From Thursday to Saturday at Brooklyn Bowl, the music blog Pitchfork was putting on its own #Offline Festival as a cheaper alternative to CMJ. For just $10 each visit, people could come and see some of the most prominently featured Pitchfork artists of 2010. On Saturday, I ventured down there to check out the scene.

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Brooklyn-based Cults was on stage when I strolled in. With hit songs like “Go Outside” and “Oh My God” and a serious lack of web presence, the intrigue surrounding Cults was obvious during their set.  Following Cults was Los Angeles-based Active Child, the project of Pat Grossi. His mastery of the harp and soft vocals made his music very calming, but didn’t detract from the artistry of his performance. Javelin and Ty Segall rocked the Brooklyn Bowl crowd next with their lively rock ‘n roll and head-bobbing beats, and local rockers, Pains of Being Pure At Heart followed with a great set of their own.

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After 8pm, the night was clearly divided between good before and great from there on out. Matthew Dear put on one of the most electrical performances of weekend. The avant-pop artist out of Detroit, dressed in his traditional black and white garb, graced Brooklyn Bowl with songs from his new album, Black City. Dear’s music is polarizing in the sense that not everyone understands it. However, chances are if you were at #Offline to begin with, you understood the subtle nuances that make Dear one of the event’s more talented artists. The performance of “Little People” had everybody simply awestruck.

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Indiana-born and Bronx-based rapper Freddie Gibbs brought his unique style of hip-hop to the Brooklyn Bowl next. A change of pace from the other artists, Gibbs’ beats and passionate rap had everyone’s hands the air in unison. Gibbs has been compared to rappers like Tupac Shakur and is considered a rising star in the genre, particularly after releasing his mixtape Str8 Killa No Filla to positive reviews.

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Lastly, Jersey-based rockers Titus Andronicus, brought their high energy act to the stage. After releasing The Monitor, one of the most enticing albums of the year, the band has toured almost everywhere. The marathon tracks they play represent a narrative, set in the mid-1800s, of a boy who feels called to leave New Jersey in search of a brighter future. Patrick Stickles, lead singer, delivers the vocals in such a convincingly angst-filled way, that you can feel the emotion of the very lyrics he’s singing. Add to that some great hard rock riffs and people couldn’t help but break out into a small mosh on the floor.

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I took a break from Brooklyn Bowl to make the 5-block walk to Public Assembly for the new project of Jesse Kivel, titled Kisses. Kisses, from Los Angeles, released a series of 7” during the early parts of the summer that started generating interenet buzz. “Bermuda” and “People Can Do the Most Amazing Things” have certainly gained a lot of notoriety during the past couple of months. After the 45 minutes it took for the set to get started, the music did not disappoint.

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After that, I headed back to the Brooklyn Bowl where GZA and Kanye West made guest appearances. Obviously, the atmosphere was on an incredibly never-before-seen level, as the surprise overwhelmed everybody. It seemed to be the perfect culmination to a great weekend of music-filled events. Pitchfork certainly knows how to put on a great show.

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Photos courtesy of Pitchfork