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Thursday, July 26, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS

Cloudy, ominous weather wel-
comed me to Pitchfork Music Fes-
tival this year, and bracing myself 
for the worst I strapped up in a 
raincoat and boots for the first day 
of the fest. But what was originally 
daunting proved simply unreliable. 
The weather circled through cloud, 
rain and shine all weekend while 
artists dealt with wet equipment 
and herds of fans waiting patiently 
in the rain to see them. But this 
erratic weather didn’t do much to 
dissuade fans. If anything, the rain 
that poured down onto us during 
the Tame Impala set Friday night 
simply made their backlit bodies 
and light show all the more spec-
tacular as beads of water could be 
seen streaming through the lights. 
A festival dominated by female-
fronted bands and artists, Pitchfork 
stands out from more mainstream 
festivals in its emphasis on female 
and queer artists, especially this 
year. The diversity of the artists, 
genre, and its celebration of small-
er names alongside bigger ones is 
what makes this festival unique; it’s 
relative tameness and inclusiveness 
of an older, less wreckless crowd 
is what makes it still exciting and 
bearable by day three. In the last 
year the festival improved upon its 
layout and welcomed more women 
than ever before, and despite last 
minute cancellations from artists 
such as Earl Sweatshirt, the festival 
carried on day after day as thou-
sands gathered in Union Park to 
celebrate music, drink excessively 

and participate in the hedonistic 
rituals that accompany music and 
those who value it more than their 
own life.
Courtney Barnett
Steve Hyden claimed in his 
recent novel that Courtney Barnett 
is the best rock song writer of our 
decade. Her lyrics and unsympa-
thetic electric guitar deliver what 
the Sex Pistols or the Rolling Stones 
did for a previous generation except 
with one noticeable difference: 
She’s a woman. And that makes her 
even fiercer. In an all black outfit 
accented by her blood red guitar, 
Barnett greeted her adoring crowd 
with the song “Hopefulessness” 
which is off her recent release 
Tell Me How You Really Feel. And 
immediately, her crowd went into a 
concentrated state of head-banging 
until the set concluded more than 
an hour later. It was as if I was 
standing on the precipice of a mosh 
pit the entire set; eagerly wanting 
to break out into a push and pull 
with other attendees, I held back. 
For while Barnett’s songs reach 
towards punk rock, they often 
hold back just a little bit and show 
restraint. This can be particularly 
heard on songs like “Charity” and 
“Small Poppies,” but becomes less 
clear on more aggressive songs like 
“Elevator Operator” and “Pedes-
trian at Best.” And perhaps this 
is what made the performance so 
thrilling. There was an element of 
unknown over what was going to 
happen next, whether the crowd 
would burst into a mosh pit of con-
tinue banging their heads along, 
holding back with every bit of 

strength so to fully take in the rock 
god Barnett has established herself 
to be.
Blood Orange
Seconds into Blood Orange’s set 
on Saturday, I gasped. The famil-
iar notes of Sky Ferierra’s “Every-
thing is Embarrassing” echoed 
through the field as Dev Hynes, 
Blood Orange’s lead singer, walked 
on stage and immediately dove into 
the 2012 hit he co-wrote with the 
punk rocker. From this, the set only 
grew exponentially better. Deliv-
ering familiar tracks like “Best to 
You” as well as hints of new music 
from their upcoming album Negro 
Swan, Hynes and his accompanying 
band put on one of the best perfor-
mances of the weekend, drawing 
in a rapturous crowd and greet-
ing cheering fans with sly smiles 
and matched energy. Closing with 
two of his biggest hits, “You’re Not 
Good Enough” and “E.V.P.” Hynes 
captivated the huge crowd that had 
gathered around the Green Stage, 
the largest stage at the festival.
Japanese Breakfast
Along with Blood Orange, Japa-
nese Breakfast was my favorite per-
formance of the weekend. Between 
their after show Saturday night at 
Thalia Hall in Chicago and the Sun-
day afternoon performance on the 
Blue Stage, Michelle Zauner cap-
tured my heart. For while Psycho-
pomp and Soft Sounds from Another 
Planet are gorgeous albums in 
their own right, hearing the songs 
performed live and watching as 
Zauner delivers them with fierce 
energy and enthusiasm not easily 
located in the recordings is a com-

