J. Neas reporting from the final day of the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago at Union Park. A hard and fast thunderstorm tore through the park area right before kick-off today and the result was a muggy, hot afternoon. But as I said yesterday, Sunday was no slouch of a line-up, and it seemed bands were determined to make sure people remembered today as the best of the weekend.

The first band I caught was L.A.'s Best Coast. Bethany Cosentino and the band put on a fantastic set. However, I wish they had been just a bit louder as the A stage would prove to be a problem for B stage performers off and on throughout the day. Sounds bleeding through were worse than in past times and it made for a bit of confused listening at times if you weren't solidly close to the B stage. They did "Boyfriend" and that was more than enough to satisfy me when it was time to go catch Girls on one of the main stages. Opening with "Laura," the band performed a dynamic set full of ballads and pure noise that was sequenced beautifully. Christopher Owens teased the crowd when, later in the set, people began shouting out for lead track "Lust for Life." "Yeah, we don't do Iggy Pop covers," he deadpanned. But they soon ran through one of their best songs in excellent form.

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J. Neas reporting here from Chicago and Day 2 of the Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park. The theme of the day was, again, sun and hydration. I at times feel, weather wise, like I haven't left the South, except that there are fairly common breezes and far less humidity. Safety was the rule of thumb. I witnessed a gate bag-checker praise a festival-goer for having sunblock. I've also seen quite a few parents of small children with the wherewithal to provide hearing protection, something I don't always see parents remember. Good job, folks.

Saturday started with a jolt of rock and roll courtesy of Free Energy, DFA Record's latest signing, setting up interesting bookends for the day. The crowds have been coming earlier this year and Free Energy had a large audience to wake up. They did so admirably with some amazing guitar work including some guitar tapping that just felt good to the ears. New Jersey's Real Estate had a more low-key approach in the increasingly hot afternoon, but their brand of lilting jangle was a crowd pleaser as well.

A tandem that worked well together, though in radically different ways, were Delorean and Titus Andronicus. Delorean's electronic flavored dance rock was an energetic lead in to the brutish, punkish, Springsteen of Titus who may well have been the day's best performance. Opening their show with The Monitor's "A More Perfect Union," the set was a relentless onslaught of powerhouse rock that sent lead singer Patrick Stickles into the audience crowd surfing. There has to be some measurement of how far back from the stage you see people either putting their fists in the air or dancing to gauge how well a band went over and, aside from one other band I'll discuss later, they probably had the deepest penetration into the audience of the day.

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J. Neas here reporting from Chicago. The opening day of the 2010 Pitchfork Music Festival is done and what a wild ride its already been. The park feels more full than last year (did they release more tickets or something, or am I imagining things?), but the atmosphere is still great. I'll return to some of the daily production notes in a second, but first to the music.

I arrived in time to catch the Tallest Man on Earth's set. Kristian Matsson openly complained (in his low-key, Swedish, non-griping way) of having had little sleep and the sun being unbearable. It was a warm Chicago afternoon and the cloudless sky was making it quite the oven down on the field. But he worked through his set with the same energy he has brought to other performances. All solo acoustic or slow-tempo performers face the same uphill battle at an outdoor festival: keeping a hot, sweaty audience from getting antsy. He did a noble job of it and the crowd reacted accordingly.

But as soon as he was done, El-P took the stage and brought energy to an afternoon that sorely needed it. Pulling out new songs, a handful from I'll Sleep When You're Dead and even one or two from the legendary Fantastic Damage, the set was full of fist pumping works. Even on the more dour, depressing material, his band, hype man and himself put on a great show. It was a great lead into the day's first certifiable noise act, Liars. I wish I could say I caught more of their set, but the rather punishing sun was making the stage where stand-up comedians had now begun, which is under a complete canopy of trees, way more inviting.

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Ahoy there, J. Neas here. AD is once again heading to the Pitchfork Fest at Union Park in Chicago later this week. I'll be posting daily recaps of the previous day's festivities here on AD as well as updating my personal Twitter account during the day. No promises that you won't have to read the occasional tweet about lines at port-o-johns, but for the most part it'll be live tweet reactions to the artists on stage and anything else awesome that goes down. Below are a handful of the bands I'm most looking forward to catching if you're looking to stalk and/or buy me beers.

Once again, the opening day of the festival changes its focus. This year the festival goes back to a more traditional opening day lineup with an earlier start on Friday (3:30 PM CST). No gimmicks this year (like last year's Write the Night fan requests or previous years' Don't Look Back-style complete album performances), but Friday does include a first: stand-up comedians. I'm especially looking forward to The Daily Show's Wyatt Cenac (6:30 PM), The State/Stella member Michael Showalter (7:15 PM) and the incomparable Eugene Mirman (8:00 PM). In the realm of music, Tallest Man on Earth (4:00 PM) gets the festival off to a great start early on, but he's sure to get some noise competition quickly as El-P (4:35 PM) takes his awesome show to the stage. It's been a number of years since I last saw El-Producto, but he was an amazing performer then and no doubt now. The always intriguing Liars (5:30 PM) go on to give a nice pre-dinner performance for people and, for dessert, Broken Social Scene (7:20 PM). The night's headliner is Modest Mouse (8:30 PM), a band that I have never seen live, so am greatly looking forward to finally catching.

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