For a band that built a career fusing American punk roots with traditional Celtic instrumentation and structures, it’s all but bizarre that this year’s Float marked the first time that Flogging Molly actually recorded in Ireland. For almost a decade, the California ensemble has tapped its heritage and crafted atmospheric, pint-raising tunes here in the […]

As a staple of the Life During Wartime scene since co-launching the regular Chicago dance party in January 2003, DJ Bald Eagle (a.k.a. Metro talent buyer Chris Barroner) has transformed himself into one of the city’s — if not the country’s — biggest draws on the decks. More than just some old records and a […]

The Dodos were bigger than the Wu Tang Clan. At least that’s how it appeared after a few tweaks to the Pitchfork Music Festival schedule. Promoters rotated the sets and moved Ghostface and Raekwon to the supplementary Balance Stage, while the San Francisco ensemble had it’s dinner-time set moved Sunday evening to the largest, Aluminum […]

At a concert run by a media outlet with a reputation for ahead-of-the-curve taste-making, this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival featured more than its share of original hipsters. Mission of Burma. Public Enemy. Wu Tang Clan members Ghostface and Raekwon. A double dose of Lou Barlow in Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh. So it shouldn’t have come […]

Part of what gives Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary Woodstock its sense of purpose is the seemingly mundane footage of people walking. Several times throughout the Academy Award-winning film, shots stay on concert goers as they move in masses along the streets, through the gates, and barrel into the historic landscape with unified excitement, joined in […]

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 […]