filled wail the next. That balance of dark and light is all over her new album, and in essence bled into her live show as well. She started with “Sister” and its deep bass line, which eventually turns into a raucous punk rock groove complete with some guttural vocal acrobatics. That sort of visceral and cutting anger boiled to the surface more than a few times throughout the show, in particular on songs like “I Just Love You More,” the old b-side “Model Behaviour” and her cover of FIDLAR’s “Cocaine,” which she retitled “Grrrl Gang.” Much of it was rather “riot grrrl” in nature, with Nash and her all-female backing band really making the most of their talents by taking even the poppiest songs and dirtying them up a bit. “Foundations” is the song that brought her to the attention to a lot of people in ’06-’07, and while she’s basically obligated to perform it at all her shows from here to eternity, she by no means has to keep it in the same bubblegum piano pop arena of the recorded version. The guitars don’t exactly transform the song into something entirely different, they just bring some additional forcefulness and speed that strips some of the charm but allows the lyrics to take more precedence, which is kind of nice.
Obviously a fair amount of the set list was populated with Girl Talk tracks as that’s what this tour is supporting, but everything else was a great mixture of older material, rarities and covers. Her take on “My Chinchilla,” a song by early ’90s Canadian indie pop girl band Cub (which counted Neko Case as a member for a brief period) felt like it was made for her to sing, as is blended so effortlessly with her charming and witty personality. Her between song banter was one of the show’s greatest highlights, and made all the more amusing by members of the crowd yelling things at her. “I just really want to touch you!” a girl at the front of the stage yelled. Nash thought for a moment, then wandered over to her and extended her arm, which the girl touched for a brief moment. “It’s been awhile [since somebody touched me],” Nash said with a wink after it happened. A couple songs later, someone (apparently a man) threw a bra on stage. “Oh wow, thank you,” Nash said sarcastically before following up with, “By the way, what kind of man brings a bra with him to throw on stage?” That’s the sort of vibe you get from people late on a Monday night after St. Patrick’s Day I guess. When she wasn’t busy interacting with the crowd, she also told funny stories like the time she accidentally knocked out one of her front teeth. But one of the things that really struck me was how she also took a few moments to talk about the charity she’s working with called Because I am a Girl. It’s a campaign designed to protect and empower women in developing countries and provide them opportunities they might not normally have to achieve their dreams. I am not a woman nor do I live in a developing country, but I admire the cause and hope you’ll consider donating. Hopefully you’ll also consider donating to the well-being of Kate Nash’s career by buying her new record or going to see a show. While I’ve always liked her music, I’ve never been as passionate about it as I have been with other artists. Now that I’ve seen her perform, I walked away an even bigger fan than I was going in. It’s always a great show when something like that happens.
Kate Nash – Death Proof (CSS Remix)
Watch the video for “Under-estimate the Girl”
Watch the video for “Death Proof”
Buy Girl Talk from Amazon
See the set list and tour dates after the jump!
Let’s go over a brief history of New Order. In the wake of the tragedy that was Ian CUrtis’ suicide, the remaining members of Joy Division decided to become New Order, with guitarist Bernard Sumner taking over the role of frontman. While Joy Division was an influential band that will likely remain legendary because of what they accomplished in a very short duration, it’s New Order that really earned their keep, building critical acclaim with music that was essentially ahead of its time. Many have followed in the sonic footsteps of New Order, but none have had been able to replicate their success in quite the same way. As is natural though, they were also a band of a very specific time and place. They were around for the explosion of the Manchester music scene, signed to Factory Records thanks to the insane brilliance of Tony Wilson, and were pretty much given free range to do whatever the hell they wanted with such opportunities. You can’t get a deal that great these days no matter what band you’re in. But the ’90s weren’t as kind to New Order, and they broke up in 1993 to pursue side projects. They got back together in 1998, made a couple more albums and did a couple more tours before breaking up again in 2007. This time, the breakup was more the result of bassist Peter Hook refusing to work with Sumner any more. Sumner subsequently announced he no longer wanted to make music under the New Order name. While all the other guys in the band (including Sumner) went on to do more side projects, Hook chose to dig up the past and began playing old Joy Division albums in full with a backing band he called The Light. While some were excited by that prospect, many felt that Hook was doing damage to Joy Division’s legacy and was clearly only out to make money off the corpse of Ian Curtis. Perhaps in part to protect their own legacy, New Order officially reformed in late 2011 without Hook, but with keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who had left the band more than 10 years earlier to become a wife and mother. They played a handful of shows in late 2011 and early 2012, but didn’t make it to North America until this fall, where a short tour rolled through Chicago this past Sunday night. Here is a recap of how things went.
