• Antoine Carlier
  • Savages

Saturday starts with the excellent KEN Mode (who seem to have bounced back from Wednesday’s van crash) and White Lung, who have inexplicably been booked against each other. And it doesn’t let up till, well, Belle & Sebastian.

I’m especially looking forward to Swans and their shamanic doom-drone—I have my misgivings about seeing them play outdoors in the sun, but I’m optimistic that they’ll arrange an eclipse. Savages also promise to be a great live band, though in my mind at least they’d seem more properly at home in darkness as well—maybe in a leaky abandoned subway tunnel.

Reader writers have reviewed all 18 artists on today’s bill (as well as rounded up the afterparties), and because all those overlapping sets present some tough choices, Luca Cimarusti, Kevin Warwick, and contest winner Derrick Alexander have drawn up hour-by-hour itineraries. Throughout the day Reader contributors will be posting to Twitter (follow @Chicago_Reader or use this handy list) and Instagram (also @Chicago_Reader).

After the jump, Warwick and Tina Sfondeles of the Sun-Times talk about what they’re most looking forward to today, besides not constantly sticking to their own clothes.

Philip Montoro

Philip Montoro has been an editorial employee of the Reader since 1996 and its music editor since 2004. Pieces he has edited have appeared in Da Capo’s annual Best Music Writing anthologies in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. He shared two Lisagor Awards in 2019 for a story on gospel pioneer Lou Della Evans-Reid and another in 2021 for Leor Galil's history of Neo, and he’s also split three national awards from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia: one for multimedia in 2019 for his work on the TRiiBE collaboration the Block Beat, and two (in 2020 and 2022) for editing the music writing of Reader staffer Leor Galil. Philip has played scrap metal in Lozenge, drummed with the Disasters, the Afflictions, and Brilliant Pebbles, and sung for the White Outs. He wrote the column Beer and Metal from 2012 till 2015, and hopes to do so again one day. You can also follow him on Twitter.