Dizzee Rascal fans must be masochists. Why else would they cheer so loudly while being berated, laugh without remorse when the English performer lambasted a crewmember, and beg for more of both? The Mercury Prize-winning MC’s set at the Pitchfork Music Festival was all but doomed from the start. Before the 22-year-old took the stage […]

By now, you know how the story goes – you win some, you lose some. That was the case during the first night of the third annual Pitchfork Music Festival at Chicago’s Union Park. Coordinated with All Tomorrow’s Parties and Don’t Look Back, the series has become a staple of the event’s opening day, and […]

With each endeavor – books, Internet TV, festivals – Pitchfork Media taks a cautious step toward hypocrisy. For Pitchfork, staying only a Web site would be a disservice. It would deprive readers of a way to discover music that otherwise might fly under their radars, and bands would lose a major avenue to be heard […]

When Apples in Stereo front man Robert Schneider joked that he had been preparing for the heat of his July 20 afternoon set by staying in the dark for six weeks, it didn’t matter. When he assured those at that Pitchfork Music Festival gig that the jumbo screens’ color wasn’t off, and that he was, […]

There’s a middle-aged man sitting in the bar during Alkaline Trio’s gig at Chicago’s House of Blues. In his left hand he has two black T-shirts sporting the name of the pop-punk outfit’s latest album, Agony and Irony. In his right, he has a pair of cell phones. One – his work phone – he […]

Beck’s Oct. 14 concert at the UIC Pavilion was proof it takes more than just great songs to put on a great show. If anything, his fantastic catalogue is to blame for the night’s lackluster atmosphere. If he weren’t so damn popular he wouldn’t be stuck in such a sterile and lifeless venue. So, much […]

Thank You. For the first minute of Troubled Hubble’s farewell show at Schuba’s Tavern, the Chicago quartet displayed those words on a canvas toward the back of the stage. Though “Painter” Nicholas Freeman – the honorary Hubble and half-naked artist accustomed to dancing around and painting during the sets – would turn the phrase into […]