Pitchfork Festival 2018 - Saturday
photo by James Richards IV

Pitchfork Festival Saturday pics (Fleet Foxes, War on Drugs, Blood Orange, more)

The 2018 edition of Pitchfork Festival continued on Saturday (7/21) in Chicago’s Union Park with sets from Fleet Foxes, Kelela, The War on Drugs, This is Not This Heat, Blood Orange, Raphael Saadiq, Moses Sumney, Girlpool, Circuit Des Yeux, Nilüfer Yanya, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Zola Jesus, Berhana, and Paul Cherry.

Circuit Des Yeux was a highlight of the day for Chicago Tribune:

Best set of the weekend: I have no idea what a band is going to have to do to oust Circuit Des Yeux as set of the weekend. Conjure thunder? She did that. Summon the spirit of late bliesmen with a skanky, swampy skirl? Covered. Use an operatic voice to create drama during a set that came off more like oratorio than music fest set? Check. Circuit Des Yeux, the brainchild of Haley Fohr, has never been as good, as commanding as she was for an amazing 45 minutes. Backed by synth, violin, cello and drums, she opened with a lament that had taking the pose of a supplicant, arms akimbo, palms upturned as through seeking to conjure deep, ancient magic. Soft yet loud, this was a set that rocked harder than anything to date that weekend, the band part of the drama rather than mere accompaniment, setting Fohr’s amazing voice in bedrock. She cooed, moaned, screamed and bellowed, went deep, so deep with songs broad in scope, and nigh flawless in execution. Wow.

Chicago Tribune also recapped one of Saturday’s rarer sets, This Is Not This Heat, aka Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward, two thirds of art rock / post-punk legends This Heat:

High-volume reunion: To be clear, there should not be rock reunions. That said, once they come — like This Is Not This Heat — we just have to deal with them. A little backstory: This Heat was an eccentric delight of an art rock band that broke up in the early ’80s. The two.founding members, Charles Hayward and Charles Bullen, decided there was some unfinished business, and a one-off became a thing. But they are not This Heat. What they were at Pitchfork was the spine of a sextet that was noisy, brawny, with an aggressively experimental sound that often verged on violent. Hayward’s vocal style was as much a growl ad singing, guttural urgency that ramped up the tension on the group’s loose-but-tight jam session. And for longtime Chicago rock fans, This Is Not This Heat was an aural smorgasbord of influences, which made for a reunion that felt a lot like a homecoming.

Check out pictures from Saturday at Pitchfork in the galleries above and below.

Pitchfork Festival wraps up on Sunday, and some sets are streaming live. Take a look at the set times, and catch up on the rest of our Pitchfork coverage with pictures from Friday HERE.

This Is Not This Heat head to Brooklyn for a show at Pioneer Works on Monday (tickets).

photos by James Richards IV and Ben Stas