Music festivals are for discovery. But sometimes it feels good to indulge in the familiar – see a local band you love, and perhaps sit at a big table at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas, with a bunch of friends from all over the country to catch up.
And thatap what Saturday was like for us at the .
We closed things out on the last night of the festival at a basement dance party, fueled by the still-otherworldly voice of Nikka Costa. The soulful Costa made a splash in 2001 with hits “Everybody Got Their Something” and “Like a Feather,” and even though she hasn’t nailed down that perfect mixture of funk and dance and soul since that record, her unreal vocals haven‘t changed a bit.
In fact, maybe they’ve gotten better. I remember seeing Costa at the old Soiled Dove in downtown Denver, and she was a fiery, electric-voiced bombshell then. Glad to see she’s still bring down houses.
Costa played those songs and more at the Buca Lounge on a frenetic stretch of Fifth Street on Saturday. (Downtown Austin on St. Patrick’s Day/SXSW makes for the most obnoxious walking conditions – a sea of stumbling green mixed with grumpy badgeholders trying to make a show across town.) The in-the-know crowd wasn’t afraid to shake it, and the basement venue heated up in every way.
One couple even took over a booth near the stage for a full-on, old-fashioned, her-on-top-of-him make-out.
Another indulgence was Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, the Denver act that is no stranger to SXSW. Playing the Illegal Pete’s Starving Artist Showcase at Peckerheads, Snake Rattle was in fine, loud form – making fans out of green-clad people who came in off the street. And they were sandwiched by other sets that repped Colorado proudly – A. Tom Collins before them and Air Dubai after them, both of which had no problem getting the crowd motivated to move.
The Reverb party – organized by my colleagues John Hendrickson and Kendall Smith and Larimer Lounge booking agent James Irvine – took over the Dirty Dog earlier Saturday with an impressive line-up of nationals and Colorado acts. We missed the much-talked-about Bass Drum of Death, but people were still glowing over them by the time we walked in.
Portland act Typhoon slayed the packed Reverb party with its punchy, cinematic sound – a brass-fueled fire that burned at a steady rate throughout its set. (The band plays the Larimer Lounge in Denver on Wednesday – and I couldn’t recommend their show enough.) They didn’t do the whole too-much-exuberance thing that seems to be plaguing bands at this year’s fest, and their attention to the music was appreciated.
The Reverb party’s surprise for me – and everybody else – was an unscheduled ManCub show. Chillwave hero Com Truise had to cancel its appearance at the party due to scheduling, and the ManCub guys stood in with a big-energy set that kept the showcase in high spirits. I can appreciate a band having a good time in performance. And it seems like ManCub has no problem with that. –Ricardo Baca
What’s keeping Austin weird…
In direct contrast to the loud and dirty live music day parties at South by Southwest, there’s an entirely different side of this festival — so long as you know where to find it. Yes, there are corners of Austin that remain un-drenched by Lone Star and lukewarm pizza, places on the high floors of fancy hotels where you must pass two or three levels of skeptical personnel tasked with making sure you’re supposed to be there.
Late Saturday afternoon, Reverb columnist Colin St. John led photographer Ryan Johnson and I to the upper levels of the , one of the city’s oldest and most revered landmarks. We were there for a party hosted by FUSE, a music-based TV channel and website (and some other stuff, probably). Almost every party at SXSW is pushing some clear agenda in brand-building: a new product or feature; a reason to justify the multi-thousand dollar cost of the event. And this one, while filled with flat panel TVs and futuristic furniture fit for Elton John’s house, we could not find anyone who actually knew why this event — what with its two open bars and grandiose balcony overlooking the Sixth Street madness — was even happening in the first place. The surreality of partying in this highest of high-brow settings and not knowing why was only slightly less surreal than a party Denver Post staffer Joe Murphy had attended a week prior at the Interactive portion of the festival, in which he learned that the host had hired strangers to “naturally” mingle with his guests to ensure “pleasant memories.” –John Hendrickson
Another take:
Ricardo Baca is the founder and executive editor of , the co-founder of The UMS and an award-winning critic and journalist at The Denver Post.
John Hendrickson is the managing editor of Reverb and a multimedia journalist for The Denver Post. Follow his rants on music and more on .
Ryan Johnson is a Denver videographer, social media strategist and guitar player for hire. Contact him here.
