Day 54

Today begins a span of 18 days in which I will see the following bands:

A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar, Extra Golden, Fleet Foxes, Mission of Burma, Sebadoh, Public Enemy, Murs, Dead Prez, Meth and Red, Mos Def, De La Soul, Rakim, Nas, A Tribe Called Quest, The Pharcyde, Mahjongg, Times New Viking, Dirty Projectors, Boris, The Apples in Stereo, Les Savy Fav, The Dodos, Ghost and Rae, Spiritualized, Dinosaur Jr, Spoon, Neil Diamond, K'Naan, Black Lips, Butch Walker, The Go! Team, The Kills, Gogol Bordello, Mates of State, Grizzly Bear, Cadence Weapon, Cool Kids, Radiohead, The Gutter Twins, Devotchka, Explosions in the Sky, Okkervil River, Lupe Fiasco, Toadies, Rage Against the Machine, Yeasayer, Broken Social Scene, Ha Ha Tonka, Kid Sister, Weakerthans, Brazilian Girls, Chromeo, Iron and Wine, Saul Williams, Girl Talk, The National, Kanye West.

I'm so lucky...

But first things first. I had class this morning. So I had to wake up super early. And go to class. And then, instead of going straight into the city like I planned, I came home to pick up my car from the shop. 853 dollars later I headed downtown.

Today I parked in a parking garage. It was thirteen dollars. Much cheaper than I had anticipated. Good thing...what with the whole 853 dollars at the shop thing.

The first big event of the day was the panel discussion on It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back at the Chicago Cultural Center. The panel was actually Keith and Hank Shocklee, Harry Allan, and Chuck D. There was also a moderator who seemed painfully out of place...but he IS working on a documentary on the history of sampling so he must know what he is talking about.

For the most part, Public Enemy were absolutely hilarious. The first twenty minutes or so were like a comedy routine between the Shocklees...then Chuck got goin' and serious knowledge was getting dropped. But it was all a great time. I'm going to expand on this a lot more by the end of the weekend in an article I am writing for Consequence of Sound. But the bottom line is that the discussion was entertaining and informative and one of the best free things I've ever been to. My only beef is that it started late (it is hip hop after all) and it was COLD AS SHIT in the theater. At first it was nice since it was 93 degrees outside, but by the time it was over I was thrilled to feel heat again.

After the discussion I had about an hour and fifteen minutes to kill so I went to Bennigans for some food and a drink. I had a black bean burger that fell apart. It was actually delicious but I ended up eating it with a fork.

So there is a new feature with the Pitchfork Festival this year. Tonight there was a free kickoff show in Millennium Park featuring four of the bands that are playing on Saturday. This was perfect because I will not be at the festival on Saturday. So going to tonight's show was a no brainer. Each band played 30 minute sets. There were VERY short breaks between sets and the show started at 6:30 and ended at 9:00.

The first band on stage was A Hawk and a Hacksaw. I listened to this band for the first time after I saw them on the Pitchfork lineup. They are probably the band I discovered on the lineup that I liked the most. I was disappointed that I was not going to be able to see them at the festival, but I ended up seeing them tonight. This band is made up of a mandolin, two violins, a trumpet, and an accordian. They come from Budapest I believe, but I'm pretty sure at least someone is American. Basically I don't know a whole lot about them other than the fact they put on a pretty good show, despite the fact that the crowd was still settling in and not all that into them.

But the audience definitely perked up for Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar. This is a seven piece brass band with two drummers and they owned the stage tonight. They were easily the most entertaining bands of the evening and they got the whole audience moving. To those who are going to Pitchfork on Saturday make sure you arrive early and catch these guys. You won't be disappointing.

The good vibes continued with Extra Golden. This band has three members from Kenya and three from D.C. They have an Afro-beat vibe but they also can jam pretty hard, which they showed on their last song "Obama". This of course got a positive reaction from the overwhelmingly pro-Obama audience.

Fleet Foxes finished the evening. This was the band that I was most familiar with. I am nowhere near as pretentious as I used to be when it comes to music. This is good because I enjoy music more. On the other hand, it also means that albums don't grow on me like they used to. Back when I had more pretentious taste I would listen to albums over and over because they were albums I was SUPPOSED to get into. And sometimes they would grow on me. This doesn't happen much anymore, but it did with Fleet Foxes. I wasn't crazy about them the first time I listened, but I kept it up, mostly because of tonight's show, and now I REALLY like them. And they didn't disappoint. They were mellow...particularly after the previous three bands jammed so hard, but they were a perfect way to end the show. They have a really folksy sound beautiful harmonies and they went perfect with the twilight.

Anyway...I came home and swam. Tomorrow it really starts to get crazy. Day One of Pitchfork...Mission of Burma, Sebadoh, and of course PUBLIC ENEMY!