Pitchfork Music Festival Archives

Ariel Zetina checks out her own outfit in a mirror on the wall in a cluttered and colorful apartment-slash-studio while Tali Halpern crouches on the floor to look on

Ariel Zetina brings an inspiring queer community to Pitchfork

by Joan Roach July 13, 2023July 31, 2023

In just over a week, Ariel Zetina debuts a live performance of her brazen 2022 album, Cyclorama, at the Pitchfork Music Festival. When it dropped, Zetina described the album as “an imagined theatrical production,” and this week that production takes its next step: onto the Green Stage in Union Park early next Sunday afternoon. Building […]

Annie Howard displays her Readerbranded Pitchfork bingo cards in the crowd near the Red Stage.

Music

What I learned handing out bingo cards at the Pitchfork Music Festival

by Annie Howard July 20, 2022July 20, 2022

In the waning moments of the Pitchfork Music Festival in 2019, with Khruangbin’s vibey guitar music wafting over the sun-dappled, sleepy Sunday crowd, I bumped into a stranger who recognized me. The man asked: Didn’t we sit next to each other on a plane back from Toronto just a few weeks ago? Indeed we had, […]

A cartoony illustration of a masked festivalgoer hanging back from the crowd by the stage at "Big Crowd Fest"

Music

The ‘new normal’ hangs over another summer of live music

by Leor Galil July 7, 2022July 7, 2022

It’s music festival season again, and of course we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 222.3 million U.S. residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19—roughly 67 percent of the population. Vaccination is a great safeguard against serious illness or death, but it’s less effective against infection […]

The outline of a human shape, with a festival wristband on one arm and a butterfly perched on the other hand, contains the blue skies, fields, stages, and fans of the PItchfork Music Festival.

Music

A guide to Pitchfork for the resonant body

by Annie Howard September 2, 2021September 3, 2021

Since 2015, my first year living full-time in Chicago, the Pitchfork Music Festival has been a watershed moment in my summer. In its regular July slot, the fest has created a fulcrum point in the season—it’s a place to unexpectedly bump into forgotten friends and rest in the leafy tranquility of the Blue Stage, where […]

Music

The Reader’s guide to Chicago in Tune

by Reader staff August 18, 2021June 7, 2022

The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events originally planned to celebrate the Year of Chicago Music in 2020. Then the pandemic diminished those festivities to the point that the city declared 2021 the Year of Chicago Music too. The ongoing surge of the Delta variant means the U.S. won’t be rid of the pandemic […]

St. Vincent, shown here during her 2014 Pitchfork appearance, headlines the festival's second night.

Music

Pitchfork announces the lineup for its delayed 2021 music festival

by Leor Galil May 17, 2021August 18, 2021

Plenty of COVID-related uncertainty still surrounds the Pitchfork fest, as it does any large-scale event—but we can be reasonably sure about who’s scheduled to play.

Best of Chicago

This week’s cover

by Brianna Wellen March 19, 2021August 18, 2021

We have a tradition here at the Reader of tasking one of the city’s most talented illustrators, Jason Wyatt Frederick, with creating a Where’s Waldo-esque tableau every year for Pitchfork, filled with a who’s who of Chicago personalities and small visual puzzles spelling out the music fest’s lineup. When it seemed clear that we would […]

Music

Femdot pauses his rap career to help feed Chicago

by Leor Galil September 17, 2020August 18, 2021

Femdot’s nonprofit, Delacreme Scholars, has run the Scholars Slide By to deliver groceries to hundreds of people in need this summer.

Music

The Pitchfork Music Festival announces its 2020 lineup

by Leor Galil February 19, 2020August 18, 2021

For its 15th year, the famously eclectic fest has booked headliners the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Run the Jewels, and the National.

Music

JPEGMafia offers an escape from single-genre monotony on the eclectic All My Heroes Are Cornballs

by Matt Harvey October 17, 2019August 18, 2021

On his new third studio album, All My Heroes Are Cornballs, Brooklyn-born, Baltimore-based hip-hop artist Barrington Devaughn Hendricks, aka JPEGmafia (Peggy for short), offers an escape from the monotony of music that’s restricted by genre. Hendricks dives headfirst into his attention-deficit-fueled opener, “Jesus Forgive Me, I Am a Thot,” which is the album’s most concise […]