It’s been seven years since New Order played a show in Chicago, and to my understanding that show was a little shaky. A friend told me the band was using lyrics sheets and teleprompters to get through most of the songs. When you’ve been around for a few decades, I guess your memory can get fuzzy. But lyrical crutches aside, I guess their energy was also a little down. One wonders if tensions between band members (or just Hook) caused problems back then. Whatever their issues might have been, they showed no signs of fatigue or bad memory during their show at the Aragon Sunday night. Every note was hit and every lyric was correct. Looking at reviews of the band’s show in New York a couple days earlier, that wasn’t entirely the case, as Sumner reportedly forgot some of the words to “Ceremony.” Better to have that happen though then to stand there reading off a sheet of paper. Even the best bands forget a verse or two now and then. But like all the other shows on this tour, New Order has been smart and stuck with a veritable greatest hits melange of career-spanning material. They spread it out generously over two hours, though it’s tough to top the first few songs that included “Crystal,” “Regret,” “Ceremony,” “Age of Consent” and “Love Vigilantes.” What’s just a little odd was the crowd reaction to those songs. While the band appeared to be in top form, in particular on “Ceremony,” it seemed exceptionally tough to get people motivated to dance. These were glossy ’80s hits that continue to provide inspiration to club DJs around the world, yet I saw very little movement outside of head bobbing in the early part of the set. Now once “Bizarre Love Triangle” landed about 10 songs in, it was like a switch flipped and everybody woke up. Suddenly even a deep cut off Power, Corruption & Lies like “5 8 6” was met with some sharp dance moves. Of course it was all building to something, and the final 1-2 punch of “Blue Monday” and “Temptation” sent everyone into a frenzy the likes of which I haven’t seen since LCD Soundsystem a couple years ago. For those final 15 minutes, the disco ball dropped and I think New Order shined as brightly as they did in their ’80s heyday.
For all the critical tongue lashing I give to Peter Hook for playing Joy Division albums in full these days, when New Order chose to play an encore of Joy Division songs it didn’t feel as cheap. After all, they’ve been throwing a couple Joy Divison songs into their sets for decades now. They’re always used as toppers on an already great show, and always in expressed tribute to Ian Curtis. They present the songs with reverence so it doesn’t come off as cheap exploitation. After all, most of them were as much a part of Joy Division as Curtis was, it’s only his trademark baritone that’s missing from the proceedings. But my what a baritone it was. Sumner can’t quite get there no matter how hard he tries. Their rendition of “Heart and Soul” was okay, but the crowd didn’t react well to it, probably because it was a deep cut on Closer. “Atmosphere” was triumphant in its own way, and the background video did draw some big cheers. Of course it was only fitting to close the night with “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” and it gave everyone the opportunity to dance around one last time. With that, the band waved goodnight to their adoring fans. Everyone left with a smile on their face and sweat on their bodies, which is a testament that a good night was had by all. The absence of Hook may have given many the impression that this wasn’t a legitimate New Order show, but anybody that has seen the band since he left will likely tell you that Tom Chapman is a solid if not great replacement for him. New Order’s future is likely that of Pavement’s or At the Drive-In’s in recent years – they will tour for a set period of time to play the hits, and then once again vanish into the ether as everyone returns to their side projects. It’s probably better that way, to keep their legacy as strong as possible. Whatever they choose to do next, it’s just refreshing to know that a veteran band like this hasn’t really lost a step, and that their music still feels as relevant today as it did when it was first created.