pletely different thing. Yielding her 
electric guitar and egging on her 
fellow bandmates, Zauner pushed 
through hits such as “In Heaven,” 
“Everybody Wants to Love You,” 
and “Boyish” and left me in a dis-
traught state — I wasn’t sure if I 
wanted to dance or cry, so I did both 
at the same time. Closing with a 
cover of the Cranberries’ “Dreams” 
and the song “Machinist” off of 
their second studio album, Japa-
nese Breakfast left the crowd in 
awe. Zauner is a bubble of happi-
ness on stage. One wouldn’t know 
the grief that inspired and under-
cuts Psychopomp and Soft Sounds 
unless they’ve read about their 
background elsewhere (one was 
written in the wake of her mother’s 
cancer diagnosis, and the next in 
the wake of her mother’s death). 
The juxtaposition of this heaviness 
with Zauner’s lighthearted deliv-
ery is perhaps why I felt so struck 
by the band’s performances. In the 
end, it proves to be a catharsis not 
just for the crowd, but for Zauner 
too at each and every tour date.
Noname
Last September I was lucky 
enough to see Noname open for Ms. 
Lauryn Hill at the Royal Oak Music 
Theatre. At the time, it had only 
been a month since she released 
her debut studio album Telefone, 
and while it would grow to garner 
widespread praise from multiple 
critics, it only had a small follow-
ing at the time. Six months later, 
she would come to Michigan once 
again, this time headlining her own 
show at the El Club with opener 
Ravyn Lenae. By this time, her 
stint as Lauryn Hill’s opener would 
become a verse in rapper Smino’s 
song “Amphetamine”: “Said I’m 
moving too fast, slow down, slow 
down / Opened up for Lauryn 
Hill, woah now, woah now.” In 
six months she had grown from a 
small Chicago rapper featured on 
Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap to a 
woman being called the “musical 
reincarnation of Lauryn Hill.” And 
while her music does lend itself to 
this comparison, her stage pres-
ence is much more reserved than 
the mother of modern hip hop. “I 
wanted to do one of my new songs, 
but then I smoked and forgot the 
lyrics,” the rapper said, after stop-
ping her band two minutes into the 
first song. “Do you mind if I do it a 
cappella?” She’s irresistibly charm-
ing, if untraditional in her delivery 
of her music. The set continued on 
in this vein, with her occasionally 
stopping to start a song again from 
the beginning or guiding the audi-
ence in the harmonies for a song 
from her upcoming album Room 25. 

With 20 minutes left in her set, she 
brought out guest after guest from 
Ravyn Lenae to Saba to Smino and 
while they brought a boost of ener-
gy to her reserved stage demeanor, 
she still remained the star.
(Sandy) Alex G
(Sandy) Alex G can be an ass-
hole. A primary feature of his per-
formances is often the antagonistic 
way he treats his crowd, asking for 
requests from his adoring audi-
ences and then blowing them off to 
play a hardly recognizable deep cut. 
This performance was no excep-
tion with the singer-songwriter 
barely addressing the crowd during 
his brutally short 45 minute set. But 
for some reason, I, and all the other 
fans gathered around the Blue 
Stage Sunday evening, still dwelled 
in every second he bestowed on 
us. Throwing out the melody to 
Weezer’s “Island in the Sun” dur-
ing soundcheck and then blasting 
the Rascal Flatt’s cover of “Life is 
a Highway” before taking the stage 
with his band, (Sandy) Alex G went 
right into a rendition of “Kute” and 
“Forever” before even addressing 
the audience. Strangely enough, 
Alex G played several songs off 
of Beach Music, his 2015 studio 
release, and at one point Michelle 
Zauner joined him on stage to per-
form the popular “Brite Boy,” a per-
sonal favorite of mine that hasn’t 
made a setlist at his concert in quite 
a while. And unlike the reserve fans 
showed during Courtney Barnett’s 
set on Friday, when her crowd 
remained stationary despite her 
rock songs begging for a mosh pit to 
form, the second Alex screamed the 
first lyric to his aggressive, punk-
heavy “Brick,” the crowd broke 
into a mosh pit, his dedicated fans 
throwing themselves at each other 
in a religious fervor, only stopping 
after a girl went down after get-
ting elbowed in the nose. After a 
15 song performance, the set ended 
suddenly with Alex G announcing 
that despite what he thought, there 
was no more time for another song. 
While the crowd bemoaned this 
and chanted “one more song!” Alex 
G fittingly approached the mic and 
screamed “Shut up, and thank you” 
before finally departing the stage.
Ms. Lauryn Hill
The most popular topic of dis-
cussion 
Sunday 
evening 
was 
throwing out guesses as to how 
many minutes would pass before 
Ms. Lauryn Hill would finally take 
the stage. Twenty minutes? Thirty? 
Would she come at all?

Pitchfork 2018: Striking 
performance, bad weather

FESTIVAL REVIEW

SEAN LANG/Michigan Daily

NATALIE ZAK
Daily Arts Writer

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

