2009 Pitchfork Festival: Sunday

In the five years (or four, if you are worried about semantics) of the Pitchfork Festival, I cannot think of a better day of music than what was offered last Sunday. The day started with Frightened Rabbit, who, last year, released one of my favorite albums ever, and ended with the Flaming Lips, who are one of my top-five favorite bands of all-time. Sandwiched between were about three or four acts that were as good as anyone I saw on Saturday. (Oh, and before we get started, a few people have asked me why there are no pictures. And the reason is, I am still trying to milk life out of the same camera that I dropped in a beer during Dinosaur Jr at last year's festival. It still sort of works, but pictures taken during the daytime are very fuzzy and hardly viewable. My friend Brendan pointed out that if I am willing to purchase a plane ticket from DC to Chicago to attend this festival, it might be time to go ahead and pony up for a new camera. Never!)

When writing about David Foster Wallace's highly-acclaimed novel, Infinite Jest, Walter Kirn of New York Magazine wrote, "Next year's book awards have been decided...the competition has been obliterated." When it comes to break-up records, this is how I feel about Frightened Rabbit's The Midnight Organ Fight. (Side note: I will give anyone $50 if they can somehow credibly verify that they, in the last year, have walked into Tryst in DC on 18th Street and not witnessed someone reading, trying to read, or pretending to read Infinite Jest. I'm not kidding, fifty bucks.) The album really is that good, and that is why we made sure we were at Union Park by 1:30. Frightened Rabbit opened with "The Modern Leper," which will sound like a hit song the very first time you hear it. But The Midnight Organ Fight is a break-up record through and through, and their excellent song "Good Arms Vs. Bad Arms" ends with the line, "I am still in love with you/Can't admit it yet," only conspicuously Hutchison didn't sing this part. I notice these things. They ended the set with a hard-charged "The Greys" which eventually morphed into something I didn't recognize. The band brought more energy than I was expecting or knew was capable from the Scottish four-piece, and before long only drummer Grant Hutchison was left on stage menacingly scowling at the crowd, and pounding on his drums before triumphantly throwing his arms up in the air, and strutting off stage. For something so inocuous and most likely forgotten by 95% of the crowd, it gave me goosebumps and may have been my favorite moment of the weekend.

In between bands I spotted a skinny, raggedy kid with shaggy hair walking around with scissors and a sign that read "Cut my hair." Festival goers would randomly come up and grab the scissors and take a few snips. I saw him a couple of hours later and his hair looked great. And by "great," I mean "fucking awful." But hey, way to save $8!

Ever watched a band from a distance and thought, "Wow, I am going to start listening to them more as soon as I get home"? This was my line of thinking during Blizten Trapper, who sounded excellent. What was amazing was how many of their songs from their last two albums stuck out in my mind as they were playing them. It really felt like hit song after hit song. And I believe they had the same time slot and the same stage as their fellow Brawny-Paper-Towels-sponsored band, Fleet Foxes the year before. I can almost guarantee right now there is a band from the Pacific Northwest with a propensity to grow decent beards, that is unknown at the moment, but is two months away from signing with Sub Pop, and four months away from an 8.7 rating on Pitchfork that will be on this stage at this time in 2010. It will happen, you just watch.

And speaking of bands from the Pacific Northwest that will now be receiving more air-time in the Crisafulli household, the Thermals gave me just what I wanted out of a band at a music festival. They were loud, energetic, and even played some covers. Hell, they opened with a cover--Sonic Youth's "100%." They also played some Nirvana, the Breeders, and Green Day. But most impressive, during their set was this guy that was standing in front of us with a yellow Michael Jackson t-shirt that danced throughout the entire set. He didn't stop once and danced well the entire time.

