XL's SXSW Music Reviews: Fri. March 19, 2004

Fiery Furnaces at Rockstars

On paper, the Fiery Furnaces look a lot like another, much more famous band: a brother-sister duo from up north whose ragged garage rock owes a heavy debt to the Delta blues. But don't let the inevitable White Stripes comparisons throw you - the Furnaces are a creature all their own. First of all, unlike Jack and Meg White, Matthew (31) and Eleanor (27) Friedberger actually are brother and sister. Not a bad-looking pair, either - she, a Williamsburg hipster version of Courteney Cox in the video for "Dancing in the Dark" (big hair and all); he, vaguely resembling Democratic National Convention-era Rob Lowe. Second - and more importantly - Eleanor doesn't sit quietly in the shadows tapping away at a drum kit like Ms. White. She's right up front, yelping and clawing at her guitar like a 21st-century Patti Smith. She's got a great voice, too — all rasp and passion — that she stretched to its limit on the band's dozen frenetic songs (part of a showcase for Rough Trade, the famed U.K. label that introduced the world to fellow New Yorkers the Strokes). The best was a blistering, gender-flipping update of the old folk standard "I Wish I Was Single Again," with Eleanor playing the part of the long-abused wife who laughs when her husband dies. It's true what they say: Hell hath no fury like a chick who can rock.

— Josh Eells

Harvey Sid Fisher at Club DeVille

A few minutes into Harvey Sid Fisher's set, a friend approached me: "Am I supposed to know this guy?" I shook my head. A few minutes later, he left, saying "I can't take this."

"This" was the Harvey Sid Fisher show, in which what looks to be a middle-aged tough-guy character actor in a T-shirt and spangled lamé greatcoat sings songs about various astrological signs. ("I'm a lovin' Leo lion!") It's what's known in Fisher's hometown of L.A. as "high concept."

Fisher set the tone with his first words onstage — "Due to budget considerations, I'll be introducing myself: Harvey Sid Fisher!" — and then led his able but sorely under-rehearsed band (power trio, trumpets, backup singers) through the Zodiac. In between songs, he took not only requests but also phone calls, (when someone got him to talk to a friend on the other end of the line), and generally fed the mood of high hilarity among his fans.

So it's not really a question of whether you think it's bad or good. It's more a question of whether you think something can be so bad it's good. Some do. Many don't.

Toward the end of the set, someone else came up to me. "How long has he been playing?" she asked.

"About 30 minutes," I replied.

"Good."

— John Ratliff

American Music Club at Bigsbys

"I think that was the best reunion show I've ever seen," said a friend, "because it didn't seem like a reunion show."

Going into American Music Club's Friday night show, no one knew what to expect. AMC broke up nearly 10 years ago, giving way to frontman Mark Eitzel's spotty solo career. And even during the group's heyday, Eitzel could derail a gig with alcohol-fueled misbehavior.

What likely no one expected was a blazingly intense show that found AMC even tighter and more focused then they were at their peak. A set of old favorites off "California," "Engine" and "Everclear" would have made the crowd happy, but Eitzel, guitarist Vudi, bassist Dan Pearson (looking more like Bill Paxton than ever), drummer Tim Mooney and new keyboardist Marc Capelle weren't having it. There were plenty of new songs, but the unfamiliarity didn't breed restlessness in the crowd. Word is that the forthcoming AMC album is titled "You Better Watch What You Say," and that reference to former White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer's admonition to the press corps indicates a newfound political bent to Eitzel's lyrics. He introduced one song, "Ladies and Gentlemen" as "the speech Mr. Bush should have given after 9/11" (then deadpanned, "Yeah, 'I resign' ") and sang another one about the worms in a patriot's heart.

But even a die-hard Republican would have been stirred by this music; Eitzel, left behind the crooning that marked so much of his latter day work for a virtuosic rock shout that dovetailed into a raucous, idiosyncratic form of soul singing on "Patriot's Heart."

Focusing on Eitzel too much, though, will lead you astray. Eitzel claimed the band has been rehearsing like mad, and it showed. Seeing these five men play their hearts out, it was easy to get angry over the 10 years of great shows we've missed because these guys couldn't keep it together.

