Waking up Sunday morning in Chicago to a damp and dreary forecast brought me to the decision of checking out the city, taking it easy and waiting till the evening to head back to Union Park. The only acts that I was really interested in seeing were Robert Pollard and Bloc Party, and I was glad I made the decision to head to the festival and not head home because it turned out to be a pretty nice day.

Robert Pollard was one of my favorite acts from the weekend. Obviously familiar with his work in Guided By Voices, and liking his latest double album, I was anxious to see him for the first time in a live setting. Blazing through some of my favorite tunes like “Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft,” “I’m A Widow,” and “Dancing Girls And Dancing Men,” Pollard and his band greatly maximized their brief allotment of time with a ton of tunes, a ton of energy, and a ton of booze. At one point he held up and took a giant swig of what appeared to be tequila. That’s rock star at its finest!

Bloc Party was exactly as I expected them to be, high energy and fun. They played nearly every tune off Silent Alarm as well as a few new tunes they debuted from their work-in-progress new album. The rain softly began its decent onto the concert attendee’s during their set, but it didn’t faze them. If anything this concert reminded me how much I really enjoy this band. I’ve heard tons of people that don’t know where they stand with this band, and I’ll admit I was in that camp for awhile. Now I can easily say that I’m down with them.

I’d like to thank the folks at Intonation for putting on such a great festival. I think everyone in attendance thought the concert was well worth their money. I had a great time playing Domino’s inbetween acts at the ESPN Deportes tent, and came home with a bunch of new artists to check out.