Tobias Jesso Jr. Competing With Metal

If you're coming from a particular part of the festival, the way you get to the Pitchfork stage is over this giant walkway thing that makes you feel like you're ascending into the sky over the sea. It was getting close to sunset and I was walking over this when I heard Tobias Jesso, Jr. start "Hollywood," and it all kinda felt like I was in a movie.

I got to his set late because I'd stayed to hear the end of the New Pornographers (who were great even without the whole gang present). I'd figured Jesso might bring a band along and flesh things out for this kind of setting and it was, uh, the opposite. It was just him sitting at a piano, telling the audience stories behind the songs and cracking jokes as if he was just fooling around at a bar. He knew how out of place it all was, throwing out self-deprecating jokes like "At this point everyone's just waiting to see Perfume Genius," and "This is the part where I say 'BARCELONA!'" leading up to a chorus. But he also had to contend with far less quiet bands nearby. If you went far back enough you actually got a significant amount of sound bleed that, oddly enough, gave me an idea of what it'd sound like if Jesso fronted a punk band, or something. The metal band was more of an intrusion, though, with Jesso repeatedly asking them to turn everything up onstage to compensate, and at one point interrupting a song, sort of hilariously, by exclaiming "Holy shit, check!" It forced us all to crowd in closer to hear the details of his performance, and it was a surprisingly intimate set for a festival.

The 15-20 Minutes I Saw Of Sleater-Kinney

Because I stayed for the entirety of Perfume Genius and then got waylaid by some work, I missed a good chunk of Sleater-Kinney's performance. They're one of those bands where I've always been meaning to get into them more, and last night was a major reminder that I really should do that. I have no idea what songs I was there for, but everything was ferocious. Considering there's only three people onstage, there is a tremendous amount of power coming from a Sleater-Kinney performance. They were on one of the festival's biggest stages, and it simultaneously felt like the triumphant festival headlining slot that it was, and -- from where I was standing, at least -- a small, sweaty club show. 

Perfume Genius

After a few missed attempts at trying to see Perfume Genius in New York, last night was finally my first time seeing Mike Hadreas perform since his excellent Too Bright came out last year. It was worth the wait. Hadreas and his band came out all in black, and, bathed in red and white lights. The disparity between Hadreas when he's singing and when he's speaking is half stunning and half funny. During the highlights of the set -- the brooding, electronic-oriented stuff like "Grid" and "Longpig" -- he swayed and thrashed, possessed. And then he'd sorta-bashfully say "Thanks y'all" in between songs, like he'd very briefly come back down to earth. I was going to leave early to make it to Sleater-Kinney, but I wanted to hear "Queen," one of the best songs of 2014. Hadreas wisely saves it for the end, where it functions as a closer that burns down whatever's left of the place. 

The Juan Maclean

Here's another artist I've been dying to see for a while. I thought the Juan Maclean's In A Dream (a sorta-reboot with Nancy Whang front and center as a full-time member) was one of the most underrated albums of last year, and I always figured this stuff would sound amazing live. I walked away with only minor qualms: they didn't play the awesome In A Dream opener "A Place Called Space," and their set was too short. The 45 minutes or hour or whatever they had passed rapidly, like a blink, because every groove and synth layer was so all-encompassing. The kind of stuff you just lose yourself in for a bit and then you realize all this time had passed. It was something like 2:30 in the morning when they finished; it seems like a missed opportunity that they weren't one of the artists that played long enough to greet the sunrise. 

Run The Jewels

I really thought I was going to see Ride. I had promised myself I'd go see Ride, because I'd seen Run The Jewels three times in the last twelve months and Ride is one of those bands I didn't think I was ever going to get to see. But how can you say no to these guys? (And, also, Ride's gonna be in NYC, so whatever.) After having one of the most underrated albums of 2014 and one of the most lauded of 2015, RTJ are on a roll, and every time they get onstage it's like this amicably incendiary triumph. "We're gonna burn this stage to the motherfucking ground!" Killer Mike promised in the beginning, and immediately I figured, "Yeah, this was the right decision." 

You know what you're getting with a RTJ set -- they'll repeat certain jokes between shows, they only have two albums to draw from. But it's one of the most satisfying live experiences going right now, with El-P and Mike just blitzing through barn-burners one after another. But it's also palpable how these two are great friends, and have an unbeatable charisma together. Mike rapped the whole show with his arm in a sling because his shoulder's broken; El-P apologized to everyone in the front of the crowd who didn't feel like jumping before they went into "Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck)." They brought Mike's wife out and got the crowd to wish her a happy birthday. It felt, as always, like you were just hanging out with these two while they had a great time bulldozing a festival crowd with "Blockbuster Night, Pt.1" or "Lie, Cheat, Steal" or the always emotive closer "A Christmas Fucking Miracle." In the beginning of the set, they walked out, as they always do, to "We Are The Champions." That used to feel cheeky before they really blew up with RTJ2. Now it just feels honest.