Pizza Recap #p4k2k16: Put the Pitchforks Away

With classes and Pygmalion just around the corner, it's time for a retrospective look on Pitchfork Festival 2016 (and summer music festivals in general). It was a hot and humid summer in Chicago, and I'm a cold-blooded animal, aside from my need to use the regular application of live music to thermoregulate. The entire photo catalog from the weekend is available here, but you can check out our favorite photos from Pitchfork weekend taken by your friendly pizza staff photographer (me) after the break!

It is every festival goer's dream to have an outfit as fresh as this man's.

Friday

The Range chopping up some samples

I arrived late in the day on Friday, after work, because not every festival goer has a glorious empty summer schedule. I spent a lot of time wandering out the grounds, checking out the vendors and the legendary House of Vans (the legends were true), and saw Carly Rae Jepsen take the entire festival grounds back to 2012 with a live performance of Call Me Maybe. Eventually, in a post-Carly daze, I stumbled onto the set that was the highlight of the day for me--The Range. Promoting his new album, Potential, and mixing in found sounds from a variety of obscure and vintage youtube viral videos, the set was bizarre in every sense of the word and a treat to listen to. This was the set with the least amount of talking all weekend, so I definitely enjoyed myself.

Saturday

BJ the Chicago Kid puts his soul in the sticks

Digable Planets, Savages, Blood Orange, and others got the crowd energized, but it wasn't until the hometown hero BJ the Chicago Kid got on stage that I saw people dancing in the audience and generally losing themselves in the music. Backed up by a stellar smooth guitar and DJ, BJ went through R&B and hip-hop from his extensive personal catalog, and banged on the drums himself during several tracks. His first album came out just in time to be fully represented at Pitchfork, and the people of Chicago gave a lot of love to their prodigal son. I quickly ran to get a peek at Super Furry Animals and Jlin, the latter featuring an entire impromptu break dancing showcase on stage, but it would be an understatement to say that the people were a little let down by Brian Wilson. Although billed as "Brian Wilson performing Pet Sounds", the only disappointing set of the weekend was more like "Brian Wilson Sits On Stage and Mumbles Sometimes With a Cover Band". Thankfully, the best set of the weekend took place immediately afterward.

ANDERSON .Paak deep in thought

ANDERSON .Paak, backed by the talented Free Nationals, ripped up the Blue Stage and left nothing behind. All the people's favorite tracks, from his features doing production on Kanye's albums to singles from his new album Malibu, were there, and the man taunted myself and the other photographers in the press pit by jumping all over the monitors and waving at us. Quite possibly the best set I've ever seen at Pitchfork; the hype was palpable.

not pictured: Sufjan violently smashing a banjo all over the stage

The most well-attended artist of the weekend was, of course, Sufjan Stevens, the indy guitarist and cute boy extraordinaire. His show was so crowded that this photographer could barely snap any pictures in the pit, and major props need to be given to his band's costume designers, because he went from full Giant Swan Outfit to SK8R BOI in less than 30 seconds. I'm a very biased Sufjan fan because I, like many people in the audience, would be happiest if he just played the entirety of Illinoise and then left, but to his credit, he managed to keep the people entertained enough with new material that they didn't charge the stage and play the album themselves. I was hoping to see Holly Herndon close the evening, but her laptop dramatically died on stage right before the show was scheduled to begin. That's alright, though, because I managed to catch a late night performance by a one-of-a-kind guitarist:

Memorizing lyrics is for young people

Not technically part of Pitchfork, but the pioneering and peerless Swans performed a show at Lincoln Hall late Saturday night, and I was lucky enough to see them with my best friend before he left our fine state to start grad school in Texas. For those of you unfamiliar with Swans, they are the original Never Getting Back Together Band, with the leader Michael Gira famously telling his band prior to a 15-year breakup "you fucking people make me sick". They play heavy metal riffs with slow, depressing, droning vocals, and repetitive buildup and breakdown on multiple guitars, basses, and tablas. The opener Okkyung Lee, a contemporary avant-garde cellist (yes), set the stage by playing some frenetic and disturbing cello that sounded like she was attempting to saw the strings off her bow. At around midnight, the troupe of old rockers captained by Gira took the stage, and proceeded to commit sonic genocide on the ear drums of the audience. There was no dancing and barely any talking during the entire show, other than Gira thanking the crowd after the performance and doing an informal meet-and-greet in the bar at 2am. The entire audience shuffled out in stunned silence and went home to presumably stare at the ceiling and think dark thoughts. 10/10.

Sunday

The year is 2016. Space Jazz is the only music we have left.

Led by the esteemed composer, band leader, conductor, and saxophonist Marshall Allen, the Sun Ra Arkestra took the entire audience somewhere beyond Jupiter, which is not bad work for an afternoon. The members of the band were probably the oldest people at the festival, but they absolutely brought down the house, even without their namesake. The eternal reign of the Arkestra continues, and they made me and many other audience members wish that we could hear nothing but jazz all weekend. Luckily we didn't have long to wait, because Kamasi Washington brought his own sweet saxophone goodness to the stage later that very same day, and that was all before dinner.

It's hard to be happy when bae keeps putting it down on you

To close out the day, Jeremih did a birthday concert, featuring some Chicago locals, sweet booty dancers, and Chance the Rapper. You know, standard birthday stuff. 50 Cent was not in attendance, but the entire crowd sang along to his part, and the Chicago rapper also performed a bunch of fan favorites, including Birthday Sex and a live remix of Pass Dat, and generally kept the vibe alive. The surprise appearance by Chance was unfortunately after the press pit was closed, otherwise this article would be nothing but pictures of him and <3 emojis. To make sure the ladies in the audience had more eye candy, a mostly-shirtless Miguel performed later that afternoon and sang sweet Spanish nothings to everyone in attendance. Closing out the evening were FKA Twigs and Oneohtrix Point Never, ensuring the angry electronic music quota for the weekend was met. After the festival came to a close, as is tradition, free sunglasses were given to everyone exiting the grounds. How great is that?

In some ways, I'm still recovering from #p4k2k16. Being able to represent the Pizza Family and lead the bougie life of a festival photographer if only for a weekend was the highlight of my summer, and unlike a lot of the gargantuan summer festivals, getting the full Pitchfork experience didn't take hundreds of dollars or an entire week. The festival didn't have the biggest headliners this year, but the oddities were the real treasure of the weekend, and I was exposed to many musicians and producers whose work I'm definitely going to follow in the future but I didn't know about beforehand, and isn't that the whole point? Now, we just need to wait for Pygmalion...

You can see all the pictures I took at the festival here.