But it was hard to hold on to that anger by the time the band finished with a riveting encore performance of "The Dead Part of You," taken at an almost punk rock tempo, that was more revision than reunion. I never thought I'd hear that song in concert again, and really, I didn't. It was like hearing it for the first time.

— Jeff Salamon

Moving Units at Elysium

Although disco may be dead, L.A.'s the Moving Units brought along with them an infectious form of dance rock that resurrects plenty of disco ghosts. A sweaty crowd at Elysium waited in anticipation through a number of international acts for the Units, who are capitalizing on a rather new genre pioneered by other more popular bands like the Rapture.

The trio slammed into "X and Y," the second track off their self-titled debut. After rampaging through the drum-heavy track, the Units moved into a series of newer tracks that had everyone in the crowd, well, moving. The band displayed an intentionally one-dimensional sound that had very few changes of pace and very little deviation from the blazing pace they set for themselves from the beginning. The rhythm section was air-tight, despite the drummer's best efforts to add rabid fills at each and every opportunity. The bass lines were relaxed and surprisingly technical considering the somewhat sloppy and jangly notes picked out by the guitar player.

Sweaty kids with mop tops swung their hair and drenched their neighbors like dog's shaking themselves dry on a summer afternoon. Drinks were occasionally flung toward the stage, but did little to deter the Units from encouraging constant motion from the crowd. Even the drummer himself couldn't help but stand up and dance behind his kit in between several songs to the rhythm still running through his head.

— Adam Longley

Singapore Sling at Copper Tank

Today in Rekyjavik, Iceland, two five-hour flights from Austin, the mercury climbed to a balmy 36 degrees. The sun was out for twelve hours — a significant improvement over the winter season of drab darkness. In other locales, being the best new band in a cold, gray city of 80,000 people might be a distinction on par with winning UT's annual talent show. But in the tiny country probably best known for exporting Bjork and Bjorkness around the globe (and the first democratic parliament in history, but let's keep our priorities straight), Singapore Sling is an exciting new development in the remarkable tradition that produced Gus Gus and Sigur Ros.

All this is to say that it's a long way — geographically and metaphorically — from Rekyjavik to Austin. Which makes Singapore Sling's performance at Copper Tank on Friday night even more of shame.

Granted, they were confronted with possibly the worst audience South by Southwest could muster: cranky, pushy and downright offensive with the overactive digital cameras. But the band did nothing to defuse the situation, cranking out their walls of noise without cracking a single smile.

In a perfect world, singer Henrik Bjornsson (the characteristically beautiful Icelander in the bunch) would have been miked louder than the maracas, the guitarist wouldn't have felt compelled to spit his still-burning Winstons onto the floor and the set would have resonated like their engaging debut release "The Curse of Singapore Sling." Instead, they looked and sounded like discount version of Interpol.

— Austin Bonner

Constantines at Blender Bar

What if the Beatles had stayed rooted in Chuck Berry's rock 'n' roll music? And what if the Rolling Stones were the ones with the walking tour in London?

This is the world of the Constantines. The Toronto five-piece plays hard, with no harmonies to speak of, fronted by a guy with a deep, raspy voice who sounds like Keith Richards with a cold.

The Constantines rock, they do. But their songs are pop songs. They're perfectly willing to woo fans with juicy hooks and crunchy guitars. How else do you explain their channeling Rod Stewart's "Young Hearts Beat Free Tonight" — at least briefly — through a curtain of distortion?

So it was at the band's early Saturday set that closed out their label's (Sub Pop, naturally) showcase at the Blender Bar at The Ritz. Most of their songs would fit in just fine with any number of the sensitive pop bands who've made their way to Austin this weekend. It's unfortunate that so few seem willing to sharpen their hooks to the point that they'll draw blood. But we do have the Constantines, and Keith Richards should be proud.

— Stephen Scheibal

The Flatlanders at La Zona Rosa

To paraphrase the title of their "first" album (it's a long story), the Flatlanders have become more a band than a legend. The dust-blown triumvirate of Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock has evolved from childhood friends in the windswept precincts of Lubbock to three disparate performers, each with their own resumés, sharing a stage to, at last, an integrated, fully functional musical entity distinct unto itself.

