Austin – As many of you know, I was fortunate enough to go to South By Southwest for both interactive and Music. What many of you might not know is that a lot of musical acts get hired to play at parties during the interactive part. Here’s a quick rundown of the few acts I saw.
Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Venue 222, March 11
Hailing from Brooklyn, Pains of Being Pure at Heart played the Sapient Nitro opening party. with the impending release of their new record Belong, the Brooklyn band laid on an aural assault on unsuspecting ears with their heavy wall of sound vibe. Kip Berman’s vocals was a bit muffled and hidden behind the immensely loud guitars. Still, I could still make out some of those charming melodies that made their first record so good. I was glad they were able to played Come Saturday before one of the amplifiers caught on fire and the show abruptly ended.
Chromeo
March 13, Some Warehouse
I think it’s impossible for Chromeo to put on a bad show, or even an average show. Their music is too much fun and too much dancing for anything but a good time to occur. Playing to a decent size crowd, the Montreal duo played select tracks off their two 80s retro disco albums amidst a lovely laser light show. Much to the crowds delight, hits like Tenderoni, Bonafied Loving, Night by Night and Fancy Footwork were played. People were dancing, drinking and having a blast. See them if you can.
Head and the Heart, Yeasayer
Moody Theatre, March 14
The Moody Theatre might be the most beautiful venue I’ve been to. It is ahosolutely gorgeous. Under some astounding light projections, current buzz band Head and the Heart played some delightful folk rock songs that made me think of early Snow Patrol. Yeasayer took to the stage shortly before or after my eight or ninth drink. I remember they played ONE. They then played some tracks here, some tracks there. I think they sounded good. I have to say, Microsoft was only serving hard liquor at the party, and I just can’t say no. Hence, I don’t really remember that part of the show.
Other bands that played during SXSW Interactive included Big Boi, Matt and Kim, Flosstradamus and obviously, Foo Fighters, who played something like two hours at the closing Interactive party. So what I’m saying is, if you like music and you like tech, you should consider doing both legs of the tour.