Today at Summerfest: Thursday, July 4

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Sadly, a gaping hole appeared in the Summerfest schedule when Megadeth cancelled its tour and Amphitheater show. Still, even if the biggest stage is dark for one night, there is plenty to do July 4 at the world’s largest music festival, including indie rocker Courtney Barnett at the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard and hip-hop from Vic Mensa at the Uline Warehouse.

Courtney Barnett @ Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard, 10 p.m.

Back in 2015, introspective indie rocker Courtney Barnett shook up the music world with her debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit. Her clever, free-floating yet concise style of storytelling throughout Sit—especially in tracks like “Pedestrian At Best” (“I must confess, I’ve made a mess / of what should be a small success / But I digress / At least I’ve tried my very best, I guess”)—and soft-grunge-meets-psychedelic garage rock garnered endless praise from critics, accolades from publications like Stereogum and Pitchfork, and landed her a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 2016.

Just last year, she released the follow-up to her debut with Tell Me How You Really Feel, which features guest appearances from’ 90s alternative-rock heroes Kim and Kelley Deal of The Breeders, who have also gigged as session and touring members for Barnett. Here, she offers listeners more of the existential diatribes similar to the ones found in Sit, but Tell Me How You Really Feel’s most distinguishable feature is its seriousness. Barnett swaps out some of her signature wit with slightly darker, earnest tunes (take songs like “Endless, Nameless,” which touches on the link between online anonymity and violence, and “Crippling Self Doubt and a General Lack of Self Confidence,” where Barnett tackles the topics of insecurities and everyday anxieties) and teeters between Stephen Malkmus-style post-punk and lo-fi.

The Melbourne singer-songwriter is set to tour across the world for much of the remainder of 2019. Some of her gigs include headlining Manchester Psych Fest and opening for beloved Brooklyn-via-Ohio rock darlings, The National. Her set is sure to deliver favorites from earlier material like A Sea of Split Peas, but Barnett is also known for surprising showgoers with Gillian Welch and Patti Smith covers. (Nayelli Portillo)

Vic Mensa @ Uline Warehouse Stage, 1 p.m.

As hip-hop becomes more and more mainstream, performers like Chicago-based rapper Vic Mensa strive to keep the genre in touch with the neighborhoods and issues that initially birthed the art form. One hears this commitment loud and clear on “16 Shots,” a standout track from Mensa’s 2016 EP There’s Alot Going On. On the surface, the song is a stinging indictment of the death of Laquan McDonald, the 17-year-old African-American Chicagoan shot to death by a white city police officer in 2014. Yet what is most remarkable about “16 Shots” is the way that Mensa uses an economy of words to get at the conditions underlying the McDonald shooting.

After noting that “On the South Side where it’s no trauma centers, but the most trauma,” Mensa can only ruefully conclude that “There’s a war on drugs, but the drugs keep winning / There’s a war on guns, but the guns keep ringing.”

Thankfully, Mensa also uses hip-hop as a mechanism to challenge such conditions. He has worked on clean water drives in Flint, Mich., and, in August 2018, gave away thousands of free shoes in Chicago as a statement against police-sponsored “bait trucks”—vehicles loaded with sneakers and parked in low-income neighborhoods to entrap would-be thieves. Yet equally as important, Mensa has also been unafraid to probe how those conditions he condemns have influenced his personal development. “They say home is where the hate is,” Mensa raps on “Rage,” from his 2017 LP, The Autobiography, “I’m from where they kill their own.” Despite such admissions, a sense of cautious hope runs through the best of Mensa’s material. “Standing on my feet, feel so small just to look into space,” Mensa notes later in “Rage.” “It’s heavy just to stare up there and wonder what waits.” With such verses in mind, the future looks bright for Mensa. (Michael Carriere)

Local Pick

Amanda Huff @ Johnson Controls World Stage, 6:45 p.m.

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Here's Today's Complete Lineup

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