Information Leafblower

Jul 30 2006

Ted Leo, Top of the Pops

(aka I survived Day One of Pitchforkfest and all you get is this lousy blog entry)

Greetings from hot and humid Chicago. I just went outside to get breakfast and it's already 85 degrees out. It's supposed to reach 98 today, with a heat index around 107, which is even worse than yesterday's 95 degrees.

Yesterday Ms. Smith and I got up fairly early(we skipped the GJ/Camera Obscura gig the night before due to my raging headache which turned out to be a good move because the gig was cancelled due to a power outage) and went on a boat tour that highlighted Chicago's skyline/architecture. It was really cool although we were both melting at the end of the hour long trip. We decided to lay low during the peak heat hours and just tooled around the city by our hotel. We eventually made our way down to Millennium Park and saw the Gehry Concert Hall and the Bean (photos later). We headed over to Union Park around 4 or so and caught the last bit of Destroyer (verdict: not my thing). Art Brut was next and Eddie and Co. ripped through the same set they've been playing in the US with the exception of one new song that has a killer guitar riff. He also added some new drinking partners in "I'm Considering A Move To LA", "drinking Stella with Paul Weller," "drinking gin with Vera Lynn," etc. They were great. As usual.

My man Ted Leo was next and I was super excited to see him since I've missed him the last few times he came through DC. He came out and straight rocked it, mixing old faves with new stuff, all of which was great. It was a real treat for me to finally get to take some photos of Ted. Longtime readers know I heart him the mostest and being in the photo pit during one of his sets was something that I've looked forward to doing for a long time. Ted played, in my opinion, the best set of the day.

The Walkmen were up after him and hit the ground running. They played a slowie first and then got down top business, pumping out "The Rat" with just the third song in their set. It was best. I got a great spot in the pit and got some amazing photos of them.

About halfway through The Walkmen, I hustled over to the other stage to plant myself in front of Barry's mic and waited for The Futureheads. Sunderland's finest played the kind of set I wanted them to play at their recent DC show, opening up with "Decent Days and Nights" and then quickly following up with "Area" and never letting up. It was a straight up ass-kicking.

As for the Festival itself, it was great, save for the heat. I am getting to old for this shit. Me, myself and my Scandinavian heritage can't handle triple digit heat and humidity. I really wanted to see Band of Horses yesterday but I had a rough time dealing with four and a half hours of heat, so there's no way I could have gone out there at 2:30 yesterday when they went on. I fear The National will suffer the same fate today. They play an early set but we're most likely going to wait until later in the day to make our way over.

Somehow I accidentally deleted my Art Brut photos from yesterday, which is a bummer, but at the same time I don't really feel like the interweb needs any more pictures of Art Brut. Anyways, more photos after the jump and over at Flickr.

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