Even before Shitkid‘s set at BD Riley’s had started, you could tell that Åsa Söderqvist was up for some michief. “We’re going for a smoke,” she announced, walking out of the venue with her bandmates at about the time they should have been taking the stage. She did note, however, that they wouldn’t take too long since there were three of them and only one smoke.
Once they returned shortly thereafter, Shitkid launched right into it as Söderqvist shouted “Shitkid! Woooo!” into the mic at the top of her lungs before running through a set of fun, kind of punky tunes accompanied by a guitarist, bassist, and a keyboard in the corner that mostly just played prerecorded beats but with which she would occasionally fiddle around. Billing herself as an “anti-popstar,” Söderqvist certainly exuded a fair amount of charisma onstage, “borrowing” some drinks from a table near the stage, swinging her mic around with abandon, and pulling down the venue’s SXSW banner at the end of her set (I witnessed Starcrawler’s Arrow de Wilde attempting a similar feat the next day) before then exclaiming “That was easier than I thought!”
A raw, irreverent performance to match the raw, irreverent nature of Shitkid’s music. Good times.