Bill Meyer: One of Pitchfork’s pleasures comes early each day, when local up-and-comers get a crack at a big stage. Since two-thirds of the Bitchin Bajas—an instrumental trio that has drawn the right lessons in trance induction from Terry Riley, Alice Coltrane, and Cluster—perform seated before analog synthesizers, visual spectacle was not on the agenda. But they made glorious use of the Green Stage’s sound system, bathing listeners in richly layered tones and textures to transport them from a muddy field to a state of sound-induced serenity.
Brianna Wellen: Within the first 15 minutes of arriving at the festival I met my idol, Kathleen Hanna. Even though I was awestruck at the moment, only an hour later I was dancing my heart out in the shade of the Blue Stage while Hanna and her band the Julie Ruin performed with every ounce of energy they had and then some. When Madlib’s bass threatened to drown out the last two songs of the band’s set, Hanna just screamed a little louder. I’m sure some other stuff happened, but it doesn’t really matter because I’ll be living off my Hanna encounter for the rest of my life.
Run the Jewels turned in a much tighter and livelier set than I’d seen at Metro in November, when they performed twice in one night and seemed winded and ragged for the late show. Plus they brought out Boots for “Early,” Gangsta Boo for “Love Again,” and Zack de la Rocha for “Close Your Eyes (and Count to Fuck).” The colossal blocks of bass set my eyeballs to vibrating from 150 feet away—and incited in the group’s most devoted fans the kind of rambunctiousness that I don’t tend to appreciate when I’m packed asshole-to-elbow with thousands of my fellow humans and can’t execute evasive maneuvers. My friend Jeremy Lemos was working sound, and if you stood near the booth, directly in the PA’s line of fire, you could hear the full frequency spectrum of El-P’s beats at the sort of apocalyptic volume usually associated with building demolition.
