Pitchfork Friday: thunderstruck with Bjork

by Scott Wilson

Bjork, wearing a shimmering dress, platform heels, and a golden sea urchin hat punches the air in time with the tandem electronic and live percussion. Her backup singers and dancers, all young ladies with flowing dresses and long hair, bounce and swing their ponytails between stanzas. Though their individual movements are uncoordinated to each other –one girl might be two-stepping while another head bangs – the group moves as if of a hive mind, going wild at the same breakdowns, punching the air together, sitting at the same time on the same block of stage to listen to a characteristic Bjork nonsense soliloquy, “My mother and my son… cook for me!”

And while the show goes on, picking up in intensity, Thor, the Nordic god of thunder and “plus 1”  VIP guest of Bjork responds by moving an anvil-shaped and lightening filled super-cell over Union Park. While singing the song “Thunderbolt” actual thunderbolts streak across the sky. “See that dawg!” says a voice in the crowd, “That’s thunder over there!” His friend responds, “Oh hell yeah bro, I spit some of my best game in thunder! We were at a bar this one night…” The screams of the audience drown him out as Bjork cuts the band to say that the national weather people have told her severe weather is coming. They have to stop the show. “Wouldn’t be much in Iceland, I can tell you that much,” she adds.

Though the Bjork set headlines and steals most of the show on Friday, much must be said about the earlier bands in the day who brave the 100-degree heat plus humidity and flies and airborne pathogens and stray bullets and everything else Chicago’s climate has to offer. Wire, true heroes and veterans of a hot music festival or two, do their set dressed in all black in direct sunlight, showing to the youngsters that rock doesn’t quit for rough weather. A good ending to their US tour.

“Oh my God, I didn’t expect her to be so pretty,” says one girl as Joanna Newsom strums her harp and sings her renaissance fair ditties, unaccompanied by a backup band. Another fan quips, “It kind of takes you out of it to know that all these beautiful songs and metaphors were written about fucking Andy Samburg (of “Dick in a Box” fame with Justin Timberlake)”

Joanna Newsom looks delighted to be at Pitchfork, smiling and giggling between songs, as do most of the bands all three days. Part of this probably can be attributed to Union Park’s location just west of Downtown in a residential area with a 10pm noise curfew, ensuring that all bands stick to the timetable so the headliners have a chance to finish their set. But also bands can easily escape the music festival madness via bus, El train, taxi, limo, bike, or the nearby airport, much to the consternation of journalists trying to get interviews.

Photo by Tonje Thilesen for Pitchfork