In the Chicago mega-festival ecosystem it always felt like Lollapalooza was for the suburbs, Riot Fest was for our parents, and Pitchfork was for us. Jersey-clad frat boys headed for Grant park and mid-life crisis ex-punks dusted off the battle jackets to go to Douglass park, all while the pretentious indie-cred driven kids (of which I was one) embraced something much smaller and cooler. Three stages tucked into the comparatively tiny Union Park on the west side, Pitchfork provided year after year for Chicago’s artsy internet-obsessed youth. The Lolla and Riot Fest crowds buy-in-large didn’t want to see artists like Danny Brown, or Deafheaven, or Alex G, but those of us who did knew exactly where we’d be the third weekend of July every year. From a fence-hopping weekend mission in high school to a yearly public school reunion as everyone came home from college, we grew up here. It’s where you made out with a long-standing crush, started a molly-fueled mosh pit, and made sure you weren’t leaving anyone behind as you left for the train. Maybe we’ll all meet up in Union Park on July 19th weekend anyway. Maybe someone will bring DJ decks or a guitar amp. Maybe we won’t even know why we’re there, maybe it will just be muscle memory.
Pitchfork co-founder Mike Reed spoke candidly about the festival’s demise. Citing increased involvement of corporate interests including Condé Nast pushing the festival towards booking more mainstream acts, as well as the skyrocketing costs of putting on the festival, Reed made it clear there was simply no way forward. It’s a tale as old as the phrase “corporate interests” itself; cool thing beloved by young people led by a passionate and creative figurehead stripped of its identity and reduced to a profit incentive. Reed continues to book live music, bringing some of the best jazz in the city to his Hungry Brain venue, but makes it clear that even if Condé Nast was interested in continuing the festival, the creative concessions that would have to be made would render it unrecognizable. I suppose there’s no good place for a billboard in paradise.
The descent of Pitchfork can be best encapsulated by the booking of Black Pumas (whose critical reception from Pitchfork themselves was tepid at best) as a headliner in its final year. The same Black Pumas who were booed at Lollapalooza a year earlier due to being introduced by universally disliked mayor Lori Lightfoot. I don’t blame Black Pumas for getting roped into a political stunt, nor do I hold any particular ire for their agreeable blues rock. The issue is that they played Lollapalooza the year before. Pitchfork was always the place you saw burgeoning stars (Kendrick Lamar, St. Vincent, Chance The Rapper, to name a few) before they got to the Lollapalooza stage. Black Pumas had already played Lolla, already played at the Grammys where they were awarded multiple trophies, and worst of all, had not even received a review from Pitchfork on their most recent album. Beyond personal taste, it just didn’t feel like Pitchfork.
That being said, there were still some exciting and inspired booking decisions being made in Pitchfork’s final year. Reclusive indie-pop enigma Jai Paul and 90’s radio icon Alanis Morisette were both very pleasant surprises on the lineup. The Saturday run of Feeble Little Horse-Wednesday-Bratmobile-Unwound highlighted the festival’s continued capability to be a bridge between generations of underground rock, and the inclusion of Billy Woods and Doss showed that the festival was still more than willing to embrace the abstract. Sure, the lineup was a bit underwhelming compared to past years, and the festival had certainly changed over time, but sometimes homes get renovated. I was still sitting on the same grass I had sat on for the first time 10 years ago.
Pitchfork exists in my mind as a mirage of sun-soaked memories accented with grass stains and adolescent sweat. The warmth of excited eye contact across the crowd with a friend you haven’t seen in years, the victorious feeling of a hand on your shoulder from a member of your group that had been separated, the covert passing of joints and flasks between childhood neighbors and newfound confidants. It was gathering twenty or more acquaintances to sunbathe and dance and reminisce about all the other times you’ve sunbathed and danced together; it was bouncing between permutations of friends, falling in love with the skyline again, and hugging people like winter doesn’t exist.