That, at least, was the impression given by the trio during the course of their set Friday night at La Zona Rosa. To borrow a line from Hancock's "Julia," the group seems to resemble nothing so much as "a three-ring circus, rocking 'round the sun." (A case in point? Consider Gilmore visibly cracking up as Joel Guzman's manic accordion threatened to transform his "Go To Sleep Alone" into an over-caffeinated Tex-Mex polka. Let's just say you hadda been there).

Though their love of wordplay and melody is palpable and proprietary, the three old friends are careful to give each other enough room (or enough rope) onstage to let the music breathe. Or to let each other take a turn in the spotlight as circumstances permit. Ely's set-closing rendition of Gilmore's "Midnight Train" was a scorching showcase illuminated by the incendiary guitar of Robbie Gjersoe. Hancock and Gilmore, in laying back, displayed the kind of confident camaraderie makes the Flatlanders so much more than the sum of even their superbly accomplished parts.

— John T. Davis

Bettie Serveert at Friends

What was a band as cool as Bettie Serveert — who have been together long enough to have a following but not long enough to be has-beens — doing with a showcase at a club as tiny and uncomfortably laid out as Friends? A number of fans were seen arriving, noting the density of the crowd, and moving on to the other midnight gig on their lists.

The band was being patriotic, evidently. The showcase, "Amsterdam Calling," was organized by the Dutch Rock & Pop Institute, and the well-known band drew new ears to groups such as ZZZ, a riotous drum-and-organ duo reminiscent of Suicide, and the politically conscious punk group De Heideroosjes.

Whatever the reasons, Bettie Serveert was glad to be back for their 20th tour of the United States. Focusing heavily on "Log 22," their latest record, they proved that even with rotating-drummer syndrome, they're an awfully tight, hard-rocking pop group. By the time they played the title song of that recent disc, the band members were drenched with sweat, flailing their hair to the beat. Guitarist Peter Visser was the most acrobatic, letting himself fall halfway into the crowd at one point (with a stage this small, it's not much of a fall), but singer Carol van Dyk held the room's attention with songs that feel much more personal than those on the group's older albums. "De Diva" and "Wide Eyed Fools" were particularly emotional, and drew a healthy crowd even on the sidewalk outside the club.

By the end of the night, the Dutch language may not have looked any more sensible, but Dutch rock seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

— John DeFore

Dwight Yoakam at La Zona Rosa

If ideal justice were a reality instead of an abstract, Dwight Yoakam would have played his SXSW showcase at the Broken Spoke. Let's face it, the man was put on Earth to play beer joints. But he was at La Zona Rosa, which is still an intimate setting compared with the arenas and sheds that he usually inhabits on the road. As Merle Haggard once said, it ain't love, but it ain't bad.

As was the case at last fall's Austin City Limits Festival, Yoakam is still touring with his semi-acoustic trio, which features multi-instrumentalist Keith Gaddis as the Pete Anderson surrogate (no disrespect to Gaddis intended), along with a stand-up bassist and drummer. The configuration harks back as much to Yoakam's Kentucky mountain music roots as it does to his adopted home of Bakersfield, Calif., and its prodigal sons Merle Haggard and Buck Owens.

The setup allowed Yoakam to range far and wide from his honky-tonk cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" to an achingly slow tease of his revved-up hit "Fast As You." In between songs, Yoakam felt free to reminisce about his first visit to Austin with the Blasters in 1985 and pay a tribute to his fellow New West recording artists the Flatlanders with a twangy cover of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's "Dallas."

Leavening his set with crowd pleasers ranging back to the formative "Guitars and Cadillacs," Yoakam meandered from a set that seemed both random and focused, and yet engagingly intimate. "Thanks for sticking around," he told the near-capacity crowd shortly after taking the stage. Those may have been the most superlative words yet uttered at this year's music festival.

— John T. Davis

Big Star at Austin Music Hall

Sometimes legends should just remain legends.

