A Rock Pilgrimage

By: Grant Snider

Posted: 8/18/08

For rock-obsessed Midwestern youth, the summer music festival is a rite of passage. Squeeze into a hot, crowded automobile with a few friends of similar musical appetites. Drive uncomfortably for hours. Arrive at the music festival exhausted. Squeeze into a hot, crowded field with thousands of strangers of similar musical appetites. Stand uncomfortably for hours. Drive home exhausted.

It's an experience that promises thrills and challenges on par with shoplifting from Wal-Mart or necking in a deserted parking lot - with only slightly less messy consequences.

Ignoring the fact that my days of shoplifting and necking are long past (hell, they never even existed), I journeyed to Chicago in late July for the Pitchfork Music Festival. I'd made an identical pilgrimage as an impressionable undergraduate only two summers before. Apparently, memories of near-heatstroke fade more quickly than memories of seeing a year's worth of great music in only one weekend.

Arriving at four in the morning, the twinkling Chicago skyline could have been a fatigue-induced mirage. Later, I was assured otherwise by the recurring roar of the 'L' going by, as I tried in vain to sleep in past 9:30 a.m.

The sky was gray and intermittently pouring as I shuffled into Chicago's Union Park with other festival goers in the early afternoon. Indie kids in thrift-store outfits huddled under umbrellas and smoked cigarettes. As the band Caribou played a fantastic set of dream-pop soundscapes and Brian Wilsonesque melodies, the rain stopped for good. The crowd was soggy but appreciative.

Pitchfork, by nature, is a music journalism hype machine. It is charged with introducing a vast but narrow-minded audience of indie rock devotees to hip, unproven new acts (Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver) while keeping tabs on established groups they've poured their energy into popularizing (Animal Collective, The Hold Steady, Spoon). Pitchfork also attempts to pay homage to older, influential artists who achieved success outside of the current indie/college rock infrastructure (Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon, Public Enemy).

Pitchfork's mission makes for an interesting blend of music, at least to the quasi-intellectual young white male. But every large festival brings the dilemma: with multiple stages and crowds of ever-rabid fans to navigate, which bands are worth the battle for a close spot, which bands are worth glimpsing from afar, and which bands should be neglected entirely to take care of bodily functions?

The Fleet Foxes, hailing from the flannel-infested Pacific Northwest, proved to be a well-deserved target of Pitchfork's hype. Playing sunny, mysterious folk songs, their multi-layered harmonies were as convincing as their beards. A few more years of touring and they'll manage to avoid the long between-song pauses that sucked some momentum from their set.

Vampire Weekend, a group of Ivy Leaguers infatuated with Paul Simon's worldbeat tendencies, were less deserving of the instant critical adoration. Their live show failed to deliver the chill island vibes found on their catchy debut album. Of course, thousands of not-quite-so-cynical college kids disagreed. Maybe I'm turned off by scarves, sweater-vests, and silver spoons.

As the overcast July day grew longer, the bands grew relatively more popular and experienced. I maneuvered through the sea of hipster-lined blankets, edging slowly upstream like a spawning salmon. Rather than laying my eggs or getting picked off by a grizzly bear, I settled near the stage to catch my favorite indie rock band: The Hold Steady.

The Hold Steady is the culmination of a few proven elements of rock music: a nasal-voiced singer (a la Bob Dylan), bombastic street-poet anthems (a la Bruce Springsteen), and bar-honed guitar riffs (a la The Replacements). Pumping my fist in unison with hundreds of dudes in Minnesota Twins caps, I felt the communal energy achieved only through rock 'n' roll, religious fervor, or some combination of the two.

Animal Collective, the day's headliner, took the stage just after dusk. Given their set time, the experimental noise-rock trio was the only band who could make use of a light show. Flashing lights and teeming crowd pulsated in unison to the band's bizarre sound constructions. Weaving electronic and organic sounds, Animal Collective produced song sequences that alternated between haunting melody and frustrating dissonance. Only fundamental rhythm kept each song from self-destructing.

The band left the stage abruptly at 10 p.m.. Probably half the crowd was delighted the avant-garde hazing was finished. The other half furiously demanded an encore. I was somewhere between the two. Festival organizers came onstage to apologize: there would be no encore; the festival had to respect the noise curfew of the surrounding neighborhood. It was a harsh revelation most of the concertgoers hadn't had an imposed curfew for at least a year or two. But the fans understood - the desire for loud music can be squelched only by the threat of noise complaints. Couples retreated to parking lots, ears still ringing. Single dudes ambled out of the park toward the nearest Wal-Mart.

gsnider@unews.com