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My feet
hurt. Here is the rundown for our adventure at
SXSW yesterday. Enjoy.
The trade show at SXSW is something that definitely
needs to be browsed at least once so Sarah and I hit
that up for about an hour before we began the music
portion of our day. When we did decide to
begin the rocking we choose to do with California's
the Little Ones. The indie pop group put on a
nice set that left me with a smile on my face and
the thought that I should look into them more.
Little Ones
After our warm-up band we
bounded over to the Mohawk for the Hot Freaks party so that we could catch
Imperial Teen, Annuals and Shearwater. When we got there a band by the
name De Novo Dahl had just started playing so we decided to watch. The
group had some awful costumes but the band's dancey indie rock made for a
good listen. Imperial Teen then put on a nice set that featured some
new songs from their album that they said will be out in August with the
title "The Hair, The Baby, The TV and The Band." I thought that they
sounded pretty good but who knows how much they will change between now and
August. Annuals ended up being our last set at the Hot Freaks party
since the nice folks over at Cornerstone were able to get us into the Fader
party. The sound was better here than at Red 7 and I felt that overall
the performance was a lot crisper.
 
Top Center (De Novo Dahl), Bottom Left (Imperial Teen), Bottom Right
(Annuals)
We arrived at the Fader party
right as Office had started playing. I really didn't know anything
about the band but the crowd was into it and their pop rock sound quickly
sparked my curiosity. I ended up really enjoying their set so I will
have to check out more of their stuff. Amy Winehouse followed Office
up with one of my favorite performances of SXSW. It was just her and a
guy with a guitar as she put on an acoustic show for about 35 minutes that
had me wanting to give her a hug for being so amazing. To close out
the party Datarock came out and bounced around with a mix of indie rock and
electro to get the crowd dancing. There set was a lot of fun,
especially when they ended it with Time Of My Life from Dirty
Dancing.
On a side note, I used my camera to record Amy's acoustic performance of
Rehab and as soon as I get it up on Youtube I will be sure to share it
here.
 
Top Center (Office), Bottom Left (Amy Winehouse), Bottom Right (Datarock)
Since I am a huge nerd and there was nothing at the beginning of the night
that we really wanted to see we ended up at the Austin Convention Center for
a nationally broadcast performance by Annuals. We had already seen
them twice before this so I was excited but not thrilled to be catching them
again. I guess I should have been expecting a lot more as the band
took full advantage of being on such a nice stage that had a sound system
which was capable of bringing every part of their sound to life. I am
not sure I will ever see them perform a better set.
Afterwards we moved on to Maggie Mae's were we watched part of the Suicide
Squeeze showcase that featured Six Parts Seven and Page France. I
think Six Parts Seven is one of the best instrumental bands around right now
and after hearing their beautiful music in the middle of the chaos of SXSW I
think it's time that they got some more attention. Page France drew a
nice crowd and along with an all too brief set that had quite a few new
songs in it I thought that they were quite enjoyable.
To close out Friday night Sarah and I went to Eternal to see the Faint.
I was completely blown away at how the band didn't really do a 40-45 minute
set like most showcase closers do. I don't know if they played longer
since they were only doing one show or what but they played for an hour
before doing a three song encore. The old stuff sounded stellar and
the handful of new songs that they played were slick, so I couldn't have
picked a better time to see them live for the first time. Life is
good.
 
Top Left (Annuals), Top Right (Six Parts Seven), Bottom Left (Page France),
Bottom Right (The Faint) |
