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SXSW report: Terrorbird/Force Field PR party at Red 7
(The Vivian Girls perform Wednesday at Red 7.)
At Red 7, the little club with the Soviet iconography that could, getting there early was as ever the name of the game on Wednesday.
Lines were non-existent for the party’s first two hours. But with a fixed gear bicycle-riding, Pabst Blue Ribbon-drinking, Pitchfork-reading hipster’s idea of a dream bill — including Beach House, the Thermals and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart — the club was bound to fill up eventually. And so it did at around 3 p.m., though those who had already gotten in and gotten stamped could enter and exit as they pleased.
Switzerland’s bubbly electropop duo Larytta — two guys with nothing but a laptop, a synthesizer and an electric guitar between them — kicked off the day inside, playing to a thin but appreciate crowd. They were unsuccessful at getting the audience to clap along, which would go on to be a running problem at least through my day — be it at Camera Obscura or Thao With The Get Down Stay Down, folks just don’t seem to be clapping this year. One can only wonder what this trend means if it holds true for the Phenomenal Handclap Band.
Twenty-two-year-old San Diegan Nathan Williams, better known as the one-man noise pop project Wavves, played afterward to a packed outside stage. Williams’ music is currently the next big thing among the music blog elite — which is sometimes hard to fathom, since it’s buried underneath more distortion than a Guided By Voices record. But when he plays live, stripped of the studio fuzz, he plays with astonishing clarity and energy. The early afternoon crowd was into it, participating in the day’s closest thing to a mosh pit, and Williams earned a second look.
Politically aware punk rock band the Thermals built a set around new material from their upcoming “Now You Can See” in the first of seven SXSW shows. The new songs, all short and punchy, were their most pop-oriented, aggressively enthusiastic songs yet. Sweaty lead singer Hutch Harris looked to be having the time of his life, and bassist Kathy Foster, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Rosario Dawson in the “Josie and the Pussycats” movie, threw her head to and fro with an abandon more common to drummers than bassists.
The centerpiece of the whole lineup, though, was probably the much buzzed-about the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, an indie pop foursome that’s probably the closest thing this year has to last year’s Vampire Weekend. They’re a quickly rising group whose name recognition is likely to shoot up very quickly. But they earned the attention with a brief but powerful set that took advantage of the Red 7 outdoor stage’s impressive sound. Vocalist and keyboardist Peggy Wang seemed the most aloof — she kept one hand in her jacket pocket through the entire show — but for the most part the band seemed overjoyed to be there. We’ll see if they can keep it up for all four days, but having had the chance to speak with them, I think they’ve got the moxie to pull it off.
The day concluded with a Sophie’s Choice for indie rock fans: Beach House inside, Vivian Girls out. With the Vivian Girls playing a frankly astonishing 17 shows during SXSW, more elected to check out the inside show. Fans were “Packt Like Sardines in a Tin Can,” to borrow a Radiohead song title. Folks who enjoy getting intimate with sweaty strangers no doubt were pleased. Dream pop duo Beach House played an elegant, intimate, atmospheric set with ethereal vocals courtesy of singer Victoria Legrand. It was mellow and soothing and, frankly, standing up and not nodding off were difficult. Catch them at a free show at Auditorium Shores at 5:50 p.m. Saturday.
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