Pitchfork Music Festival 2024: Friday Highlights
Pitchfork Music Festival 2024 returned to Union Park, kicking off on Friday, July 19th. Although we’ve had storms and heat waves in Chicago in recent weeks, the weather forecast looks great for the entire weekend, and fans were able to start the weekend of festivities with sun and comfortable temperatures to go along with the day-one lineup that included everything from the lofi and laidback Black Duck to amped up electronic acts like 100 gecs and Jai Paul to the soulful rockers Black Pumas.
Around 5:15 PM, DJ and singer Yaeji kicked off the dance party that bounced between the Red and Green stages for the rest of the evening. Flanked by two backup dancers, Yaeji glided across the stage, singing her bilingual lyrics of English and Korean words. A highlight of her set included her most popular song “Raingurl” that features a hypnotic beat and had the whole crowd moving in unison.
Meanwhile over at the Blue Stage, Amen Dunes, which is the musical project of singer-songwriter Damon McMahon, held down the experimental indie rock quota of the festival for the day. The band’s set included a handful of new songs from the album Death Jokes that just came out in May 2024, like “Purple Land” and “Exodus.” Fans also got to hear some familiar favorites like “Miki Dora” from Amen Dunes’ 2018 album Freedom.
Photo by OK Pedersen
Next up, 100 gecs cranked up the energy ten-fold, drawing in a massive crowd to join their rave mosh pit. The duo Dylan Brady and Laura Les kept the crowd smiling and dancing along with their quirky lyrics and outlandish electronic tracks, opening up the show with their song “Dumbest Girl Alive.” Les and Brady also did a great job at setting up their upcoming songs with their witty stage banter—before playing “Frog On The Floor” the duo told the audience to “look to your right, look to your left, now look down and make sure there’s not a frog on the floor!” They also asked the crowd to cheer if they’d ever had a tooth pulled or lost a tooth, adding “let me hear it if you’ve ever gone -1 on a tooth” before they performed “I Got My Tooth Removed.” In addition to all of the dancing I witnessed during 100 gecs, I also spotted my first crowdsurfer of the day during their set.
Photo by Kimberly Ross
Violinist and singer-songwriter Sudan Archives as well as DJ and producer Jai Paul kept the dance parties going at the Blue and Red stages next as we got into some of the final moments of the day one.
Jeff Rosenstock and his band closed out the Blue Stage with my favorite performance of the day, which began with the song “Chop Suey!” by System of a Down playing over the speakers until Rosenstock and his bandmates took their places onstage and finished out playing the song live. From there, the set launched into a feel-good rowdy rock set that was a nice change of pace from the heavily electronic-based music on the lineup. While I spotted one or two crowdsurfers earlier, there were too many to keep track of towards the end of Jeff Rosenstock’s performance— including Jeff himself jumping offstage while playing the saxophone. While the crowd might have been rambunctious, Rosenstock made sure to encourage everyone to remain respectful, asking everyone to say hi to their festival neighbors and keep it a friendly space for others. “Make it a habit throughout the weekend, and if throughout the weekend some fucking dumb dipshit person starts groping the person next to you, and starts getting in their space, just gather the nice people around you and push that person the fuck out of the way so everybody can enjoy the weekend.”
Photo by OK Pedersen
As the sun began to go down, Black Pumas began their soulful rock and roll headlining show over on the main stage to wrap up Friday’s festivities. Their show opened on a high note-literally- as lead vocalist Eric Burton showed off his silky and dynamic vocal range. Burton also took the opportunity to connect and get close to the audience, hopping down from the stage to join the fans on the barricade as he serenaded them. The Black Pumas’ performance made for a great way to ease into some of the more pop-heavy performers that are slated for the rest of Pitchfork Fest.
Photo by Kimberly Ross
Keep an eye out for highlights from Saturday and Sunday of Pitchfork Fest.