If Hamilton Leithauser of the Walkmen isn't the best frontman alive, then he is one of the best. Everytime he belted out one of his trademark wails, the crowd around me would "oooh" and "aaah" as if they were watching a 4th of July fireworks display. However, something happened during their set which I feel compelled to share. Right as the Walkmen started to play "The Rat," a guy next to me fainted. He just went out cold and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. Luckily, I was standing next to a doctor (she requested not to be named, so we will just refer to her as Aud***). I immediately summoned Aud***'s attention, pointed out the guy on the ground, and assumed we were in good hands. Bad assumption. Aud*** took one look at him, and turned her attention back to the Walkmen. To her defense, "The Rat" is one of the best rock songs ever. But be that as it may, we had a doctor in the house, and the guy I saw that ended up finally attending to this poor sap was smoking marijuana moments before this happened. Aud*** will tell the story a bit differently, but this is exactly how I remembered it happening. (For those worried, the guy that went down came to a few moments later and after some water seemed okay and headed to a less crowded area.) As for the Walkmen, they played mostly stuff from last year's You & Me (voted best album of 2008 in some circles), only reaching back for the aforementioned "The Rat" and a few tracks from A Hundred Miles Off. They were great, but as I have said before, we expected that.

Scott brought up an excellent point concerning M83. They had the same vibe that Spiritualized did last year. They were onstage, we were minding our own business, and about a third of the way through, everyone seemed to realize something great was happening. I was in this camp and will be listening to a lot more of M83. Leading non-crooner Anthony Gonzalez still needs some lessons in throwing down though.

I still don't understand the fascination with Grizzly Bear, but you know what, God bless 'em because 18,500 hipsters can't be wrong. (Actually, they can be wrong, and often are wrong. Most notably every morning when they get up and pick out something to wear.)

I had been excited for weeks to see headliners the Flaming Lips in this setting: Chicago, my favorite music festival, with friends, and under the glow of the Willis Tower. Alright, so maybe not everything was perfect. But Willis Tower be damned, when Wayne came out in his patented rubber ball and surfed the crowd just before the band played "Race for the Prize," at that moment it was perfect. Unfortunately, perfection can be fleeting, and the Flaming Lips were actually a bit disappointing. They were participating in the "fans write the setlist" gimmick that was present on Friday, only Wayne didn't seem like he really wanted to be involved. Not that I can blame him, and I actually enjoyed it when he seemed to be mocking the entire premise. Problem is, that seemed to dominate their set, and I'm not sure they played more than nine songs. And I hated the way they played "Fight Test" and "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part 1." Hated it. They were slow and stripped down, almost as if we were watching Wayne sing them acappella in the shower. And Wayne kept trying to get everyone to sing along, but that's pretty hard when the tempo is completely unpredictable. The following day, Jim stated, "I had to go home and listen to those songs to remember what they sounded like and why I actually like them. That's...that's not good!" No, no it isn't. They did hit "Bad Days" from my favorite Flaming Lips album, but even that sounded stale. (Wayne dedicated the song to Sun Times music critic/journalist Jim DeRogatis, who has written a biography on the Flaming Lips. DeRogatis was promptly booed. Imagine if the Bears were to win the Super Bowl and Brian Urlacher gave the game ball to Jay Mariotti. It was kind of like that. But do not feel sorry for DeRogatis, I am sure at this point in his career he can handle it.)

I was starting to get restless and realized that they had only played a handful of song with twenty minutes remaining before the 10pm neighborhood curfew took effect. Not cool. What was cool was the Flaming Lips' set and stage show which is never disappointing, and the large screen monitors provided by Pitchfork that showed the enormous crowd that was still sticking around for the final act of what had been a long weekend. It was amazing how large the crowd was and I can definitely say there has never been a crowd like that at one stages in the, albeit brief, history of this festival. It was truly amazing. And the band did pick up momentum with their final two songs: "She Don't Use Jelly," which was accompanied by the video on the large screen behind the band, which was a nice step back in time, and "Do You Realize" which was deservedly voted number one in terms of songs fans wished the band to play. That song is nearly worth the price of admission alone, and though it wasn't a perfect Flaming Lips' set, it was a good note to leave on.

