Chicago Indie Opportunities

On Monday in the Chicago Tribune, Greg Kot, the paper's music critic, called Art Brut "the best band in the world" (although he did add the qualifier, "for the moment, at least"). It makes me sorry that I missed them on Friday night (although even in retrospect, I recognize that I was too wiped out and couldn't realistically have added a club show to my list of activities that day), but I'm not sorry that I missed them on during the heat of Saturday at the Pitchfork Music Festival. The heat makes me absolutely miserable, and no amount of stellar music will change that (though it might distract me for a few moments from time to time). But in his review wrapping up the fest, Kot maintains that much of the music and many of the performances were just that. He particularly singles out The Futureheads, the National, and the reformed Mission of Burma and Os Mutantes. I'm particularly sorry to have missed the Os Mutantes, a legendary Brazilian group that broke up almost thirty years ago, reformulated this year, and played its first ever North American shows within the last couple of weeks. But it wasn't in the cards for me to see them on a sweltering Sunday night. Apparently the show was jammed, which is exactly what promoters want to see at an event, but I can't help but think that would only have added to the heat and misery. It all sounds like a huge success, so next year's fest, provided the weather cooperates (not that I expect it to), might be worth looking into. If you can't wait that long, you can always scurry down to Grant Park in a couple of days for an even bigger indie fest that you may have heard of.