Every summer the music publication Pitchfork holds an annual three day music festival in Union Park, Chicago.

Festival goers from all over the country gather to see their favorite artists perform in a stacked lineup of today’s indie, alternative, underground and up-and-coming artists. Chicago experienced storms on and off over the course of the three day run, but that did not deter dedicated concert goers from showing up and enjoying all the festival had to offer. After canceling the 2020 festival due to COVID-19, and a smaller crowd during the 2021 festival, Pitchfork is officially back in full swing. The lineup for the three days was as follows:

Friday, July 15, 2022:

The National, Spiritualized, Parquet Courts, Tierra Whack, Amber Mark, Dawn Richard, Tkay Maidza, Indigo De Souza, SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, SPELLLING, Camp Cope, Wiki, Ethel Cain, CupcakKe

Saturday, July 16, 2022:

Mitski, Japanese Breakfast, Lucy Dacus, Low, Magdalena Bay, Dry Cleaning, Karate, Iceage, yeule, Arooj Aftab, The Armed, Chubby & the Gang, Hyd, Jeff Parker & the New Breed

Sunday, July 17, 2022:

The Roots, Toro y Moi, Earl Sweatshirt, Noname, BADBADNOTGOOD, Cate Le Bon, Tirzah, Xenia Rubinos, Erika de Casier, Injury Reserve, KAINA, L’Rain, Sofia Kourtesis, Pink Siifu

Headliners included The National, Mitski, and The Roots. Pitchfork aims to cover many genres of music to appeal to a wide audience of music listeners, while still giving small artists the opportunity to be discovered by first time listeners. 

Notable events of the festival included the cancellation of BADBADNOTGOOD’s set due to illness. Many at the festival speculated that it must have been due to a COVID-19 exposure or positive test, although not confirmed. They were replaced with the band Natural Information Society, which disappointed many fans of BADBADNOTGOOD. 

During the festival many artists, like Japanese Breakfast, stopped their sets to get security’s attention in order to aid audience members who felt ill or needed other assistance. Many artists have been conscientious of making sure audience members are taken care of after the events of rapper Travis Scott’s set at the Astroworld Festival, where on November 5th 2021 multiple deaths occurred in a crowd crushing incident. 

On a more optimistic note, many fans of the rapper Noname were pleased to see her in concert after a long hiatus to focus on her mutual aid, political organizing, and most notably her book club. Noname Book Club focuses on uplifting the voices of people of color and sends books to incarceratied people to help educate and radicalize the populations that are most vulnerable to discrimination. For more information on Noname Book Club visit https://nonamebooks.com/.