SXSW is electric – everywhere and we do mean each street, bar, corner, park, coffee shop, parking lot and grocery store is bursting at the seams with people indulging in good music. With the worlds best new bands taking to stages just blocks away from one another, our time in Austin has become a delightful balancing act of tune-age. 

Days one and two of music have not disappointed. From Mac DeMarco’s riot starting presence at HGTV + Pastes stage, to the Allah-Las performing in Mellow Jonny’s bike shop to a live audience and KEXP radio, we’ve got the ins and outs of music ground control SXSW style. 

THE SURPRISE – Smoke and Feathers

Smoke and Feathers are half long hairs, half short hairs from Austin’s very own streets. The quartet set up stage in Vegas Hotels’ indoor venue space to small crowd. As the band lit up, so did the room. Bodies poured in from the streets and the backyard to listen to the southern psychedelic rock and roll radiating from the stage. They sang of temptation, desire, longing and desperation – the ingredients to a southern mans’ blues. Tracks “Wicked Ways” and “Gypsy” left us in mysticism and when the set ended, we felt it was just getting started.

THE BREAKOUT – Allah-Las

They’re from California. They’re young and they dress well (pictured above). They look cool. They are indeed all of these ostensible things, but what they are most is a set of damn good musicians producing innovative and electric music. An eager crowd awaited their performance at the indoor stage of Mellow Jonny’s Bike Shop. KEXP radio hosted the event live to international radio listeners. Lead singer Miles Michaud calls out, “there must be a thousand people in here” and so it felt like as the crowd emptied in and the temperature rose. Each track was met with an even rowdier applause and every woman, five to seventy, was swaying her body to the cultivated California surf culture blaring through the speakers.

THE MAGIC – Foxygen

They come as two, in a haze of ‘70s vibrations, groovy lyrics and a sensible understanding of transcending from stage to audience. We found their relaxed set reminiscent of an MGMT performance – where the music is spot on, vocals flawless and the atmosphere morphs into a dreamy scene of a Wes Anderson film. These musicians have found the magic and they’re spreading it all around. Lyrics like, “you don’t love me and that’s news to us,” oozed into a transition of a flute solo highlighted by a breakout, straight funk breakdown happy frenzy on stage.

THE FEARLESS – Mac DeMarco

Mac DeMarco is a chameleon. One minute, he’s seductively puttering the lyrics of “Ode To Viceroy” as if in bed with a woman and next he’s screaming and shaking, flailing his long locks and slapping his pleasant gapped-tooth smile into the microphone, bouncing up and down the stage quite like nothing we’ve ever seen. And I think that’s just it with DeMarco, he is an authentic and fearless performer who thrives on eccentricity. Last track, “Together” which sounds like an extraordinary remixing of Lion Kings “In the Jungle,” was well received by the engrossed crowd.

THE BIGGEST CROWD – Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performed in front of Austin’s most renowned Waterloo Records on a stage set up in the iconic parking lot. The likes of the Green Horns, Emmylou Harris and Dawes have graced this very stage times before yet we’ve never seen a crowd quite like this and to be honest, we weren’t surprised. The Seattle duo has been on fire, moving over 4 million copies of their album The Heist within no time at all. The anticipation of “Thrift Shop” set the audience into a hypnotic state until the final track of the set.

THE CROWD PLEASER – Dawes

The sweet melodies and harmonies of Dawes brought us all back down to the ground on the inside stage of HGTV and Paste’s Stages on 6^th venue. It was a lovely touch to the day, as the heat subdued itself under the lyrical powers of Taylor Goldsmith and his folk spelling band mates. With a new album out April 9^, the boys didn’t hesitate to play a new tune and their classic ones. The mix was spot on and so the crowd was pleased.

THE MOST POPULAR – Passion Pit

Passion Pit took the stage at Hype Hotel for the Taco Bell sponsored “Feed the Beat” showcase. We’re calling the event the most popular despite only a very select group of lucky attendees made it inside the venue Monday night. The interest in the show was a visceral experience – lines and lines of hopefuls waited, majority unsuccessfully, for entrance to the waves of music blasting from inside. Newest single “Take A Walk” was met with a sea of voices – a chorus from the enthusiastic audience that did it’s best to accompany the sweeping vocals of Michael Angelakos.

THE DREAMY – DIIV

These four are a dream – their tunes are infused with foreboding melodies, rich and fluid hazes of unpredictability. Their live set is equally intoxicating. Playing late last night at Red 7 Patio, the creators of 2012’s Oshin took to stage and captured both beauty and imagination and poured it, like a wave, into the mesmerized audience.

Photo (c) Kristen Blanton