SUNDRY SOUNDS
Festival fans at Union Park hear country, rock, R&B, rap — and that’s just from Beck
Annie Clark ended her set the way many of us, after a long day under the sun, felt: on her back, worming her way through the stage floor, then on her knees with her head in her hands. The physical punishment the actions implied was part of the endurance of attending the Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park.
But the rewards made everything worth it.
Playing as St. Vincent on Saturday, Clark showcased songs from her most recent album, which accentuated her compelling lead guitar skills: smearing notes together to buzzing through fill after fill of staccato runs. Rightly so, she ended up climbing the steps of a pink riser that gave her rock-god status. For a player with such inventive, and apparently seamless, guitar skills, her body movements were tightly controlled. Near the end she hopped onto the shoulders of a security guard who leaned her body over the edge of the photo pit so concertgoers could claw at her while she continued running her fingers through her guitar, all the while remaining fully in control.
Clark’s recent album and tour collaboration with David Byrne of Talking Heads remains an influence through her syncopated dance movements and chilly remove in her vocals. While atop that riser, she sang the sweetest song of her set, “Prince Johnny,” which collapsed into quasi-metal riffing that was the loudest anywhere, all day.
Cloud Nothings, from Cleveland, came close. The noise rock trio was loud, speedy, but also played songs crafted with big pop hooks.
The most unexpected configuration of instruments came from
Tune-Yards, featuring lead singer Merrill Garbus accompanied by two singers, bassist-keyboardist Nate Brenner and everyone playing sticks. At first disarmingly weird, their sound — a skeletal mix of pure rhythm and call-andresponse harmonies — became quickly likable, especially when Garbus pulled out a ukulele on “Powa.” At first she plucked the tiny instrument, but before too long, she was strumming golden power chords.
The two rappers who played the same headliner stage Saturday were Danny Brown and Pusha T. Both arrived with minimal baggage —just a DJ and hype man. Brown, from Detroit, presented sunny, laid-back beats in high-pitched,
almost nasal vocals that were carried to the outer edges of Union Park atop a fuzz-heavy bottom. Pusha T was slightly less imaginative: Not only did he show up 30 minutes late, he also paid homage to benefactor Kanye West (who signed the Bronx rapper to his GOOD Music label) by forcing the crowd to repeat the label’s name early and often. Closing Saturday was
Neutral Milk Hotel, the band that released only two albums in the late 1990s before disappearing from the public eye until last year when regrouping to hit the reunion circuit. At Pitchfork, the band played most of its 1998 sleeper hit “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” (Merge), complete with the full orchestration: a banjo, trombones, flugelhorn, accordions and a Minimoog synthesizer, among other instruments.
The set showed why contemporary bands like the Lumineers and Mumford & Sons owe their success, by and large, to this modest band. Lead singer Jeff Mangnum sang with a bellowing voice that was louder than the horn section, but he remained hidden inside a beard and cap. Unlike all other headliners at this festival, there was no video projection of his singing, nor was any spotlight allowed. Instead, Magnum stood in the relative shadows and let his vocals earn his keep. The headliner on Friday,
Beck, defined in one 90-minute set what any good festival is about: diversity in numbers. While a middle stretch was devoted to the luxuriating country sounds of his new album, he bookended it with vamping R&B, riff-heavy rock, quasifunk, electro-pop and an early alt-rock hit (“Where It’s At”) mixed with country blues (“One Foot in the Grave”).
His six-member band, including guitarist Jason Faulkner of Jellyfish, rooted through his catalog of divergent musical styles. He fit each role comfortably, whether rapping through a stage prowl, strutting while delivering a guitar solo or dropping to his knees seeking soul salvation. (“I need to go outside because I’ve been locked in a closet with R. Kelly for 17 weeks,” he quipped during “Debra.”)
The more serious material came from his bookend albums, “Sea Change” and “Morning Phase.” While not as frankly despondent as a performer earlier Friday, Sharon Van Etten, Beck cloaked the hurt amid lush guitars and sonic beauty. “Isolation,” he repeated during “Wave” while standing alone onstage with just a keyboardist drowning his tears in synths. Later he would unwrap a roll of yellow police tape and stretch it across the stage, but the joke would have been a natural fit there and then.
There’s something telling that the one performer that united the crowd from the lip of the stage to the hinterlands of the food area was a 74-year-old Italian composer and electronic originator, Giorgio Moroder. No doubt many in the crowd were diving into Google on their mobiles to find out who was this man with the bushy mustache and fingers to the skies. In fact, he is a film composer (“Scarface,” “American Gigolo,” “Top Gun”) who has been the focus of a revival thanks to a recent collaboration with Daft Punk.
Psychedelic colors swirled over video footage of Moroder at his laptop and mixer, creating drama that wasn’t apparent on the stage. As he got deeper into his set he pulled out the biggest disco-era hits he worked on — remixes of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love,” “Hot Stuff ” and Blondie’s “Call Me,” as well as the aptly titled “Giorgio by Moroder” by Daft Punk, which he demonstrated started with a single click beat.
“This is by far the best gig in my life,” he said in broken English. But when his set finally took flight, it was abruptly ended due to time. He looked disappointed, and so was everyone else .