Pitchfork

On Saturday night, a few of us Pitchforkers headed down to the Empty Bottle here in Chicago to check out the fourth night of The Wire magazine's excellent Adventures in Modern Music festival. No Age slayed despite amp problems, and free jazz legend Daniel Carter blew minds fronting a trio that also included guitarist Ben Vida (of Bird Show and Town and Country) and the Pitchfork Music Festival's own Mike Reed on drums. (Yes, he plays as expertly as he organizes music festivals.)

But when it came time for the evening's headliners, Deerhunter, we were shocked to find five people up there on stage. Guitarist Colin Mee, who quit the band just a month ago, was back in action. With frontman Bradford Cox free of guitar-playing duties, he could be his typical showman self. Struck with a nasty case of the flu, Cox remained charismatic despite the fact that he spent much of the performance crouched down at the front of the stage, coughing and sneezing and, at one point, even vomiting.

So what's going on here? Is Mee back in Deerhunter for good? What happened? Nobody seems to know...or wanted to tell us. It seems that Mee had played a couple shows with the band leading up to Saturday night, but not even members of the band could say (or would say) how much longer this is going to continue. We sure hope Colin Mee remains in Deerhunter; the band just isn't the same without him.

Deerhunter continue their eternal tour tonight in Urbana, Illinois, and hit CMJ next week before heading to Europe. Bradford Cox is gearing up for the release of his Atlas Sound album Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel on Kranky. He's got one solo gig scheduled so far, at the Fader Sideshow in New York City on October 19, during CMJ.

Dates with Deerhunter:

10-01 Urbana, IL - Canopy Club's Club Void @
10-02 Newport, KY - Southgate House
10-17 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom (CMJ) !
10-19 New York, NY - Fader Sideshow (Atlas Sound show) (CMJ)
10-20 Princeton, NJ - Terrace Club #
10-25 Graz, Austria - Dom im Berg (Elevate Festival)
10-26 Düdingen, Switzerland - Bad Bonn
10-27 St. Gallen, Switzerland - Palace <
10-28 Basel, Switzerland - Kaserne <
10-30 Brussels, Belgium - Recyclart
10-31 Paris, France - La Maroquinerie
11-01 Castellón de la Plana, Spain - Tanned Tin Festival
11-02 London, England - The Forum (ATP Presents Release the Bats) *
11-03 Leeds, England - The Faversham (Nasty Fest VIII) *
11-04 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC2
11-05 Dublin, Ireland - Whelan's >
11-06 Nottingham, England - Liars Club
11-07 Manchester, England - Cafe Saki
11-08 Prague, Czech Republic - Archa Theatre
11-09 Groningen, Netherlands - Vera Club
11-10 Utrecht, Netherlands - Tivoli &
11-12 Copenhagen, Denmark - Loppen
11-13 Malmo, Sweden - Debaser
11-14 Oslo, Norway - Garage
11-15 Stockholm, Sweden - Debaser Slussen
11-16 Gothenburg, Sweden - Slippery People at Pusterviksbaren
11-17 Aarhus, Denmark - VoxHall
12-06 Athens, GA - Georgia Theatre *

@ with Nudge
! with No Age, Dan Deacon, White Williams, Ponytail
# with Mika Miko
< with Frog Eyes
* with Black Lips
> with YACHT
& with Dirty Projectors