Our 10 Favorite Sets from Pitchfork Fest 2024

With the summer sun in the sky and a verve for live music, KCSB was on the scene to witness a wonderful weekend of live music at Union Park in Chicago. Here were our 10 favorite sets of Pitchfork Chicago 2024.

words by: Will Bacaj 

 

Rosali

Situated on the more intimate Blue Stage on a stage surrounded by trees, Rosali and company provided the perfect set for a sunny Friday afternoon to welcome us into the festival weekend. Mostly playing songs from her excellent 2024 record Bite Down, with its producer, Nebraskan choogle monger David Nance on bass and his band Mowed Sound filling out the arrangements, Rosali channeled the quiet devastation and big emotions that anchor the record for a festival sized crowd. 

Musical intimacy can be a tricky thing to convey on a festival stage, especially as the sounds of another stage blares in the background like the cellphone of an especially rude public transit rider, but the lulls and swells of songs like “Hopeless,” “My Kind,” and “Rewind” filled the air. The only regret of the afternoon was that we couldn’t spend more time nestled with Rosali and co. among the trees.

Sudan Archives

Sudan Archives never turns in a bad performance. She dominated the stage with a magnetic presence, alternating between brash confidence and coy playfulness as she sang, danced, and played a wicked violin. Even in the currently stacked field of left-of-center R&B, Sudan Archives’ live sets make it readily apparent that there is nobody else who can match her unique mix of instrumental talent and attitude. 

Sudan Archives ended her set with a new song that sounded great, a promising development on the horizon for fans who have eagerly anticipated a follow up to her 2022 banger of a record Natural Brown Prom Queen. The future sounds bright, but the present is more than full of vibrancy.

 

Wednesday

Despite the much-deserved hype about Wednesday’s virtuoso guitarist MJ Lenderman’s upcoming solo record Manning Fireworks, Wednesday’s set on Saturday afternoon reminded the crowd why singer Karly Hartzman and the rest of the band make such a great team. While Hartzman and Lenderman often dominate the media coverage around the band, lap steel player Xandy Chelmis is the glue guy who’s playing provides some of the texture that gives their often understated or droll lyrics their full emotional patina. 

As the midday sun bore down on the crowd, Karly had a fire in her belly and lungs full of smoke as the band ran through the majority of their 2023 record Rat Saw God, as well as a few new songs they’ve just started playing live this year, like “Reality TV,” “Wound Up Here” and “Candy Breath.” 

Before ending their set with “Bull Believer,” Hartzman told the audience to scream along to the crescendo of the song to express their discontent with the state of the world, be it the less than stellar current state of domestic politics or the unfolding genocide in Gaza. Based on the audience’s response, Wednesday did an ace job during their set of stirring up the crowd, giving them a place to ride along to waves of fuzzy guitars and purge their pent up emotions in the process.

De La Soul

Despite missing their late great bandmate Trugoy the Dove, De La Soul put on one hell of a performance on Saturday afternoon. Many legacy acts are content to remind us of their prime era with drips and drabs of past brilliance, hoping the twin forces of nostalgia and fandom will soften the crowd and fill in the gaps. Even with one of the most unassailable discographies in hip-hop, the remaining members Posdnous and Maseo were not there to rest on their laurels. From start to finish, they provided the Pitchfork crowd with a jolt of fun and energy that many rappers could only hope to glimpse on their best days. De La Soul didn’t need to play through the greatest hits compilation to have the crowd eating out of their hand. Much like Milton Burle, they just had to pull out enough to win.

De La started their set strong with two deep cuts from the later portion of their career with 2010s “The Return of D.S.T” and 2004’s “The Grind Date” before hitting the classic one-two punch of “Ooh” and “Potholes in My Lawn.” Though the crowd was adequately amped by the proceedings, halfway through their set, Posdnuos and Maseo brought out Talib Kweli for good measure to help fill the second mic left vacant by the death of Trugoy on De La Soul classics like “Stakes is High,” “A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays,” and “Me Myself and I,” among others.  

If that wasn’t enough to keep the vibe flowing, De La Soul invited Pharoah Monoche on stage to perform his 1999 classic “Simon Says” for good measure. After an up and down year in which they lost a member, but their back catalog was added to streaming platforms following years of sample-licensing hell, De La Soul more than proved their place among the greats. If you missed De La Soul’s set, you messed up.

 

Jessie Ware

As the sun began its descent across the Chicago skyline on Saturday, English singer Jessie Ware put on a masterclass of glam goddess charm. Flanked by two backup singers and a pair of pliable dancers, Ware commanded the stage for the best hour of the entire weekend with a manner of posh warmth that many of our pop queens can only try to approximate.  

