Pitchfork Music Festival Chicago Through the Years: A Photo Review

Image by Chris Panicker

On July 19-21, Pitchfork Music Festival will return for its 18th year, bringing several of the world’s best musical artists to Chicago’s Union Park for a weekend of performances and celebration. In advance of the 2024 festival, we asked nine photographers to share their best images and most lasting memories from years past. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.

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Sam Orlin (2018-2019, 2021-2022)

My good friend Eddie Burns is Clairo’s drummer, so I was able to hang around with her and the band before their set, which led to one of my favorite photos. Right before her performance, a butterfly landed on my shoulder and she gracefully picked it up and I quickly snapped a photo of her holding the butterfly.

Being backstage and getting to capture artists before they go onstage is always a fragile moment as most of them are trying to get into their zone. I also love capturing artists right after their set and you can see how hard they went from their sweat.

I allow the artists to be themselves, and often try to suggest a location away from the stage so we can have a unique photo that is somewhat removed from the festival, yet still part of it. I’ve always shot on my film cameras, while the other photographers mostly shot digital, so I have to plan out my photos a little bit in advance. But I always made it a goal to get every performer's portrait. Sometimes I would have to run from the Green stage to the Blue stage and all the way back to the Red.

I also loved photographing Valee with his red dog, from the cover of his EP Runnin’ Rich. It was kind of crazy to see a dog that small and that red.

Marty Perez (2009-2012)

The Jesus Lizard performance on Friday night in 2009 really sums up the Pitchfork Festival experience for me. It was so energizing to watch a band hit the stage in the cold, damp evening air and make the place explode. The buoyant anarchy and glee David Yow shared with the crowd came across as a birthing moment of joy. From the first note, the field was theirs, and by the end of the set, being in the crowd felt like getting your own private lap dance.

Ellie Pritts (2013-2016)

The festival in Chicago usually lines up with my birthday. The first year I was shooting, I was able to get some extra passes and brought friends and family with me, and it felt like a giant birthday celebration. I had attended the festival as an audience member in the years prior and always loved the atmosphere. It was very exciting to be there as a member of the Pitchfork team.

One of my favorite artists to photograph was FKA twigs. She doesn’t have a bad angle as far as I’m concerned, and her lighting setup was gorgeous. I loved capturing her stage presence. She’s such an icon and really knows how to captivate her audience. It was also a lot of fun shooting Future Islands because Samuel Herring is a really engaging and dynamic performer. I was over the moon to have the chance to photograph Thom Yorke at Pitchfork Festival Paris. I definitely had a fangirl moment there.

Of all the artists I got to work with one-on-one, my interactions with Killer Mike still warm my heart to this day. He jokingly called me “Killer Mike–ette,” and was just the kindest person, who always acknowledged my presence and said hello. Most of my time working at the festival I would go unnoticed and capture candid moments, but it was nice to feel extra welcome in his space.

Alexa Viscius (2017-present)

I love the Big Thief portrait I captured last summer. I went to meet them in their green room, and they were getting ready for their set: doing push ups, playing guitar, Half of them weren’t wearing shirts yet, and Max was in a mermaid tail. Instead of getting dressed, everyone went topless for the shot.

Daniel Cavazos

One of the things I like about music festivals is walking the grounds and picking out people who are absolutely living in the moment, whether it's via their fashion sense or just the way they are soaking it all in. That's what I saw in an attendee named Kevin Roberts leaning against a tree wearing his vintage Pitchfork t-shirt in 2022. Kevin was caught off guard when I approached him for a photo, but when I told him I was with the festival, he obliged and posed by not posing at all. I enjoyed the moment, then moved on to my next assignment, and only thought of the image again when I was doing my end-of-day wrap-up, filling my "atmosphere" folder with fest looks.

Pitchfork ran a gallery of “best looks” early the following week and tagged me in a Twitter post about it. I awoke to quite a few mentions, which was unusual for my very low-profile Twitter account. Lo and behold, the Kevin Roberts portrait was taking off. My initial fears were that he was being goofed on, but to my pleasant surprise, the comments were full of people praising him for being who we all secretly want to be at a festival: just a content, hands-in-the-pocket, music-loving attendee. They dubbed him “Pitchfork Guy.” We often succumb to the stresses of appearance and perception, but the Kevin Roberts method is so much easier.

