At the first Pitchfork/Intonation Music Festival, I skipped Les Savy Fav to keep my front row spot for the Decemberists. I swore that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again this year.

My first time seeing Les Savy Fav got off to a start that’s fairly representative of their shows as a whole: Tim brought the performance to me. Someone through a 312 inflatable ball on the stage before Les Savy Fav came on. After taking the stage Tim grabbed the ball, walked straight over to me and started hitting me on the head with it. A more “professional” photographer might have been miffed, but I kind of enjoyed the view.

UPDATE: A fellow photog sent me this hilarious picture of Tim hitting me with a ball. Thanks Sara!

The songs from their new album sounded great, but my favorite part was what happened as soon as I got back from a two song detour to watch King Khan. The big treat was a one-two punch from Inches that started with Tim dressing up like Sherlock Holmes, jumping into a garbage bin and being crowdsurfed overtop of thousands of fans all while singing “We’ll Make a Lover of You,” one of my favorite LSF songs. After the song, Tim laughed a bit, saying “I feel just like Oscar. Ahh it stinks in here!”

MP3: Les Savy Fav – The Sweat Descends

Oh yeah, what about that second punch? It just happened to be Les Savy Fav’s best song and the container of one of my favorite choruses of the past decade: “Sweat Descends.” I took my earplugs out and pushed forward with the crowd so I could shout along with everyone else: “Wake me up when we get to heaven! Let me sleep if we go to hell!”

All in all, Les Savy Fav’s set was just fantastic. The music sounded great, Tim was arguably the best frontman I’ve ever seen and there were more costume changes than an Of Montreal show. The crowd were in a whirlwind frenzy, but never got violent. Easily a highlight of the festival and the year for me.

More photos after the jump…

Tim sings to a kid who is having none of it