Friday | Saturday | Sunday
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This year’s lineup includes some of the sort of twee indie pop that people still like to equate with the Pitchfork brand—the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, for instance—but anybody who actually visits the site knows it casts a wider net than that, and the festival does too. Among this year’s non-indie highlights are evil-villain rapper Doom, epic hardcore outfit Fucked Up, border-smashing mashup specialist DJ/Rupture, and electronics-enhanced Afropop group the Very Best. Friday’s bill is a Write the Night event: Built to Spill, the Jesus Lizard, Yo La Tengo, and Tortoise all let ticket holders vote on what songs they should play; after some goading, much of it from bloggers, the Flaming Lips also agreed to bend to the will of the people for their headlining performance on Sunday. The two main stages are Aluminum, in the northeast corner of the park, and Connector, to the northwest; the smaller Balance Stage is to the southwest.
The festival’s organizers are being substantially more aggressive about greening the event this time around. They’ve always encouraged attendees to walk, take public transit, or bike (there’s lots of free, secure bike parking) and made recycling part of their waste-management plan, but now they’re also powering their generators with biodiesel, using hybrid vehicles for all official transportation, and buying carbon offsets. To encourage concertgoers to do their bit, the PMF Recycling Store will trade “sponsor-donated swag” for recyclables like plastic cups.
