The first night of the three-day Pitchfork Music Festival was quite different from the second and third days for a number of reasons. First off, the night was also done in conjunction with All Tomorrow Parties and thus that meant that the three acts performing played classic albums in order from start to finish.
SLINT started off the night on a quiet note, playing the six-song and merely thirty-six minute 1991 classic Spiderland. Virtually ignored in their time, Slint and Spiderland in particular went on to be massively influential on a lot of indie-rock in the ‘90s and in the two years since they got back together, they’ve mostly stuck to their small back catalog. Nevertheless, until thie summer, they had never performed Spiderland in this manner before. Opener “Breadcrumb Trail” and second track “Nosferatu Man” were excellent, though the album contains a noticeable lull in the middle. All is redeemed, however, with the closer “Good Morning, Captain”, culminating in frontman BRIAN MACMAHAN screaming out “I miss you” in its thrilling conclusion. Still, their set felt a bit rote and stilted, though perhaps that had to do with the fact that the night was still starting and that when they went on at 6:30. It was thus OK that Spiderland felt more like an appetizer than the main course.
Next up was GZA (of seminal hip-hop outfit WU-TANG CLAN) performing Liquid Swords, his 1995 solo album. To be honest, I’d never heard this album before watching this show, so I’m not in the best position to review it. Nevertheless, with Wu-Tang associate CAPPA DONNA also on stage, Gza delivered a fairly entertaining set. Given the sound problems that surround much live hip-hop, I was pleasantly surprised at how good he sounded up there. Nevertheless, while I thought it was generally enjoyable, at times it felt like he was rushing through songs just to finish at the prescribed time and very little stuck with me at the end.
Then came the event that most of the 13,000 plus crowd had been waiting for. This was, of course, SONIC YOUTH performing their 1988 landmark Daydream Nation in its entirety. First off, I should state that while I’m a fairly big Sonic Youth fan and I like this record, I don’t regard it as their best work and I’ve always felt it a bit overrated. Parts of it are frankly boring, though overall it’s a very good album and contains some of their best material (“Teenage Riot,” “Eric’s Trip,” “Candle” and “Hey Joni”, among others). I would actually prefer to hear, say, Sister or Goo in its entirety. With that out of the way, I looked forward to how they would respond to the challenge of playing almost twenty year-old songs, many of them not played since the release of the album. In a word, it was great. However, it was far from perfect. Although it was absolutely stunning to hear such little-played songs as LEE RANALDO’s “Rain King” and KIM GORDON’s ”’cross the Breeze”, their effect was muted somewhat by the questionable sound choices. During the first third of the set, it felt like not only was it not loud enough but that the vocals were set a little too low. Gradually, however, the sound got better and although some of the little-performed songs sounded shaky, when they were on, they were really ON. “Hey Joni” (another Lee Ranaldo-sung track) and the Kim-sung”Kissability” were highlights. Other songs dragged, however, like the closing fourteen-minute plus “Trio”.
The big surprise, however, came during the encore. Joined by former PAVEMENT bassist MARK IBOLD, who replaced JIM O’ROURKE in the lineup but who was absent during the main set, Sonic Youth really came alive. They played three songs from their newest album Rather Ripped and all of them sounded more forceful, energetic, determined and flat out fun (complete with Kim’s awesome dancing) than the more ballyhooed main set. It helps that Rather Ripped is the most accessible and possibly best record they’ve made since the early ‘90s and that they played “Incinerate”, one of their best songs ever. “Reena” and “Jams Run Free”, the other two songs played during the encore, were also excellent. It’s comforting that while Sonic Youth looks backwards for the first time in their lengthy career, its future is still so bright given how great their newer material sounded.