• Stephanie Bassos
  • Neneh Cherry, the Reader team’s consensus favorite from Friday’s Pitchfork lineup

Philip Montoro: I failed to follow my own advice on Pitchfork’s opening day: I missed Neneh Cherry. Actually I missed everybody—I was tied up at work till well after the media check-in closed at 7 PM. When this happened last year I made a joke about Professor X hanging out at the Xavier Institute while the X-Men go to music festivals, but I don’t think I can get away with anything like that twice. I’d just make myself look even more like a sad bastard trying to laugh off his painful office hours.

  • Cory Dewald
  • Sharon Van Etten

Luca Cimarusti: If I had to choose my top five favorite bands, three of them would be Black Flag, Black Sabbath, and the Stooges. So the last thing in the world I expected was to leave Pitchfork as a Sharon Van Etten fan. Her set was amazing, beautiful, and mournful. Her yearning songs, packed with soulful melody and complex vocal harmonies, made it physically difficult for me to walk away. I had to cut out early tonight, but she’s been the highlight of the fest so far.

It’s a weird turn, but it makes sense: knowing how to be a strong live act comes from experience. The best performances were by people who’d honed their skills with decades on the road. That’s why Giorgio Moroder’s set was so odd: he seemed to be reaching for a modern EDM feel, but he had none of the execution of an practiced DJ. His performance existed in an odd limbo, not quite the present and not quite the past, deeply aware of history but clueless about what’s going on now.

  • Stephanie Bassos
  • A member of Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks

Brianna Wellen: Sure, I could talk about how sleepy the fest’s opening lineup was (Sharon Van Etten and Sun Kil Moon in particular). Or yeah, I could complain about how not enough people were dancing to the undeniably dancy tunes of Neneh Cherry and Avey Tare. But walking away from day one of Pitchfork, I’m most struck by how much I apparently love Beck. He was barely a blip on my radar when I glanced at the weekend’s lineup. The standby hits made me way more nostalgic than anticipated (“Girl” was on my first driving mixtape when I got my license). His dance moves, especially in unison with his band, were insanely charming, and when he sang “Debra” during the encore I could barely contain my girlish squeals. Maybe the weather was just lovely enough, maybe I had just the right number of beers, maybe the odds just magically swung in Beck’s favor—but whatever the cause, he was my highlight of the day.