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ACL: Young Love
At 12:50 p.m. on the dot, Young Love - a.k.a. Austin’s favorite emo son Dan Keyes - performed his new band’s dance music for an enthusiastic 2000-plus audience in what felt like 2000-degree heat.
(Now I’ve got to come clean with you right off the bat: I’m a Dan Keyes fan. My old noise-pop band Schatzi used to play shows with Keyes’ old post-hardcore rock band Recover in indie rock clubs all around the country. We’re bros’. But that said - here comes the straight dope.)
Keyes’ front man charisma and reluctant-yet-assured star power had the teenage girls pressed in tight at the front of the stage. His revolving member band’s current incarnation included Recover’s rock solid bassist Ross Tweedy and guitarist Robert Mann. Although the songs and genre are still fresh for the players in Young Love, they possessed a cocksure quickstep in their delivery of tracks from their 2007 debut “Too Young to Fight It” that only cats that have played together for years — since childhood actually — possess.
And for a band that should’ve been playing at night under a disco ball and strobing colored lights, Young Love pulled off their no-man’s land, afternoon time slot very well.
Unfortunately either “the party” or “the road” had taken its toll on Keyes’ voice; during Young Love’s money-shot single “Discotech” his voice was breaking up in parts of the chorus.
Keyes rocked a beautiful black and gold Fender Strat during “Underneath the Night Sky,” peppering the verses with a staccato lead that was infectious. Although he spent the majority of the set working the stage from end to end, unemcumbered by the guitar, enticing the audience to cut loose and have fun.
Young Love’s set closed with “Find A New Way” which you might have heard on MTV or any number of television show soundtracks. Keyes’ pop craft and songwriting sensibilities were spot-on. And apparently much of the audience approved, because instead of seeking shelter from the heat, they stood right in the middle of Zilker Park at the Austin Ventures stage and danced their little kooky dances. And accordingly when Keyes dropped out his vocals during the songs climactic bridge, the audience members that knew the words sang right on cue.
(Photo by Brian K. Diggs AMERICAN-STATEMAN)
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