--Alex

The Walkmen--Webster Hall, New York City

Up until last year, the Walkmen were a band that I just kind of liked. I thought their first two albums were pretty good and don't think I ever listened to their third (the one with the horns) or fourth (that Pussy Cats covers album). The only time I sort of saw them live was at the 2006 Pitchfork Festival, where I paid about a quarter of my attention to their set while waiting for (I think) the Futureheads to play on the other stage all the way across the park. The Walkmen have played many shows in New York since I moved here later that year, but I never felt like I had to see them.

That all changed with You & Me, by far my favorite album of last year and one that I consider to be pretty close to a masterpiece. It's rare that I have the chance to see a band play in support of an album I love so much. I think that's because my favorite albums are growers, and I never fully appreciate them until whatever tour supporting them is through. So when I saw that the Walkmen were headlining a one-off show at Webster Hall in NY before their tour with Kings of Leon so soon after the release of You & Me but after the initial tour in support of it, I immediately bought a ticket.

I went to the show straight from work and was wearing a suit, which felt strange. I thought about leaving the jacket part of the suit at work, but realized that I needed to use its many pockets for my chattel, so I was one of those guys at a concert in a suit. When some other dude walked past me also wearing a suit while I was ordering a drink, we exchanged looks like "we both suck, but whatever." Suit solidarity, bitches. Anyway, I downed a few $8 Stellas and found a good standing spot to wear a suit and watch the openers. The first band to play was Brooklyn's the Antlers, a pretty standard three piece if you replace a bassist with a keyboardist. Their first song was an instrumental dirge that immediately put me off because I hate those bands that just go on stage and fight the audience with noise and feedback (see Black Dice). But after that first misstep, they emerged with a short set of very solid songs that the crowd seemed to enjoy. Next up was the critically adored Beach House, who are clearly very good, but also very boring. One of my friends described them as like Grizzly Bear (another very good, very boring band), but with a chick. That's just about right.

The Walkmen came on at around 10:15 and opened with a song I'd never heard before, which means it was either a new or one from album three or four. There was whistling in it. After that first number, lead singer Hamilton Leithauser, dressed in some sort of Member's Only looking jacket, explained to the crowd that it was the first time in a while that the band had played together and that they were going to play some new stuff. After noting that the next song was not one of the new ones, the familiar opening of "The Rat" put everyone on notice that, rust be damned, the Walkmen came to play. A quick word about "The Rat." Holy shit, that song is so good that I can't even think of what to say about it to do it justice. Apologies to "Hey Ya!" and others that I can't think of now, but "The Rat" is the best song of the oughts. If any band ever made a song as good as "The Rat" and did nothing else for their entire career, it would have been a successful career.

The rest of the setlist was really good. They played "Louisiana," "On the Water," "I lost You," and a lot of other tracks from You & Me. The first set closed with "In the New Year," which sounds better live than on record. The band returned for an encore of "Donde Esta La Playa" and an understated and gorgeous "New Country."

The Walkmen have great stage presence and put on a very, very good show. Leithauser is clearly the focus as he cuts an imposing figure on stage and has a perfect leaning-back-and-belting-it-out rock stance. The great thing about the stance is that its not an act - I think he actually needs to lean back to physically get some of those screams out. It's fun to watch - looks like he really tries. I bet he looks the same singing in a studio. The other star is drummer Matt Barrick. I always thought the drumming on the band's studio output was above average, but seeing this guy play live is something else. He is unbelievable. He can deliver driving, rolling beats ("The Rat") but can also be precise and improvisational (basically all of You & Me). I think he's the reason why You & Me reminds me in many ways of a jazz album. The greatest compliment I can bestow on any drummer is to compare them to Can's keystone Jaki Leibezeit. On You & Me, Barrick does just that.

