chicago saturday

I woke up pretty early saturday and picked us up some breakfast at the dunkin on the corner. Unfortunately the milk I got for stephanie was rancid even though the date was well in the future. Oh well, the munchkins were tasty. Got some more lousy directions from our concierge and headed to get a deep dish pizza before the fest. We got there before the resty was open so we just hung out right across the street from the sears tower for a while. Had a great sausage/pepper/mushroom pie, and then picked up the train to the park. Our hotel was on Harrison just outside one side of the loop, and the park was at Ashland, just outside another side of the loop so everything was pretty close.





The festival gates were delayed in opening for a bit, but security was lax, affording us the luxury of smuggling in some vodka to break up the monotony of drinking beer all day. The festival was very well organized - plenty of port-o-lets, lots of food vendors, 3 beer tents, and $1 waters & fuze fruity drinks (which mixed swimmingly with the vodka). The acts were staggered between 2 main stages situated to the left and right, so that they could break down/set up while another band was playing. And if you were camped out near one stage waiting for the next band, you could still hear the band on the other stage, so you didn't miss much. Hard to say what the crowd size was, perhaps around 10-12k, it was sold out all 3 days, but the amount of people watching any given band at any given time fluctuated, as there was also a third smaller stage off to the side.

First up, Califone. I was really excited to see these guys. After a somewhat prolonged bingo soundcheck, they came correct and thoroughly impressed playing mostly newer material majestically. I goose bumps during 'orchids'. In the pics you can see fan Sam from Iron & Wine watching from backstage. We had some time to kill before the next band we wanted to see, so we headed over to check out the arts & crafts village and the Flatstock poster exhibition.





Next up, Battles. My curiosity was peaked because the drummer has played previously with helmet & tomahawk. This was different than those two bands with a heavier emphasis towards electronics. Absolutely sick. The intensity never let up as they worked through album cuts as well as some brand new material. Definitely a highlight.





Iron & Wine was up next, but it was too crowded up close, and I think there were some sound issues because we couldn't really hear it that well from the back. What we heard was good, however. He had a full band and it seemed a bit more upbeat than material I'm familiar with. Much of the set was likely new material from his forthcoming album.





Towards the end of his set we headed over to find the third stage tucked away in the corner of the park to see Dan Deacon. It was packed over there, and to make matters crazier, he was set up on the ground in front of the stage. People were going nuts, and I think I saw him briefly when he jumped up one time. I heard he eventually had to stop playing because they feared people may get crushed, but we had left his set a bit early anyway and taken this opportunity to get some dinner.



The headliner tonight was Yoko Ono, which was kind of random. Of the people that stuck around, I think many were just curious to see she was going to do/perform, including ourselves. Randomly I bumped into a girl in the crowd who had seen the same Cibo Mato show with Sean Lennon, some 10 odd years ago at the Echo Lounge. Prior to her set they gave out all these little pen lights, and showed a video explaining some silly morse code thing she wanted everyone to do to which meant, 'I love you'. I don't think the crowd really cared much. She was quite energetic and she gets mad props for being 74 and rocking out, but the music was strange at best, many of her songs veered away from actual words, and drifted into 'e...e...e..AH..Ah..ah' territory. The highlight was a visit from Thurston Moore on her last couple of songs including, 'mind train' and 'don't worry koko'.





The subway was much less crowded tonight, largely due to a staggered exit before and during the yoko set. Our transfer station was right at State by the Chicago Theatre where widespread panic was hunkered down all weekend. We were in the station for a while and were forced to listen to some street performer play the same 3 oldies from Animal House over and over, but luckily we beat the wook fest coming from the theatre.