I noticed someone commenting that they knew Kevin personally and had sent him screenshots of what was transpiring on Twitter, so I asked her if she could connect us. Soon we were chatting and laughing about how this had all snowballed. We decided we would try to connect again in 2023 if I found myself back at the festival. Sure enough, there he was in his Pitchfork shirt. Kevin introduced me to his wife, I took a few photos, and we went our separate ways. I’ve had several great music moments at Pitchfork, but it was this human interaction that remains my favorite memory thus far.

Kristina Pedersen (2014-2019)

In 2013, I did the album artwork for Vic Mensa’s debut solo EP, Innanetape. Don’t look up the picture, it’s embarrassing now. We made it in some semi-constructed garage in an alley behind my grandma’s house in Roscoe Village in Chicago. They were turning all these apartments into single-family homes in that neighborhood, and everything was under construction, and we were like, “Yeah, this is gonna be cool.” Dreamers, poets! And then two years later he’s headlining Pitchfork. That was fabulous.

I also loved the Midwinter festival at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019. The photographers had to be escorted by museum staff, and everywhere you turned was a copyright infringement nightmare waiting to happen. Everyone had to be extra careful: Cannot knock over any two-thousand-year-old things. It made all the performances a little more strange and magical and naughty.

My favorite photograph I took at any Pitchfork Festival is a picture I took of the Joey Purp performance in 2017. He had just come out with that track “Girls @,” and all these girls were losing their absolute freaking marbles. They wanted to touch him. It was like the Beatles. Pop music, desire, all that. It felt timeless, eternal.

Loren Toney (2022)

There’s an intimacy at Pitchfork that I haven’t experienced at any other music festival. Being able to photograph Noname and Kaina who are Chicago natives and feel the love from the crowd was a cool experience. There’s a photo I got of Kaina that’s one of my favorites, where she’s laughing in front of the pool. Her smile and energy were really infectious. There’s also one from the Roots’ set: Black Thought just had so much emotion, and I’m a sucker for a live performance image in black and white.

Matt Lief Anderson (2014-present)

My first festival was 2014, and I hadn’t heard of St. Vincent at the time. I decided to shoot her performance and it blew me away. It was the first time an artist had moved me in that way since I was a kid sneaking my camera into St. Louis punk shows. Anyone who’s seen Annie [Clark] perform knows that she’s an absolute shredder, but there was an incredible wall of sound that I can’t explain. There’s a recording of that performance on YouTube but it’s impossible to capture a moment like that and do it justice.

The next year, I was assigned portraits of Freddie Gibbs and Madlib. I hadn’t heard of Gibbs at the time, but Madvilliany is one of my favorite albums of all time. I told Madlib that Madvilliany is one of my favorite albums of all time and that it meant so much to me. He told me that he and MF Doom were about to go back into the studio to record Madvilliany 2 but it wasn’t public yet, and told me to keep it a secret. It meant so much to me at the time that he felt comfortable confiding in me. [Editor’s note: Madlib has talked publicly about a possible sequel to his famed Doom collaboration as recently as last year, but so far it’s never been released.]

I’ve had so many special moments getting portraits with artists over the years, but Hyd in 2022 comes to mind as one of the best collaborations. There’s a public pool and gym on the festival premises. We got creative. They were utilizing different pieces of exercise equipment. The concepts were cool, but the lighting wasn’t right and we didn’t have a ton of time. They told me that they had seen a big muddy puddle earlier and suggested laying in the puddle and splashing in the mud. I was so impressed with the fact that they were up for doing something like that. Her manager talked her out of it. We decided to finish the shoot in the shower of the men’s locker room. They told me that they had a vision of water and hands. We made it happen.

Erik Sanchez (2008-2015)

My portrait of Robyn is my favorite I’ve ever taken at Pitchfork Festival. I was obsessed with her music, which brought me so much joy. What made this particular shot special wasn't just the photo itself or actually working with Robyn, it was the small but meaningful collaboration with her after the festival for a music nonprofit called Rock for Kids. We each donated a part of that shoot to benefit the organization: I donated the photo and Robyn donated an autographed setlist, as well as a piece of the wardrobe she wore to be sold at an auction. It was extra special because the photo went beyond just promoting the festival and editorial, toward a really good cause.

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork