Intense thunderstorms temporarily put a halt and evacuation to Saturday’s (July 18) Pitchfork Festival but the skies cleared the music reigned supreme. Reopening Chicago’s Union Park at 4:20pm the Midwest festival exhibited some quality hip-hop performances from A$AP Ferg, Vic Mensa and others.

Appearing on the blue stage, Ferg’s high energy carried the huge crowd who packed the area, climbed trees and each other to see the A$AP star. Flanked by his DJ, TJ Mizell, who delivered a high energy mix to initiate the set, Ferg spent more than 30 minutes on stage running through hits such as “Dump Dump,” ‘Work” and “Shabba.”

In between leading fans through hits A$AP Ferg took the time to interact with fans leading them with chants and raising their finger formed guns in the air. After orchestrating mosh pits, Ferg also made sure to halt altercations that broke out in the crowd leading chants that stopped the issue but kept the crowd lively at the same time.

Closing out the Saturday evening festivities was Roc Nation’s newest star, Vic Mensa, who also took over the blue stage. As the sun set, the energy of the hometown hero rose through a performance of his new hit “U Mad.” The performance was without feature artist Kanye West, but with energy high and plenty of SAVEMONEY shirts and jerseys filling the crowd there wasn’t much lament to his absence in the Chi, the help of the SAVEMONEY army on stage helped too.

Also absent was much of INNANETAPE but Vic played the set opening “Feel That,” “Down On My Luck” and even a cover of Future’s “Codeine Crazy,” so you know he has heard DS2.

Also scheduled on the hip-hop front for the day was Vince Staples who unfortunately missed the festival due to an issue with a Delta Airlines plane, which he tweeted about and apologized. A surprise for the fans was a surprise set from SAVEMONEY’s Towkio, who replaced Sophie at the Blue Stage, to the delight of his hometown. Check out pictures and social media updates from the show below and on the following pages.

Photo Credit: Curtis Brown