SXSW Review: Vandoliers, March 13, The Continental Club

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In all our years of doing SXSW, the Panic Manual crew has rarely made it out for shows on South Congress. No good reason for that really – we know it’s a cool area and have made the effort from time to time, but it is so much further away from that main drag on Sixth Street where a lot of the venues are. Yes, laziness wins out sometimes. Sad but true.

But this year I made the effort to head out to the Continental Club for Bloodshot Records’ annual showcase at the venue. A good choice, as this year’s lineup featured a solid collection of acts that included the Waco Brothers, Laura Jane Grace, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, and Dallas alt-country group (and recent Bloodshot signees) Vandoliers, playing songs off of their just released third album Forever.

At the outset of their show, Vandoliers frontman Joshua Fleming was all ‘aw shucks’ about being the new guys on the label, telling the crowd how last year they were guests on the Bloodshot day show and how he had to sneak into the Continental Club show later that night back then. But now they’re on the label and they’re fully legit. Fleming further proved his and the band’s cred by pointing out how he’s been doing this for 16 years before he got a record deal and then went on to play a song about being broke. Not that he really needed to say anything to prove that Vandoliers fit right in on the Bloodshot roster – the band’s rowdy, punk-infused songs did that all on their own.

Posted on by Paul in South By Southwest