Daigle’s SXSW Saturday Day Shows

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(Photo Credit BVaz, Band is These Are Powers)

Note: this was originally posted on my website, but Ben said to put them here, too, so also check out his much more in-depth and professionally written piece on the Saturday day shows here.

So continuing on from the Friday Day Shows and the Friday Night Showcase, We continued to roll on down the road to SXSW DOMINATION. The original plan was to head to Maggie Mae’s for Rachael Ray’s party, which featured The Hold Steady, a band I was most excited about seeing of all at SXSW. We left the hotel pretty early and arrived on 6th at Maggie Mae’s at about 11:20 then we walked and walked and finally found the end of the line…..about a half mile from the door. Seriously, it was absurd. Rather than gamble as to whether we would be let in or not (SXSW is strict on capacity; once any showcase/party is full it goes to one in, one out), we opted to return to Cedar Street Courtyard because they were going to be serving free barbecue until it was gone. So, for photos from Cedar Street and beyond, hit the jump.

The good news was that once we arrived at Cedar Street Courtyard, the barbecue was still available, which we helped ourselves to. Even better was that the venue had free Miller Lites until they were gone (about an hour or so), so instead of standing outside of Maggie Mae’s for godknowshowlong in the burning sun, we were having a free lunch with free beers with free music. First up on the afternoon bill was Black Gold:

These guys were cool; they were energetic, seemed to be happy to be there and all that – despite that Cedar Street was pretty sparse at that point. I enjoyed their songs, but after a quick 30 minutes or so, they were already done. Next up was Chairlift:

Chairlift was a pretty retro band that was driven by a girl on keys who did most of the singing (not pictured). You may recognize Chairlift from the iPod commercial where she sings, “I tried to do handstands for you, I tried to do handstands for you…” I’m not sure that their other songs really matched up that well with their iPod hit, but that was a bare blush impression only. I had clearly never heard any of their other stuff before. Next up: Asobi Seksu:

We stayed for maybe 3 songs of these guys because we were trying to get back downtown to catch Loney Dear, which Ben already knew he liked. So, what I heard from Asobi Seksu was good; I wish we could have stayed for more. After leaving and walking a few blocks, we got to the Red Eyed Fly where Loney Dear was set to go on, but it turns out that stage was running behind so Princeton had just taken the stage:

Odds of the two lead guys being twins? 1-17. I felt a little bad for Princeton because there was a real weird vibe going on at Red Eyed Fly when we walked in. First, there was at least a 10′ buffer between the edge of the stage and the start of the crowd – as in not from barriers, but simply because nobody was choosing to stand any closer. Second, the crowd was pretty thin and nobody seemed to know much about these guys at all (besides a couple people who seemed to be some kind of superfans – girlfriends?) To me, they sounded a bit like a toned down Ra Ra Riot but with less strings – poppy, upbeat, etc. I liked them, but I did feel bad for them because despite their constant efforts to involve the crowd (practically begging for everyone to step forward), nobody ever really got into their set. It was a shame, but oh well. Next up was the biggest surprise for me of SXSW, Loney, Dear:

Loney, Dear is another group of Swedes (to go with the others that I’ve seen recently – Peter Bjorn & John and Lykke Li), they’re another band I had never heard, and I absolutely loved their set. I’m telling you, this set was killer. They have a simple four person setup but pretty much every song they had an accompanying beat track playing from their iPod which was plugged into the sound system over the monitors/speakers. They were energetic, tight, catchy and I loved every song. I was really happy that Ben knew to head over to catch these guys because they by far were the biggest, most pleasant surprise of any band I saw at SXSW. Nicely done. After Loney Dear we debated and decided to head to Hot Freaks! at Mohawk to try and catch some Camera Obscura:

Camera Obscura is a Scottish band and they also were pretty sweet. Unfortunately we only got to see about two songs before 5:00 hit and they had to pack it all up. Didn’t get much of an impression of them but would definitely like to check out some more. Anyways, 5:00 PM is where the day shows end and the official showcases begin. Upcoming next is the night showcases for Saturday night. Come back soon!