“Is anyone else celebrating their first SouthBy?”
This was the question posed by Kate Davis near the outset of her Wednesday night set at Seven Grand.
“I am. I don’t know if you can tell. It’s been …” She paused for a moment paused before finishing her thought: “… stimulating.”
Stimulating is definitely one way to describe it and certainly a nice neutral choice on Davis’ part. Whether for good or bad though, SXSW can absolutely be a lot, especially if it’s your first time there.
And it certainly can be a lot of stimulation. I can only imagine what it’s like for musicians running around town all week and often playing multiple shows in a day. For her part, Davis seemed to be taking it pretty well, though she did seem at times perhaps a bit bemused by the whole thing.
Playing SXSW in advance of her new record Fish Bowl, Davis focused on new stuff for much of her set (though I believe she did also include some older material) with tracks like “Long Long Long”, “Fish Bowl” and “Monster Mash” (“its not a cover”) standing out as highlights.
Fish Bowl is out this week on ANTI Records, though if you were one of the lucky few who couldn’t wait ’til then and managed to snag one, Davis did happen to have a few advance copies on her for sale during SXSW. The rest of us will just have to wait ’til Friday.