Huw's tips from last night...check out The Dodos!
Sxsw blog - night time Day 1
Night time in Austin is nuts. Imagine the town where you live, and the roads are closed to traffic and every tom, dick and harry, music fans and families, policemen, buskers, curious residents come out to play.
First band I see is at Vice. It's a big room, the afro'd lead rapper is excellent in causing a furore, the full band behind him riffing it up with an electronic beat. Then a giant owl stage crashes. They're the first band on. This is gonna be good....
play at the , and she isn't a 'she' after all, but a pretty good rock band from Brooklyn, New York, from where there's a lot of bands playing this year.
Last time you heard a good band from Spain? Exactly. Check out who make pounding disco tunes, echo-y vocals and are impressive tonight with a seemingly endless set that gets Maggie May's shaking. Classy electronics at SXSW? Of course! Everything goes here.
There's kilts aplenty in the Smoking Room, a large cavernous room which has actually got smoke coming from the roof weirdly. The kilts are because of from Dundee who have a knack for banging fast pop tunes and catchy choruses....
are amazing. Check out their Myspace, do your damnest to get hold of their album released in the States on French Kiss records, and fall in love. Everyone tonight is smitten; it's country, -esque, speeded-bluegrass, pop-soul-folk songs, it's different to everyone else around and when the inevitable hype starts surrounding them, it will be entirely justified.
from Wisconsin are also magic tonight, despite the rock band downstairs being too loud. Still, Justin Vernon's vocals are stunning, the crowd joining in on the chorus and a we have a moment. Serious!