Set List
Elegia
Crystal
Regret
Ceremony
Age of Consent
Love Vigilantes
Here to Stay
Your Silent Face
Close Range
Bizarre Love Triangle
5 8 6
True Faith
The Perfect Kiss
Blue Monday
Temptation
ENCORE
Heart and Soul (Joy Division)
Atmosphere (Joy Division)
Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)
Friday, September 21st was officially the last day of summer 2012. You wouldn’t know it had you gone outside in Chicago though, as temperatures were in the 50s for most of the day and the skies were gray and rainy. Sometimes you just want one more warm and sunny day though, before it’s too late. In spite of the weather, life goes on and good things continue to happen in other aspects of our lives. A show where the bill is Atlas Genius, School of Seven Bells and Silversun Pickups sounds pretty dynamite, right? Well, that tour made its way to Chicago on Friday night, stopping at the Aragon Ballroom for some end of summer fun. Here’s a quick look at how things went.
Have you heard of Atlas Genius yet? If not, now’s probably the time to start paying attention to them. Their debut EP Through the Glass has already yielded a budding hit with the song “Trojans,” and a debut album is in the works for early 2013. As a band on the rise, of course they have to pay their dues, though fortunately for them that means playing at the Aragon to a couple thousand people rather than at a small club with only a couple hundred. The peril of being on a big tour though is always that you go on first, and with this being an all ages show, that meant hitting the stage at about 7pm. The average start time for a concert in Chicago is probably about 9pm, and even then a venue typically isn’t full until an hour or two later. So the Aragon was close to half full when Atlas Genius started their set, which for all practical purposes was pretty decent. They started with “Back Seat” off their EP and powered through a few new songs before very naturally ending with “Trojans.” They were arguably the most energetic and entertaining band of the entire night, playing with the sort of carefree joy that young and hungry artists have if they’re doing it right. Sometimes you will show up early and encounter a band that’s not quite ready for primetime but still has a little spark that suggests great potential for the future. In the relatively short time they’ve been around, Atlas Genius have exceeded reasonable expectations. They worked the crowd at the Aragon with charm and enthusiasm, and they responded in kind. It’s just a shame there weren’t more people around to witness it.
One of the more fascinating dichotomies of this particular show was that while Atlas Genius has only one EP and a budding radio hit, School of Seven Bells have three full length albums and zero radio hits. In this increasingly digital and mp3 world, you’d think such stats wouldn’t mean much, but it turns out more young people are listening to terrestrial radio than you might think. There were large portions of the crowd that had at least heard of Atlas Genius but didn’t know School of Seven Bells. It created that much more of a challenge for SVIIB to win people over. The enthusiasm didn’t quite carry over into their set, and it didn’t help that they started a little shaky. “Windstorm” is actually a single of theirs and certainly isn’t one of their weaker tracks, but it trod a midtempo ground that left the audience at attention but not exactly inspired. That frontwoman Alejandra Deheza and guitarist Benjamin Curtis stayed pretty glued to one spot for the entire set certainly didn’t give you much to look at on stage either. I’ve seen SVIIB a couple times in the last few years, always at venues about a third the size of the Aragon, and those shows were far more visceral and inspired than what they were dishing out this particular Friday night. Perhaps it was the set list or the absence of Alejandra’s sister Claudia, or even the sheer size and poor sound of the venue that caused things to be off. Maybe they just needed some time to warm up, too. After the first few songs, things started to click in place by the time “Lafaye” hit. Their final few songs were more beat-heavy and pulsated with an intense energy that started to get a lot of heads bobbing in the crowd. They finished with the song “Half Asleep,” their only nod to their excellent debut album Alpinisms, and there was a certain irony to the title. After spending much of the set with a positively lethargic audience, they were finally able to bring many out of that comatose state and into semi-consciousness. So they had that going for them, which was nice.
