Day 1 of the Pitchfork Music Festival @ Union Park Chicago – July 17th 2015

The Pitchfork Music Festival took place at Union Park in Chicago this past weekend, kicking off on Friday, July 17th. Pitchfork, the music news and review website, has been curating and organizing a music festival in Chicago’s Union Park each year since 2005. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the festival, and as in previous years, the lineup steered close to Pitchfork’s indie-rock-focused coverage, mixing in some additional styles including hip-hop and electronic music. Over the years, The Pitchfork Music Festival has tended to balance newer up-and-coming artists with more established acts filling in the key time slots on the bigger stages. This year was no exception, with notable performances from Chvrches, Parquet Courts, Courtney Barnett, Bully, and a host of others leading into headlining sets from Wilco, Sleater-Kinney, and Chance The Rapper.

Day one of the festival hit the ground running on Friday afternoon. As the gates opened for the weekend, festival attendees were greeted with oppressive heat as the temp soared into the mid 90’s with an even higher heat index due to the humidity. Fortunately, the air wasn’t the only thing heating up, as Friday’s schedule featured some scorching performances as well. Notable standouts included: Natalie Prass doing a fine job of replicating the powerful vocals from her stellar debut album with a bit of a rockier, harder edge; Panda Bear working hard to connect with sun-baked fans minus his array of lighting and psychedelic images; Chvrches playing an engaging and high energy set while still finding time for Lauren Mayberry to chastise Mac DeMarco for leaving the stage littered with cigarette butts; And a headlining set from hometown heroes Wilco that saw the band play through their entire 11-song newly released album, Star Wars, from beginning to end.

If you were there, check out the photos below to remind you of what a great time it was. If you were not able to make it, check out what you missed!

Photos © Dan Kulpa