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Pitchfork Festival Opening night party @ Metro

The festivities in Chicago started Friday night at Metro with the Pitchfork Festival Opening Night Party featuring The Joggers, a trifecta of underground comedy stars (Todd Barry, Eugene Mirman, and Aziz Ansari), Voxtrot, and Spencer Krug vehicle Sunset Rubdown.

The Joggers took the stage first and did their prog-rock via Les Savy Fav shtick. There were a number of memorable and enjoyable songs during their set, including a disturbingly straight cover of Yes’s Long Distance Run Around for those who doubted their prog-rock pedigree.

Following The Joggers was the comedy. Aziz was trapped in New York unfortunately, but Eugene Mirman, and Todd Barry, still killed. Mirman, and Barry know therir audience, and packed their sets with Pitchfork and MySpace jokes.


Voxtrot followed with their well written if a little dull set of pop tunes. At least this time around the sound was much better and Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Wives actually sounded like it was being played by a band.
Voxtrot played a few new tunes from their forthcoming long player that’s as of yet untitled, and tentatively scheduled for release in early 2007.



After Voxtrot’s pretty selves were done wooing the young indie girls Sunset Rubdown took the stage. Spencer Krug gets more adventurous and shrugs off the shadow of Isaacc Brock that colors Wolf Parade’s Appologies to the Queen Mary with Sunset Rubdown.

The more erratic compositions of Sunset Rubdown are a more comfortable fit for Krug’s rambling phrasings and unpredictable melodies. Live the impact of the instrumentation is only amplified, the delicate melodies of the xylophone and cascades of piano are overtaken by the unexpected power of guitarist and drummer Jordan Robson Cramer and Michael Doerksen who act like steroids for Krug’s emotional outpourings.

posted by Unknown at 2:09 AM