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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

arts

Pitchfork in the park

Pitchfork

Elevation was a common theme at the Pitchfork Music Festival last weekend: high temperatures, high spirits and high people.

From Friday to Sunday, Chicago’s Union Park was engulfed in clouds of smoke and dust, home to three stages and a sea of booths that entertained festival-goers.

Both the temperature and the acts were quite cool for Friday’s shows, which were headlined by a polarizing Animal Collective performance in the evening. Earlier acts like TuNe-yArDs and James Blake weren’t terribly exciting to watch, but their overall performances and sound were very good, inspiring numerous declarations of fandom from those who were unfamiliar with them.

Curren$y and Das Racist, two rap acts that tore up the Blue Stage that afternoon, were both sharp and charismatic, taking an excited crowd to another level.

“They’re so awesome and funny. I can’t wait to see them,” Allen Knight said about Das Racist. Knight had driven six hours from Missouri to see the festival and the three-man rap crew specifically.

The group didn’t disappoint either, playing several new songs from their upcoming album and bringing a sense of humor, enthusiasm  and beers to their performance.

Curren$y certainly knew his audience, sporting a Michael Jordan jersey for Chi-city, a move that didn’t go unnoticed.

“Wow, there are a lot of motherfuckin’ people here right now. I didn’t expect to see all ya’ll out here,” Curren$y said as he came out on stage.

Saturday featured performances from Sun Airway, who are on Bloomington’s Dead Oceans label. They later tweeted at Fleet Foxes, Saturday’s headliner, “@fleetfoxes pretty mindblowing last night...never seen so many vocal harmonies executed so well...glad we got to play the same day!”

Indeed, Foxes were magnificent, executing their delicate tunes to perfection and garnering universal raves about their set, something AnCo couldn’t manage the night before.

Sunday, which sold out weeks ago, was the first day of the three day festival to sell out, thanks to a pretty stacked lineup from top to bottom.

Though it wound up being the hottest day of the festival, a lineup featuring Toro Y Moi, OFWGKTA, Deerhunter and TV on the Radio was enough to pack the park with more ironic and non-ironic attendees alike.

Even Tyler, the Creator, Odd Future’s chief member, was decked out in a tie-dye peace sign t-shirt and came out on crutches to Bob Marley blasting. Pitchfork passed out free water for much of the festival, but their handouts were particularly plentiful on the last day.

And while Sunday was the crown jewel of the festival’s dates, each one was excellent on its own.

“It was a great time,” Chloe Lawson, a DePauw student said of Friday. “We went with some good people, saw some great shows and nothing really went wrong.”

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