The Pains of Being Pure at Heart @ Pitchfork Music Festival 2009

Going into the festival the band I was most excited to see was New York’s the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, whose self-titled album has been on constant rotation for the better part of 2009 for me. Now, usually those kind of expectations leave you a bit let down when the band delivers a good but not great set. Saturday’s performance lived up to my lofty expectations and more as the young four-piece band delivered what was my favorite set of the day. Starting out the show with a song titled “This Love Is Fucking Right!” was certainly a great way to start, and even with the bass being overwhelmingly loud during the first few tracks, their blissed-out Stone Roses-like songs soared as the storm clouds loomed overhead and the day’s first raindrops started to fall. Kip Berman truly proved to be a charming front man, as he appeared completely taken aback by the swelling early afternoon crowd that turned out for the band.

“Young Adult Friction” and “Come Saturday” will likely be the songs of the festival for me, as those numbers really enlivened the crowd and elevated my mood completely. They even played a new song, “Higher Than The Stars,” that Berman said was “about being really high” which got a laugh, and certainly must have rang true to the many people that have been smoking throughout the festival. “Everything With You” was fantastic, and the band really had it in high gear at this point, and the sound, finally, was pristine. The repetitive phrase “we will never die” was repeated en masse by the younger crowd that clearly identified with the mantra during the set closer “The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.” It was massive and swirling, with the keyboards of Peggy Wang augmenting the driving guitars, and the large crowd who were singing along believed that truly we will never die, at least while the music is playing.

[Review by Erik Thompson, photos by Jon Behm, video by Chris DeLine.]

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Also: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart “Young Adult Friction” Video