Courtesy of The Chicago Sun-Times

At this year’s 9th installment of Pitchfork Music Festival, held in Chicago‰’s west side Union Park, yearly attendees and concert officials found themselves drowning in the claustrophobic masses of new concertgoers. On three sunny and invitingly warm days, many attendees were seen running hysterically to and from the Green, Red, or Blue stages, in anticipation of Pitchfork‰’s diverse all-star line up. This year’s musical acts ranged from modern day indie rockers like tUne-yArDs, Sharon Van Etten and Dum Dum Girls, to some revived 90‰’s artists like Beck, Slowdive and Neutral Milk Hotel, to some very popular rap artists including Danny Brown, Schoolboy Q, and Kendrick Lamar. However, amidst all of the panic and hype for all of the big name Pitchfork Artists, none put on as truly unique of a show as St. Vincent and her band.

Guitar goddess:

As the second day of Saturday July 19th came to an end, much of Pitchfork‰’s crowd gathered around the Red Stage in anticipation for St. Vincent‰’s show. As the band began to walk onto stage, nothing captured the amount of excitement and anticipation fans were feeling like the sound of the crowd when St. Vincent herself walked onto the stage. For once during the festival, all eyes were focused on the artist and not any audience member‰’s phone, cigarette, joint, or alcoholic beverage. Wearing a short, ruffled black dress completed with a golden ribbon on her right shoulder, the artist formerly known as Annie Clark did not hesitate to make direct eye contact with many individual audience members during her concert. In a time where lit up screens and electronics generate a communication breakdown between people, just as St. Vincent describes in her most recent album St. Vincent, her presence on stage had the ability to command every one’s attention to her performance and music.

Freaking out:

As blown up condoms were slapped around like beach balls by the audience, St. Vincent subdued the audience to move and moan in pleasure to her music from atop a pink pyramid stage. Of the many songs she played, St. Vincent not only performed hit songs from her latest and most successful album but also a few tracks from her third and more selective album Strange Mercy, including “ Cruel‰” and “Cheerleader‰Û. Although the festival was filled with more popular acts, St. Vincent‰’s distorted guitar was able to give off alternative and unique musical sounds and riffs that were just as amazing to see as to listen to. As the show wore on, St. Vincent ended her set with an intimate crowd surf, where she managed to play her guitar, flip off the cameras, and scream profanity at the top of her lungs to many of her fans, all at once. Overall, the show was a very rare occurrence where both audience members and the artist felt connected to each other by the actual music being played, rather than any other form of dictation.