• Stephanie Bassos
  • A crowd shot from Deafheaven’s set

Philip Montoro: I learned something interesting at Pitchfork on Sunday. The poor sod dressed as Twinkie the Kid could barely see in that costume. I saw a woman leading him (it?) by the elbow across the lawn, and she had to warn him when they crossed the paved path: “Look out, there’s a little step down here!” This presented a truly difficult temptation: I mean, it’s not like I wanted to get kicked out of Pitchfork, but if it had to happen, I’d have wanted it to be because I blindsided Twinkie the Kid with a flying tackle.

Deafheaven fared better, though I couldn’t help but notice that I was the only dude in sight with metal hair—and I was smack in the middle of the crowd, 30 feet in front of the soundboard. Then a friend punctured the gravity of the band’s monumental first song: “I bet that singer was great on the debate team.”

  • Stephanie Bassos
  • Perfect Pussy

And now, for another take on the same two bands . . .

A slate of rappers performed in the afternoon and evening, the most charismatic and technically sound of whom was near no-show Earl Sweatshirt, the urban legend turned ace MC who’s yet to fully come into his own as an artist—an almost scary proposition, considering he’s already among the best ten or so rappers working today. His set was was alternately energetic (“Whoa,” “Drop”) and somber (“Chum,” “Sunday”), yet completely cohesive. The rest of the day failed to reach those heights. Grimes was fine, but I couldn’t help but wish Annie Clark would come back for a second go-round. Meanwhile, Kendrick Lamar’s set, which started about 20 minutes late, was identical to the one he performed just a few months ago on the Yeezus tour, right down to the “Which side of the crowd is loudest?” shtick and “Chicago is my second home” spiel. I ducked out before he finished and got some Mexican food, and I hope everyone else did something equally fulfilling to end their Pitchfork weekend.

It was certainly worth saving energy for Kendrick Lamar, who proved himself a worthy closing headliner. “Chicago is my second home,” he said in a rare breather during a relentlessly energetic set helped along by a perfectly on-point live band. “A lot of my family here from the south side.” Their presence added weight to the Compton MC’s antiviolence sermons; his message was buoyed by a stream of stylized footage on the big screens, which played like an art film on the modern urban condition.