Tortoise came through San Francisco last night clearly practicing for their Friday night set at Pitchfork Music Festival coming up this weekend. Given that the “Write the Night” setlist would likely include many of the older fan favorites, I heard the band do a bunch of songs that I’ve never seen them perform live. They opened the show with “TNT” and proceeded to mix the set with some of the songs off their latest album, Beacons Of Ancestorship, and older albums and older grooves they know that they’re going to deliver on at their big set on Friday. Totally solid show overall.
Pit Er Pat opened the show as a duo, which I’ve never seen from that band before. Normally they had two up front singing and playing with their haunting-pop melodies, but this was usually over a drummer in the background that would play frantic yet light-to-the-touch grooves as he rolled around the drumset. This was severely lacking as a set without a full drummer working with the band. Instead it was dub and space rock, which generally sounded cool, but it still left a little to be desired for me having them a few years back.
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