Intonation Day 1
What a day, I woke up kinda late and I still wanted to get a hair cut so we missed the first 2 bands. It also didnt help that there was nothing labeled when we got off the L. So we stood in a line that did us no good for 20 minutes because we needed the line for will call which was over to the side more. This line was equally as long and we spent another 10 minutes in, but luckily by this time the line to get in was non-existant. I guess I should mention that during all of this we did get to hear Pelican who were ok, in a very chicago post-rock-metal sort of way. Once in we realized that the 2 stages listed on the map were so that while one was playing music the other was setting up for the next act. This made downtime between sets practically nil. A negative only because there was so much else there we wanted to see (depart-ment, the wluw record fair, the dj-tent) and because the lines for food were super long. The first band we watched was The M’s and they were great. Having not seen them in almost a year (i think since the wicker park fest last summer) I was glad to hear some new songs from them. The one guitarist wasnt loud enough, but even so they put on a heck a set to the relatively few ppl that showed up early. Making the first of many treks from one stage to the next, we decided to see A.C. Newman next. I have just started getting into his New Pornographers stuff, and I figured his solo materal would be much of the same. That was a good assumption, a great set of power-pop was delivered with Andrew Bird helping out by whissling one song. Magnolia Electric Co. was next and due to the time of day, and rumbling in our tummy’s, we only stuck around for half their set. But, we didnt leave before he made a dedication to some tough motherf***ers that chicago lost this past thurs . They played a good set, I have been meaning to check them out for some time. I never really got into Songs:Ohia but it seems Magnolia Electric Co. are bit more accessable. The songs were great when he sang/crooned, and while the mroe country-esque tunes were cool I couldnt really get into them. Next up was a fun set of laptop jockying with Four Tet . It was a lot of fun to hear music like this outside. He played a set using songs based off samples from the last 2 albums(_Rounds_, and Everything Ecstatic), but mixed it up enought to not sound like the albums exactly. Now up to this point the crowd was manageable, large but not very dense, so that you could snake your way up toward the stage durning the course of a bands set. Turning around for Broken Social Scene there was already a large amount of ppl cramed between the stage and sound booth. BSS were great though bring on stage with them Amy from the Stars and a horn section from Do Make Say Think. This was my first time seeing them and they were excellent. Next was a group from Briton called The Go! Team who didnt really do anything for me. Heavy beats, and much repeating of their name was all I remember. As the evening wore on Prefuse 73 took the stage and did a great job of translating music that is much better heard in smaller spaces. It was 2 drummers, a DJ, live bass player, and laptop. Heron would switch between the drums and laptop through out the set. The music was somewhere between dance and chill, nice to hear in the slowly setting chicago sun. Death from Above 1979 played a possessed set of heavy noise rock. For 2 guys they made a lot of noise, but the songs just kinda fell apart after a while. Closing this first evening was Tortoise which I felt was perfect on so many levels. They had a projector set up showing some interesting digital visuals and started off their set with some more guitar heavy numbers. We left beofre they were done playing but it was nice to hear songs from TNT and Millions now living will some day die as we sat on the L platform waiting for a train home.