Battles (above) is one of the many bands playing at the hipster clusterfark that is the Pitchfork Music Festival.

– Get Real Denver contributor Joe Murphy is at Union Park in Chicago this weekend for the Pitchfork Music Festival, an indie rock extravaganza featuring The New Pornographers, Cat Power, Yoko Ono, Steve Malkmus, Clipse, Girl Talk, Iron and Wine, Of Montreal, De La Soul and dozens of others.

– Instead of sending us a long-winded review of the fest, Murphy has been texting us every few hours with random thoughts from the event, which kicked off with a righteous water balloon fight. Let’s take a look at the running commentary…

-SATURDAY, JULY 14-

3:01 p.m. The VIPs seem decently receptive to getting hit by squirt-gun fire.

3:13 p.m. It’s way more more crowded than last year (when it was called the Intonation Festival). The weather’s way nicer. Lotta white people.

3:15 p.m. Overheard (from a black guy): “First one to see another black guy wins.”

3:17 p.m. But this festival ain’t about race.

3:18 p.m. (It’s about cute girls in stupid sunglasses)

3:50 p.m. T-shirt of the moment: I love Gary, Indiana.

4:30 p.m. Quote of the moment: “If you’re ever a girl, don’t go into a mosh pit wearing a strapless shirt.”

5:30 p.m. Lotta lines here, lotta people.

5:34 p.m. T-shirt of the moment: Mookie.

5:54 p.m. People having fun at Clipse.

Junior Boys, above, are one of the many bands for which Joe Murphy is measuring applause.

-SUNDAY, JULY 15-

2:53 p.m. Quote of the moment: “My girlfriend wants to steal your artist pass so she can go make out with Malkmus.”

2:58 p.m. Length of applause after Menomena’s set: 12 seconds. Seemed kinda short for how good they sounded.

3:53 p.m. Length of applause after Junior Boys’ set: 5 seconds. Clean midtempo electronic-y pop’s a tough sell.

4:04 p.m. Some dude just walked by sporting a frilly red umbrella. Functional! Gutsy! Fashion.

4:32 p.m. That hipster fanny pack is apparently part of the great 2007 hipster fanny pack resurgence.

4:33 p.m. ‘Great’ might have been the wrong word there.

4:57 p.m. Length of applause after The Sea and Cake’s set: 16 seconds. Say hi to Chicago’s pleasant sunny-afternoon band.

5:25 p.m. T shirt of the moment: Your mp3 blog sucks.

5:41 p.m. T-shirt slogan tryin a little too hard: Have you hugged your attorney today?

6:04: p.m. Length of applause after James Lidell’s set: 18 seconds. Freaky energetic dude.

6:19 p.m. Length of applause after Malkmus’ set: 18 seconds, with a delayed encore clap-attempt after.

6:58: Length of applause after Of Montreal’s set: 16 seconds, with extended core-crowd clap, which led to an encore, which had 12 seconds of clapping after. Yup.

8:09 p.m. T-shirt of the moment: I’m doing the best I can.

8:27 p.m. The New Pornographers just did a “cover-outro” with the first bit from “We Will Rock You.” Cute.

8:59 p.m. A.C. Newman: “You don’t get f***ed up the ass (with Pitchfork ticket prices) like you do at Coachella and Bonnaroo.”

9:01 p.m. Length of applause after New Pornographers’ set: 22 seconds pre-encore, 10 post.

9:24 p.m. People aren’t fleeing headliners De La Soul like they did with Yoko Ono last night.

9:53 p.m. De La: “We don’t need radio or TV or magazines to tell us what’s good sh**.”

10:23 p.m. The fake De La show end knocked a chunk off the crowd… Party’s still going.

10:30 p.m. Length of applause after De La’s set: I was in the bathroom.

10:39 p.m. I’ve been to this all these years and De La was the first closing act I broke a sweat with.

More from Get Real Denver

• Clubs: Global Dance Festival
• The music of “The Real World: Denver”
• “The Real World” Denver: Let’s get it on

Get Real Denver Recommends

• Colorado Music Festival begins to commissioning project | Artmosphere — Denver, Colorado fine arts news — The Denver Post  (Artmosphere)
• Mile High Music Festival: Ricardo Baca  (Reverb)
• Denver Post Blogs  (Reverb)

Ask Get Real Denver To Recommend Your Posts