Jessie Ware’s rhythm section set a slinky four-on-the-floor disco pace that kept the crowd moving and grooving for a full hour with a setlist mostly composed of songs from her last two records, 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure? and 2023’s aptly named That! Feels! Good!. Ware charged around the stage and exhorted the crowd to meet the energy being displayed on stage, a challenge the crowd gamely accepted. With flawlessly executed group choreography that had members of the crowd hooting and hollering at certain points. In a canny play to the highly queer cohort of fans crowding the front of the stage, Jessie Ware covered “Believe” by Cher as her penultimate song of the night. As a crowd, we simply had no choice but to stan “the mother of pearl.”

Carly Rae Jepsen

For the golden hour on Saturday, Carly Rae Jepsen was the silver sequined hero the crowd needed to keep the energy flowing after Jessie Ware’s absolute heater of a set. Scheduling the two pop mavens back to back before Jamie xx’s set was a brilliant move on the part of the Pitchfork organizers to turn Saturday night into a nonstop party for the people who came to dance.

Carly mostly played from her last two records, 2022’s The Loneliest Time and 2023’s The Loveliest Time, with a few back catalog hits like “Call Me Maybe” and “I Really Like You” for good measure. I had intended to split off part way through her set to catch part of Unwound’s set on the neighboring Blue Stage, but when it came to go, I was rooted in place. It’s hard to say no to something as infectiously fun as a Carly Rae Jepsen set. The rapport she had with her band and the crowd was too much to overcome. To paraphrase a song that was dubbed Best New Track by Pitchfork in 2023, I would be satisfied forever with a couple hours of that. 

 

Joanna Sternberg

Playing one of the first slots of the day at a music festival can be a tough assignment under even the best of circumstances for an artist. Doing it alone on stage with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a microphone in front of them is an even tougher task. No matter what happens, it’s all on their shoulders.

Even without those caveats, Joanna Sternberg turned in a truly remarkable performance early in the afternoon on Sunday. While playing songs that often evoke yearning and anguish, Sternberg’s set exuded a profound sense of warmth. The vulnerability of their lyrics makes it feel as though you’re observing the pages of someone’s diary and getting all of the intimate details of their mind and how they perceive the world around them. 

As they played gems like “People are Toys to You,” “I’ve Got Me,” and “I’ll Make You Mine,” Sternberg called to mind songwriters like Karen Dalton and Jonathan Richman with their ability to make you feel a full gamut of emotions in just a few minutes. With songs so personal and beautifully human, Sternberg tapped a vein of universal experience that few songwriters are able to access, let alone harness in a live setting. Without a doubt, Sternberg turned in the most heartwarming set of the weekend. 

 

Mannequin Pussy

After having two dental implants placed back in 2019, I declared myself retired from moshing. At this point in my life, it seemed like the potential financial negatives outweighed the cathartic positives. Who among us likes paying dental bills out of pocket? But just when I thought I was out, Mannequin Pussy pulled me back in with songs like “Pigs Is Pigs” and “Ok? Ok! Ok? Ok!” 

Singers Marisa Dabice and Colins Regisford traded vocals during their Sunday afternoon set, revving up the crowd into a raucous fervor, barely giving the crowd a chance to catch their breath between songs. Just when the Day 3 exhaustion of a weekend-long festival had begun to set in, Mannequin Pussy were there to jostle the crowd into tapping their final reserves of energy. When the dust clouds had settled, all of my teeth were thankfully intact. Once again, I must officially announce my retirement from the moshing game.

 

Crumb

Crumb affirmed their status as one of the best psych bands to launch in the past decade during their set on Sunday afternoon. Playing a setlist mostly composed of songs from their 2024 record AMAMA, the band locked into a groove of hazy synths and hypnotic rhythms, punctuated by the occasional guitar freakouts heard in songs like “Crushxd.”

Crumb’s brand of jazzy psychedelia forgoes the obvious rehashing of other bands to make something unique to them, with frequent tempo changes and alterations amid the chill vibes. Drummer Jonathan Giliad and bassist Jessie Brotter make for a killer rhythm section that frequently makes the intricacies and complexities of the material seem deceivingly simple. The best musical virtuosos are the ones who know how to be restrained and avoid instrumental self-gratification to better serve the songs. AMAMA is a big step forward for Crumb as a band, but the fluidity of their live set indicates the best has yet to come.

 

Les Savy Fav

 

Closing out the Blue Stage on Sunday night, singer Tim Harrington refused to be constrained by the boundaries of the stage or his band’s stated settime. Like a dad bod Iggy Pop, Harrington repeatedly jumped into the crowd and implored the attendees to get on his level, stretching the microphone cord as far as it could go in every direction

 At one point he even jumped into the handicapped section to make sure all of the attendees were able to get an up close experience of Harrington’s roving Tasmanian Devil approach to being a frontman. 

As Les Savy Fav neared the 8:30 cutoff for their set, Harrington unplugged the digital clock on the side of the stage and threw it down on the ground. Watching the sound guys side of the stage struggling to figure out how to deal with this development made for tremendous comedy. Eventually the crew cut off Harrington’s mic and turned the band’s instruments down, prompting Harrington to grab every mic on stage and test them all to no avail. In thrilling fashion, Les Savy Fav gave Pitchfork as much of a show as they could handle.