sxsw 2014 day 6 saturday

pretty decent last day

sweet baboo
meursault
to kill a king
waylayers
kins

holy esque
broken hands
Bo Ningen
Temples

sxsw 2014 day 5 friday the 14th

fat white family
womans hour
unknwn
until the ribbon breaks
thumpers
prides
withered hand
meursault
casual sex
honeyblood
dems

sxsw 2014 day 4

started day with
Thumpers at Flamingo Cantina
wonder villians
battle lines
casual sex
drenge
holy esque

thumpers
public service broadcasting
cousin marnie
longfellow
cate le bon

sxsw day three

first thing we are safe and were no where near the car crash

bands
eagulls
casual sex
royal blood
dinosaur pile-up
slaves
thumpers
team me
withered hand
heathers
-- need to check irish music
womans hour
crashed..................

SXSW 2014 day 2

the first real night of the festival

mostly recharged during the day
evening started with
sweet baboo
wolf alice
prides
agnes obel
pins
ballet school

SXSW 2014 Day one Monday the 10th

Wow its been a long time
So we are doing SXSW again this year.
We spent most of monday getting in our hotel getting badges etc/
We did see
Holy esque at a Scottish Interactive promo party
and Wonder Villians who were excellent, Rams Pocket Radio pretty good and walked out of Unkwn at the Creative Belfast party at latitude.
time to start again

A plethora of gigs

So I have been remiss, or perhaps saving everyone from me crowing in glee about the wonderful concerts you may have missed.
The Autumn Owl concert atThe Bell In Hand concert was a disorganized mess, but that was the organizers. Not the bands. We bumped into the band beforehand and had a nice chat. They are very down to earth grounded and friendly guys.
When the music eventually started the first band was pretty ok in your local guy having fun kind of way but as support bands go it was definitively unoffensive. Surprisingly the sound was fine, not your world class sound but not distorted, unbalanced or feeding back oh well minimally feeding back.
Autumn Owls came on and despite having the normal UK scramble to deal withe the US situation took not so long to set up. When the band started I immediately remembered why this band impressed me at SXSW. The sound has depth and the lyrics while not clear come over as meaningful. Slightly moody intricate and some decent guitar and drum rhythm. We took a couple of videos of the truncated set and definitely thought this was a impressive and worthwhile night. But the Bruins and the Garden suck. By the way this was $5 a person.



So next night was Alt-J,to say this band has risen quickly is an understatement. Getting into the Paradise it became clear this crowd left a little to be desired when three peoples squeezed into the two person space next to me and all around people started posturing about being there early and being super fans -yuck.
The support band Hundred Waters were ok, but nothing too great, however they did not deserve the disrespectful talking through their quieter songs. When Alt-j came on by now either side of us people were crowding in, I mean if you want to be so physically close tome for so long at least buy me dinner, lol. But seriously it's physics only one person can exist in a physical space at one time. As to the music, the sound was ok if a little spotty at the start, but the band seemed aloof without the warmth of the concert last October and then there was the talking through quiet songs and singing along at full voice, for goodness sake I paid to hear the band sing not you. A decent concert but not one I left feeling huge love for.



Tuesday was Citizens! at Brighton Music Hall, the support was Grayshot a band I hadn't heard of and even more amazingly had no profile on last.fm so I was left fearing the worst that this was a no name local band. But very thankfully not Grayshot turned out to be a decent band , some guitar songs some with keyboards. I did shoot one video as I wanted some memory of their act.

Now Citizens! a band who embrace pop, produced by Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand and with links to the now defunct UK indie band Official Secrets Act. This was fun, unashamed pop fun, listen to their songs and you just want to dance. Along with their rant before True Romance where they let us now YouTube has placed the video under age restriction because of gay couples kissing - what is going on.
Very low attendance but huge love for this band, no pretension but total desire to have fun. Total win for this gig, such fun- why weren't you there?


Wednesday and another change of pace at Great Scott. first band female vocalist playing with loops, not bad would not go out to see her but I wouldn't run shrieking either.
The second band was night beds and a swarm of people were there fortnight beds. Warming up singing Oliver James by fleet foxes will say everything about this band. Decent guitar tracks with a interesting falsetto vocal. We liked this and have a couple of videos.


Indians came on, the eponymous Indians and the two extra women helping him out.this has wonderful vocal skills and a warming charm, we recorded I am haunted which is breathtaking.

Great gig two bands worth seeing for $10 you have to love supporting up and coming bands.
Thursday night and braving the snow we went to Church to see Kodaline a band you keep hearing about from everyone who wants to say who is up and coming.
Kodaline are indie folk with yet another male reaching for and hitting high notes to evoke emotion. Oh and asI previously said Fromm Dublin Ireland, you have got to love the wealth of Irish bands around currently. That being said I like Kodaline, their songs have substance and you definitely get the idea that they can play their instruments. The two hits were impressive but their accapella Sam cook cover was well done and well received.
The wonder is that this must see show was free, can you say bargain.



And we aren't even close to being done