Last weekend, Nick Lucchesi headed up to Chicago to cover this year's Pitchfork Music Festival. In case you missed his reports, here's a handy-dandy list of links to his photos, interviews and reviews:

*A Flaming Lips photo essay

*A video interview with M83's Anthony Gonzalez
*Black Lips and the National

More >>

Anthony Gonzalez, the man who makes up the French electronic group M83, was in the States for a few days over the weekend, playing Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday and Chicago's Pitchfork Music Festival on Sunday night.



He talks about confronting violent bouncers at his Ohio show on Saturday night (one report described a very perturbed Gonzalez), new recording projects, Michael Jackson's death and still-under-wraps deals to do movie soundtracks. This interview was taped about an hour before M83's set on Sunday night.

So this is a Flaming Lips show... Shot on July 19 at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, the rock band closed out the three-day indie rock festival with a set of lush, psychedelic rock.
More >>

Kickball Katy of th Vivian Girls.

Brooklyn-by-way-of-New Jersey's Vivian Girls seemed at home on the festival stage at Pitchfork today, although the young trio showed a few signs of being new to the game during its set, at one point asking the audience to all lift their arms in the air ("It looks so cool," said Kickball Katy, the group's bass player.)

And who can blame them for being happy about their relatively early success? With the faceless chatter on the interwebs reaching a fever-pitch over the trio, their favorite bands sharing the festival billing, and critical praise for their 2008 LP hitting its apex, the group has a lot to sing about.

Cassie Ramone of the Vivian Girls

They did just that, rocking through their own reverbalized, punk music. With the green trees of Chicago's Union Park and the sun setting, the group's performance -- visually at least -- also felt akin to the '60s girl groups to whome they are so often compared.

After the jump is a short video interview with Katy.
More >>

Fucked Up singer Pink Eyes at Pitchfork Music Festival.

Toronto hardcore group Fucked Up, last in St. Louis in October, has been hitting the festival circuit hard and fast in 2009, zipping around the globe, meeting members of KoRn, and on Saturday, filling an afternoon time-slot here at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.

(Interview with drummer Jonah Falco after the jump...)
More >>

The Black Lips on Saturday night at Pitchfork Music Festival.

Black Lips, the Atlanta-based flower punks were guitar-smashing goodness on the small stage. A highlight was "Drugs," off the 200 Million Thousand LP, released earlier this year. It was a jangly pop gem that inspired many a go-go dance in the crowd -- and every pot-smoker to give everyone around them a contact high.
More >>

Here's an unlikely duo from today's performances at Pitchfork Music Festival: Brooklyn's hyper-kinetic Matt and Kim battling for attention with the dreamy melancholy of New York's Beirut.

Beruit at Pitchfork Music Festival

Beirut -- masterminded by Zachary Condon -- played with presence on the Pitchfork stage, eschewing confidence with its brass trumpets and tubas, mandolin strings and accordion keys. Barely into his mid-twenties, Condon acted like a veteran on the stage, although he did admit that the audience was the largest in front of which his mandolin had likely ever performed.

Kim Schifino of Matt and Kim.

Meanwhile, on the smallest of the three stages, Matt and Kim pounded out their dance rhythms and melody, all while wearing those perma-smiles their fans have come accustomed to seeing. They too, owned the stage on which they performed. Matt owned up to making a few mistakes in Chicago in the past and dedicated their song, "Yeah Yeah," although written a few years ago, to the summer of 2009.
More >>

Nathan Williams of Wavves on Saturday at Pitchfork Music Festival, during his cover of "Nervous Breakdown" by Black Flag.

More >>

That's Doug Martsch of Built to Spill behind that hat.

It's the end of Day 1 of Pitchfork Music Festival here in Chicago, which by Sunday, should see 40 bands play and welcome 50,000 -- ahem, hipsters -- through the fences of Union Park. More than a few bands who have made their way through St. Louis in the past year -- and some who will be here later on -- are scheduled to play this weekend.
More >>