pfork day 3: flaming lips, japandroids

(what $5000 worth of confetti looks like)

If I was forced to sum up this year’s Pitchfork Festival in a simple, two-word phrase, that phrase would be: modest pleasures. None of the bands pulled off mind-blowing sets, no one upped the creative ante or brought out special guests or strange inventions. Instead, all the performances hit a kind of amiable consistency, all of them solid and satisfying, but none especially game-changing. Even the National, whose Saturday night set I cannot say enough good things about, were more a model of simple virtues than aggressive paradigm-shifts.

Sunday’s lineup was a bit more eclectic than Saturday’s. The Mae Shi performed one of their final shows as a band, ad their revved-up spazzy post-punk was the perfect start to the day. I’ve seen the Mae Shi before and, while I don’t love them on record, live they’re engaging and entertaining. Midway through the set, they draped an enormous parachute over the audience, making for a kind of makeshift tent in the center of Union Park.

From the Mae Shi’s sonic turbulence to Frightened Rabbit’s emotional turbulence: I’ve seen FR five or six times now, and they improve a little more with each go. Their songs are ragged and falling-apart live, and Scott Hutchinson’s brogue gets more pained and plaintive as the show progresses. They drew mostly from Midnight Organ Fight, and it was a kick to see a whole crowd of kids near the front of the stage chanting: “I feel better, and better, and worse — I mean, better.” I got to talk to Scott for a bit after the show and he told me that the group’s new album is nearly done. He wants to title it Swim Until You Can’t See Land, and said the songs are all about drowning — drowning in liquor, drowning in work, drowning in bad love. In other words: it sounds like our beloved Scots haven’t changed a bit. For all the dark themes in their music, Scott himself couldn’t be more charming, and I enjoyed having a few minutes to chat with him.

I caught a few minutes of Blitzen Trapper, and about that I’ll politely say: not my thing. Very much my thing? Pharoah Monch. He put Doom to shame, delivering a passionate, energetic, exuberant set, steadily winning over a lukewarm crowd with his unending charisma. Monch is a wordsmith with few equals, and his clean, precise flow only accented his lyrical proficiency.

The Thermals figured out a quick way to win over an unfamiliar audience: covers, covers, covers. The group opened with Sonic Youth’s “100%,” and also delivered rowdy versions of the Breeders “Saints” and, strangely (and awesomely) Green Day’s “Basket Case.” I caught up again with flamgirlant and p-clark for a bit of DJ/Rupture, which I loved. Rupture dug hard into a reggae groove, and his dank dub was the perfect remedy for a restless crowd.

I’ve seen the Walkmen quite a few times now, so I figured I’d skip them to see Japandroids instead. Their record is one of my favorites of the year so far, but live it seemed to take them forever to get it together. The songs were sloppy — and not in a good way — and they didn’t have the manic snap of their recorded counterparts. The set had some sparks, but overall I think I’d like to catch up with them in a few months, when they’ve had some time to perfect things.

M83, on the other, hand, is already road-tested. I saw them shortly after Saturdays=Youth came out and was underwhelmed, but they’ve clearly kicked it up to fighting speed lately. They got the hit out of the way early, opening with “Graveyard Girl,” and then dove straight into a set of vibrant, quaking electropop.

So at this point, I guess I have to be a killjoy and say: I think I might be over the Flaming Lips. I get what they do, and it’s hard to talk shit about a band that brings such joy to their performances, but lately it’s felt like they’ve been running on fumes. I had high hopes for their Pitchfork set, as it fell under the banner of “You Write the Night.” I figured, with fans requesting the setlist, it would force the Flaming Lips out of their comfort zone a bit.

Not so. The opening was terrific: a vibrant run through “Race for the Prize” followed by an awesome and surprising spin through “Bad Days,” followed by the never-played (and never to be played again, according to Wayne) “Enthusiasm for Life Defeats Existential Fear.” After that, though, it was Flaming Lips by-the-numbers. Two terrible new songs from their forthcoming record, a bunch of Yoshimi songs, some songs from the forgettable last record. Pandas. Frogs. Confetti. Balloons. Like, man, I know, it feels like I’m hating Christmas here or something, and I feel like a stooge saying it, but am I the only one who’s starting to find the Flaming Lips a little bit…boring?

My dream for their set? They had left the balloons, furries and special effects at home, opened with “Turn it On,” and treated their fans to 80 or so stripped-down minutes of rarely-played gems. So, yeah, that didn’t happen.

Apparently while I was being bored by the Flips, Ptolemy and Flamgirlant were having their minds blown by the Very Best. So clearly I chose poorly.