Features | Festivals
SXSW 2008 :: Day Two
By Craig Eley | 16 March 2008
Day Two :: Thursday, March 13th
:: All photos by guest Glow sharpshooter Jamie Hand
There are no SXSW badges on the necks of Cokemachineglow field journalists. No wristbands either. We roll, naked, onto Austin’s streets looking for the hot shows. We wait in lines, sneak in back doors, and roll lushes for laminates to exclusive parties. Despite our crafty anti-establishment maneuvers, SXSW might just be for the common man after all. Day parties reflect a beautiful democracy: if you don’t drink, you really don’t have to pay a cent to see some of the best bands around; you don’t have to be Industry, you just have to be interested. And that’s exactly what we’re doing here, bouncing from day party to day party and falling into night shows whenever they’ll let us in. We can do this and so can you. It’s not too late, get in the car and leave your job in the dust.
The Blacks
We rolled into the Beauty Bar to witness the Bay Area Takeover of Austin, Texas. Presented by San Francisco labels Tricycle Records and Three Ring Records and music websites Crawdaddy and the Bay Bridged, such treats as the Blacks, Film School, Two Gallants, Von Iva, Birds and Batteries, and Scissors for Lefty tore it up on two different stages. Film School, in particular, translated their thick shoegaze fuzz into a sick live sound, singer/guitarist Greg Bertens focusing the torrent of noise while the rest of the band charged in behind him, flexing layers of delay and distortion and crisp, almost-robotic drums. Craig was more stoked on Two Gallants than me—personally I’ve never understood what’s so impressive about their whiskey-tinged, Dustbowl hobo revival—but their energy and tight dynamics couldn’t be denied.
Evangelicals
We passed up on a night show with MGMT to sneak into Mohawk for a Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar/Dead Oceans showcase. My personal fever pitch for seeing Evangelicals was incredibly high so I felt a little disappointed when they didn’t quite reproduce the complex and intriguing mystique of this year’s The Evening Descends, though they certainly grew on me and, I think, the rest of the crowd. With four of them onstage they were efficient and brisk, dancing between guitars, keyboards, and manic song shifts. Highlight “Party Crashing” was rougher than its album version but no less climatic with its skull-crushing coda.
Bon Iver
For being such a quiet guy on record Bon Iver was quite explosive in the flesh. Toting a full band onto the Mohawk stage, Justin Vernon reinvented his acoustic ballads with electricity that sometimes flirted with the ethereal strokes of Sigur Ros. Meanwhile, the Explorer’s Club knocked Craig off his feet. Their four-part harmonies and Beach Boys pop didn’t sound particularly new to me but I suppose a band could pick worse influences. Guest ‘glow photographer Jamie Hand was less than impressed with Jens Lekman’s sugar-coated twee-pop. She said he left her speechless—in a bad way. Personally I was a little touched with the deft sweeps of violin, piano, and twangy guitar. Lekman’s voice is like a happy Morrisey: full of character, but sending you outside with an unproverbial smile rather than into the bathroom to slit the proverbial wrists.
Then there was Parts and Labor, the best band of Thursday. Their attack was relentless, a cavalcade of gnarly-ass keyboards, post-punk bass riffs, and vicious drumming. They played last on Mohawk’s indoor stage and tired rock fans lost control of their bodies when Parts and Labor took the stage. It’s remarkable to see a band achieve a sound so accessible and so brutal in the same set. We tried to stick around for Black Mountain on the outdoor stage, but for a band so concerned with the future they sounded like a second-rate review of ‘70s guitar rock. It only took a few of their vintage chord strokes and heavy reverb vox to bore us right out of the club.
The walk home produced a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and an unexpected free entry into Stubbs to catch the last gasps of the Old ’97s. The show was sparsely attended but the folks there were huge fans. I smiled as Craig ran to the front of the crowd singing along to each and every song. My body was bit worn but the ‘97s were having a grand ole’ time. The seal had been broken and Austin had welcomed us with open arms. We went to bed ready and willing for new and exciting bands to tear apart our brain stems in the days to come.