Gates:

I got there incredibly early for two reasons –

1. My tickets were at Will Call and I didn’t feel like waiting in an incredibly long line to get them when the fest started.

2. I was bored.

Kind of the crowd you’d expect. Vintage clothing or ‘ironic’ t-shirts (some kid has some day-glo concoction from a Land of the Ozarks water park on), dyed or angular hair and backpacks and messengers of all varieties.

Some dude could even pass as Dov Charney’s doppleganger. (Wait, WAS that Dov Charney?)

Yo La Tengo: The breezy, overcast evening (for us, at least) got off to an equally dreary evening when YLT took the stage. Their first few numbers edged on sleepy, including the classic “Autumn Sweater” but that ended with the beginning of what woukd be several of the band’s more exciting cuts including “Mr. Tough”. One of their new cuts off of their upcoming September disc was dedicated to Ron Santo. It was the right set for that point of the evening.

The Jesus Lizard: David Yow is not a young man, but don’t tell him that. He looks like Alan Rickman with a drinking problem. The forty-maybe-fifty-something began his band’s first hometown show by jumping straight into the crowd. It was an incredible sight to see, and hopefuly the first of many “Holy Shit!” moments of the weekend. . These dudes haven’t lost anything in their long layoff. Razor-sharp rockers like “Mouth Breather” and the dirgy “Then Comes Dudley” sound just as good as they do on record. Okay, I lied. Maybe better.

Both bands took part in “Write The Night” where ticket buyers were provided the opportunity to vote on the setlist they wanted to hear.

We’ll see you for Day Two!

Photos:

THE NEW (OLD) LATENESS: I’m in the process of acquiring the entire run of VH1′s Late World with Zach, that was sadly cancelled after 29 shows in 2002. The show is pretty easy to distill: Zach Galifianakis. Before The Hangover and sans the megabeard. Check it out.

RANDOM: Box sets are awesome in theory, but a lot of time poor in execution. Maybe it’s that I have a short attention span or I haven’t found an artist that I want to find the most obscure material from.

I GOT LUCKY: I am very privledged to have won a 3-Day pass to Pitchfork Music Festival from KWUR Underground Radio in St. Louis. I’ll try to write about my experience this weekend, internet connection permitting. Very excited to catch many of the acts. I think I’m going to take it easy this year and not stake out any particular artist. Sampling a bunch is fun, too, right?

POTTAH: I caught Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince today. I’ve seen all of the movies in the series so far. I didn’t dig the last one but this one was pretty entertaining. There’s a really cool scene outside the Weasley’s house when Harry is chasing down Bellatrix Lestrange. The cinematography and pacing was cool.

PEEKTURES: Our Flickr feed has been updated with some pictures from the past few months.

PLUG THIS: It was getting scary there for a bit. After doing some site upgrades in the past couple of days, we hit a snag with one of the plugins and it was making the site load all weird. What we found is that the Last.fm plugin was causing all the issues, so for the time being, it’s gone. I know, you’re really sad that you can’t find out what Prince song I’m listening to. Womp womp.

LATENIGHTOLOGY: So, last night, my obsession with late night TV (specifically the NBC variety) reached it’s fever pitch. The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien finally made it’s debut. It was fantastic. The new set looks gorgeous too. It feels a lot classier than Leno’s waiting room on steroids. With Leno gone for three months, this means we have three uninterrupted months of Conan and Jimmy. I’ve been noticing the Jimmy backlash is growing, but I’m not going to defect. It will find it’s footing eventually. My lovely ladyfriend and I got tickets for Jimmy on June 10 in New York City, but we have a conflict that day – a conflict in the form of a Hold Steady show. We still haven’t completely decided what to do. Stay tuned, folks.

SWEAT AND WET CONFETTI (LITERALLY): Speaking of The Hold Steady, over at Pitchfork.tv, they’ve got a seven-song live set from last year’s Pitchfork Music Festival. Myself and friends (and future girlfriend) are featured in several clips. See?

and

MAGIK MAN: Big ups to the Orlando Magic for making it to their first NBA Finals since 1995. Kim keeps making Shaq references even though he hasnt played for them in well over a decade. The reason I want them to beat the Lakers? Well, there’s two, really.

1. I don’t like the Lakers.
2. Patrick Ewing will finally get a ring.

GRIZZLY SCARED: I’ve been spinning Veckatimest, the new Grizzly Bear album. Still on the fence about it, save for the fantastic “While You Wait For The Others” and “Two Weeks”. I’m COMPLETELY terrified of the “Two Weeks” video. Find out for yourself why.

OH, BILLY: For almost a week now, I’ve been trying to get through this New York Times Magazine piece called The Mellowing of William Jefferson Clinton. It’s a long one, but a really great read so far.

THIS ONE SCORES A 10.0 ON THE WTF METER: Pitchfork demigod Ryan Schreiber, or Lil’ Jann, as I like to call him has made the list of finalists of the ‘TIME 100′ of 2009. Yikes. Well, his team gave the Decemberists about a whole point less than what they deserved.

THE STATE OF JOURNALISM IN 2009: I love reading news websites – specifically CNN, because of the fantastically weird bullshit they use as headlines.

Case in point?

They thought the re-release of Billy Joel’s The Stranger merited a main page headline this past July.

My favorite, though is the one I caught this morning:

Really?! Is that headline legit? Like, you couldn’t think of something better to title it?!

RANDOM THOUGHT: Is it bad that I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt eating snack mix this morning after I saw that the Today Show was going to have Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York on in the next segment?

WHERE’S MAH FLANNEW?: Newsweek’s sort-of surprising Pop Vox blog has a really cool Where Are They Now? segment on ‘grunge’ groups. The 20th Anniversary of the ‘grunge explosion’ is coming up soon. Kinda crazy.

DRUNK: I can’t tell you why, but I enjoy watching Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb on the fourth hour of the Today Show. Kathie Lee is half in the bag by the time they air. Check out this video of them eating cookies and talking about Madonna’s sex life. GOOOOD MORNING!

I should be exercising my creativity elsewhere right now, but come on, this is too much fun.

1. I’m in the middle of a fantastic Rolling Stone feature by Mark Binelli called Motor City Breakdown. It’s largely about the failing American auto industry and how Detroit is basically a ghost town. Pretty sad. It sort of makes me think that this really has gone farther than a recession. We’re looking at a depression here. I still can’t believe it.

2. I was going to talk about how ironic I thought Al Roker Reports is, but instead, I want to show you his ridiculous website. Seriously, what year is it? 1998?

3. The Office Musical. That’s all that needs to be said.

4. I am surprised that I’m relatively indifferent to seeing Watchmen. It could be that I think that Zack Snyder is a shitty director. I loved the book. But I dunno. Something about it doesn’t really seem to work for me. The trailers don’t look good. It could end up surprising me.

5. I went to the Library this week. I’m rediscovering it after a several-month absence. First book on tap? Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. I’m about ten pages in and already intrigued.

6. A co-worker of mine used 100 people and had them rehearse for 7 weeks to a song from “Enchanted” to propose to his fiancee. It’s pretty fantastic.

7. Dinosaur Jr. is playing Otto’s in DeKalb on April 11. I do want to see them. It would be pretty great.

8. Check out these fantastic John Agnello-shot pictures of us at Pitchfork Music Festival 2008. Wonderful day. Wonderful photos.

9. So, SI.com‘s rumors page is saying that Curt Schilling either wants to make a comeback with the Cubs or the Rays. I don’t agree with his politics, but he’s a pretty good pitcher…that has a knack for winning championships.

10. New U2 album? Yeah, thumbs DOWN.