Overall, I think I enjoyed Pitchfork more this year than any other. I was there early all three days -- a first for me! -- made a few new musical discoveries, and had an overall really good time. I didn't even mind waiting in the long bathroom lines (and they were everywhere, even back in VIP ... people gotta pee, what can I say?). The cooler weather and awesome staff (mostly volunteers) helped create a near perfect weekend. My only gripe was with the photo pits, since they were allowing everyone and their mother in there, including a couple dozen folks with point and shoot cameras that had obviously never been that close to a band before and got in everyone's way. That's cool though, I still got a lot of great shots.
The only real burr under my saddle was shooting the Flaming Lips's set. I got there 40 minutes early and had scoped out the scene with security ahead of time. The intro started, they started letting us in ... and then stopped us. It turned out they were only letting a set number of photographers shoot a single song at a time. No biggie, right? Except the first group got all the intro music, band entry, confetti explosions, Wayne in a bubble AND an additional whole song. My group was then let in, and while it's impossible for the Lips to not be visually interesting, you can see a huge difference in the photo ops. (And to those photographers in the first group, I commend you, those are some AWESOME photos.)
After we got our shots I left the VIP area, swam through throngs of people to find GalPal and Marcus, and enjoyed the rest of The Lips' spectaular set from the middle of the crowd, in my opinion the best way to see the band.
And holy hell! Althrough it felt far too short (damn you 10 p.m. sound curfew!) it was an awesome set. I almost lost my shit when they played "Mountainside." Oh my good gawd.
So take my single grouse for what it is; a teensy tiny inconvenience buried within an otherwise perfect weekend!
I should have a full photo set up tomoroow on Chicagoist, but until then read our recaps of Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.
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