About four or five songs into the show, Leithauser told everyone that he had turned 31 the day before (tax day) before the band broke into a very sweet, very light version of their first hit "We've Been Had". Standing there thinking about how this guy on stage turned thirty the same year I did helped me realize why I love You & Me so much: with that album, the Walkmen absolutely nail turning-thirty-angst. You & Me is filled with regret and hope (almost entirely summed up in "I Lost You" and "In the New Year"), which are precisely the same emotions I felt last October. This concert served to confirm that the Walkmen have made their masterpiece. I think the reason why it's not universally realized as such is because you have to be a little older to fully appreciate it.

--Jim Powers

Photo by Jim Powers

NQL Album of the Year: The Walkmen - You & Me

This is going to be NQL's last "best of" post for 2008. Really, it is. Our own Jim Powers analyzed, dissected, and crunched the numbers of all of our contributors' picks (click on this link or just scroll down a couple of inches), and it was determined that The Walkmen's You & Me was the album of the year. The album could not be more deserving and here is our review of the then-just-released You & Me as written by Brian back in August. All of the results are below. Don't agree? Hey, take it up with the scientific method.

9-11 (tie). David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today; Deerhunter - Microcastle; M83 - Saturdays = Youth (21 points)
8. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (22 points)
7. Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances (27 points)
6. Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight (31 points)
5. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer (34 points)
4. The Dodos - Visiter (36 points)
3. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular (38 points)
2. TV on the Radio - Dear Science, (49 points)
1. The Walkmen - You & Me (58 points)

--NQL Staff

The Walkmen
You & Me
Rating: I had the damndest time writing about this record

I'm an editor by profession, so I appreciate simplicity and elegance, and I understand that one shouldn't allow one's personal preferences to overrule authorial voice. The same notions can (and should) be applied in a recording studio. I don't want to listen to the Flaming Lips and think "Dave Fridmann," or Beck and think "Nigel Godrich." When I listen to You & Me, I only think "The Walkmen." The documentary treatment of their honest, confessional fifth album lends the band a vulnerability, almost daring criticism to gnash its teeth.

And although "The Rat" and "Little House of Savages" (themselves honest and confessional) are held up as The Walkmen's canonical songs, they're really anomalies: Mood and atmosphere, rather than muscle and aggression, have always been the band's ply and trade, and they've never been as moody or as atmospheric as they are on You & Me. The doleful horns of "Red Moon", for instance, cast a dusky, romantic pallor over the song rather than brighten it, while the lyric "you shine like the steel on my knife" turns the romance a little sinister.

There is tiredness and confusion behind Hamilton Leithauser's words as well. His family asks him, "How long will you ramble?" He promises that he's "almost home" even though he knows "home" is a suitcase. He wants to find peace, but somehow he can't (or won't), pulled as he is around the world toward some ineluctable yet elusive destiny. The waltz-like "Seven Years of Holidays (for Stretch)", then, can be viewed as a summation of what it must be like to be in a touring rock band: the struggle between wanderlust and staying put, between killing and bombing, between bars at night and cafes in the morning, and the knowledge that doing what you love keeps you away from who you love. Sometimes "the whole world around us is too small."

Yet these hyper-direct lyrics wouldn't hit as hard without the expressive music behind them. The descending chorus of "Long Time Ahead of Us"--a song so dripping wet that it's necessary to towel off when it's over--cribs from Canon in D and lilts like a lullaby. "Good luck around every turn," Leithauser sings, satisfied, "now that I've got you." "Four Provinces", through all its clatter (courtesy of crack drummer Matt Barrick), reminds us why we like this band in the first place: "It's always a good time."

The Walkmen have always been familiar and poignant, boozy and bleary-eyed, worn but not worn-out. From the misty first salvos of "They're Winning" to the gravity of "Bows and Arrows" to the rollicking, tom-heavy "Brandy Alexander", their songs feel human and real, almost communal--as appropriate around a campfire as they are in a sweaty club. Here's to seven more years of holidays.

--Brian Herrmann