this is dudical.

Hey all!

I went down to P4k fest this year to blog for the wonderful RadioK. Here is what went down:

Finally, Pitchfork 2010 begins! After eating a 2 p.m. breakfast at Louie’s Diner in Oak Park, I made my way over to the Festival—just as Tallest Man on Earth began his set. His vocals were absolutely spot on; an absolute perfect fit to begin the day. Most of Tallest Man’s set was from the new album, The Wild Hunt, but he played some older stuff as well.

Following Tallest Man, oddly, was El-P, but it took me only a few El-P songs to transition from Tallest Man’s sleepy folksy mood to hardcore hip-hop. He absolutely destroyed his set, bringing probably the most intensity of the day.

Photo by Marty Perez

I was super stoked to see Liars, whose performance-art-piece of a set was as weird as I was hoping. Frontman Angus Andrew was (creepily?) decked out in retro gym shorts and a Men At Work Tee, wailing around with limp wrists and frantic yelps while the band played almost entirely Sisterworld material. Andrew opened the set by telling the crowd to “have a go at the water station in my pants” anytime they felt like getting on stage. I’m just guessing, but I doubt that would have gone over well. His antics seemed vaguely Iggy Pop-ian, though an older woman next to me noted that she heard—and saw—some Korn (yes, that Korn) influence. Toward the end of the set, they broke into a cover of Bauhaus’s ‘In The Flat Field‘, which they seemed more energized by than their own songs. They closed out with a hypnotic version of ‘Proud Evolution‘.

Modest Mouse closed out the night with an amazing show, opening things off right with a superb, near-nine-minute version of ‘Tiny Cities Made of Ashes‘ that sounded almost like an entirely different song. The band almost looked like Broken Social Scene up there at times, with up to seven people playing at once—including trumpets, standup bass, an accordian and Brock’s own banjo. By the fourth song—a sexily slow rendition of ‘Satellite Skin‘—the crowd was throwing glowsticks and dancing and singing along. Other highlights included a Tom Waits-y version of ‘The Devil’s Workday‘ and several songs from The Moon and Antarctica. Modest Mouse definitely played more older material than anyone else on Day 1. After leaving the stage, they came back for a two-song encore, with a haunting version of ‘Gravity Rides Everything‘ and ending things for a good with the kick-in-the-balls of ‘Black Cadillacs‘.

Other odds ‘n’ ends:

-Thank God I saw no one wearing a Greenman suit. Hopefully this means the trend is finally over.

-The crowd was decidedly non-hipster. My Hipster Bingo Card was left virtually untouched.