School of Seven Bells – The Night
School of Seven Bells – Lafaye
When it comes to headliner status, the conditions are almost always just right. That is, the place is fully packed and there’s one act you know everybody is there to see. In this case it was Silversun Pickups, who like School of Seven Bells have three records to their name, but unlike School of Seven Bells have a handful of radio hits to back them up. If you haven’t heard songs like “Lazy Eye” or “Panic Switch” on your local radio station, then perhaps you heard them in a TV commercial or on a movie soundtrack, because they’ve kind of been everywhere. Back when they were first starting out, people compared them to the ’90s version of The Smashing Pumpkins, reasoning that if Billy Corgan hadn’t strayed from that path he was on to go more psychedelic it’s what the Pumpkins would sound like today. Considering how successful Silversun Pickups have been thus far, such a reference feels pretty apt. The size of the crowd on Friday night seemed to be a testament to that success too, because if the show wasn’t sold out it sure looked like a sell out. Frontman Brian Aubert marveled at how many people came out, particularly because the last time they played the Aragon it was only about 75% filled. That sort of humility and overall kindness towards the crowd actually went a long way as a counterbalance to the ferocity of their songs. With bassist Nikki Monninger sidelined for the moment while she’s pregnant with twins, Sarah Negahdari from The Happy Hollows filled in for what was her very first time in Chicago. That seemed strange to me because I thought The Happy Hollows have toured nationally at least a couple times in recent years, but whatever, she seemed genuinely excited to be there and the crowd made her feel more than welcome. After starting with the opening track “Skin Graph” off their new record Neck of the Woods, the band peppered much of their set with the hits people clearly wanted to hear. “The Royal We,” “Little Lover’s So Polite” and their latest single “Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings)” all showed up early on, quickly driving the crowd into a frenzy. Aubert moved around the stage with his guitar whenever he wasn’t locked behind a microphone, which also lent the show some extra energy that a rather pretty array of rainbow colored lighting couldn’t otherwise do. Overall it was about what you’d expect from a Silversun Pickups live show, and that’s not a bad thing. Better to meet expectations rather than fall short of them. The band has definitely improved with time, and Aubert has grown as a performer and ringleader too. Of course there’s always room for improvement, but for where they are in their careers right now they’re doing just fine on stage. Nobody walked out of the Aragon at the end of the night disappointed. Even the rain had the good sense to go away.
Now that all the written pieces are out of the way, I wanted to share with you the collection of photos that I took at this year’s Lollapalooza. Before we dive in, I want to make sure you’re aware of a couple things. First and foremost, I was not given a press photography pass for the festival. That means I didn’t have the opportunity to stand right next to the stages and zoom in to get photos of sweat dripping off the faces of every artist that was up there. When you see Jack White looking like an ant in one of these photos, that was taken from pretty far back. I like to think that most of these photos are still reasonably decent though, and I tried my best to only select the ones that worked. Secondly, what I’m posting below is only a small sample of the total photos I took over the duration of the weekend. If you want to see the all the photos, head over to Facebook for day-by-day sets. Also, if you’d like to gain a little perspective on what bands I saw and the good/bad of it all, simply click this link to see all of my coverage of Lollapalooza 2012. Thanks! Photos are after the jump.
This was Lollapalooza’s eighth year in Chicago, and in turn my eighth year in a row attending it. I’ve seen it transform from a tiny little four stage festival on one half of Grant Park to a monstrous behemoth of a fest complete with eight stages and multiple blocks of park space. I’ve stood through oppressive heat, severe thunderstorms, a lack of water and restrooms, gate crashers, mud pits, clinically insane crowds/bands, and those tiny little rocks that always seem to get into your shoes. This year introduced a new slice of fun: the total festival evacuation. And here I thought I’d seen everything. In spite of all those things, I’ve managed to have a whole lot of fun and get inspired by music all over again. It’s become a very well run festival, which I suppose is thanks in no small part to a generous volunteer staff and the huge revenues they make from it every year. Are there things that could still be improved? Sure, but it’s more minor stuff that likely isn’t a pressing concern for anyone. I’ll outline some of that, along with the best and worst music of the weekend right now in my Lollapalooza 2012 Winners and Losers.