In the early 1970s, Big Star turned its back on progressive rock excess, heavy metal thunder and pretty much anything that wasn't melodic and full of bright guitars, nearly inventing power pop in the process. The band's three remarkable albums, "#1 Record," "Radio City," and the dissolute, emotionally rigorous "Third/Sister Lovers," were, therefore, roundly ignored by the record-buying public at large. But those records became the very definition of cult classics, seducing critic and pop-friendly hipster alike.

After two decades of a marginal solo career, Big Star founder Alex Chilton teamed up with original drummer Jody Stephens and a few hired guns from the Posies for the occasional reunion gig as Big Star. This appearance at SXSW was clearly one of them.

No info, no chatter, no nothing. The band just launched into "In the Street," which kids today know as the theme song from "That '70s Show."

There were a few surprises. Original bassist Trey Manning came out to sing "When My Baby's Beside Me." They even broke out "I Am the Cosmos," written by the late Big Star guitarist Chris Bell.

But at no point did this show not feel like some sort of obligation, as if Big Star version 3.0 was here to get its SXSW hip card punched, a gift of a rock critic's band to all of the critics hanging out in Austin.

— Joe Gross

Frog Eyes at 33 Degrees

As Frog Eyes starts their set at 33 Degrees — after an extended period of setting up — the guitar player, who speaks in a soft, disconcerting voice, thanks the audience: "Thanks for your patience . . . for your goodness, your purity of heart, your strength of character." Then he makes a strangulated cartoon voice that sounds like Popeye's evil twin.

They launch into their songs. The bass player marches in place, occasionally adjusting his gimme cap. The guitar player strums his guitar so fervently that it looks like he's just pretending to play it.

"This song's about lies and deceit and honey of tongue, and about tricking your woman into marrying you. Not really."

The sound is frenetic, bright and brittle — pop songs for the hard of hearing and the quick to cry.

"We're playing a few songs from the first record. Return to the golden years. When I had an open heart and really appreciated the sun and the sky . . . was less callous." Pause. "No, I'm a good guy."

He scrubs furiously at his guitar, executing a dervish spin, around and around, knocking over the mic stand into the enraptured listeners sitting on the record-store carpet in front of him.

"Sorry. It's like Michael J. Fox at the end of 'Back to the Future.' "

He plugs in an electric keyboard to play along with the keyboard player. A loud hum ensues. Attempts are made to eliminate or reduce it.

"Once we start playing, the hum will be lost in the maelstrom."

He's right. Through the sonic storm can be heard the repeated phrase: "I don't do drugs."

One can hardly imagine what that would be like.

— John Ratliff

Broken Social Scene at Stubb's

Broken Social Scene has six members, four of them guitarists. For SXSW, the band emerged on Stubb's outdoor stage with another four members culled from other bands.

In other settings, the numbers alone might constitute a threat of violence. But Broken Social Scene quickly ended the spectre of a rock show mob, opening with a lone organ that rode a sweet melody into a peaceful, contemplative song. Things sped up from there, but the tone was set. This would be a night of gentle, bouncy pop songs, tailored for the warm, breezy night in a barbecue restaurant's back yard.

The songs were uniformly inventive and well-played, as one might expect after listening to the band's excellent release from last year, "You Forgot It in People." Special recognition should go to the drummer, who mixed subtle rhythm variations into the already arty pop songs.

Of course, there was plenty of recognition to go around. The band was remarkably grateful to the full crowd that danced constantly, clapped when prompted and shouted "band unity" when the singer asked them to. "It's all been done several, several times," the singer said, "but you make it original in how you love it."

It was that kind of scene, nothing broken about it.

— Stephen Scheibal

David Cross at Emo's Main

Southwest by Southwest Music. South by Southwest Film. South by Southwest Interactive. Is it time for South by Southwest Comedy?

The crowd that turned out for — and was turned away from — David Cross' stand-up gig suggests yes. Cross, who gained fame as one-half of HBO's "Mr. Show" and went on to open as a stand-up comedian for the likes of Sonic Youth, has become indie-rock nation's funnyman of choice. Which is why your faithful scribe showed up a half-hour early for his 10 p.m. gig and didn't get in until it was half over.

So what did we get for an hourlong wait, and the chance to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip and thigh-to-thigh with complete strangers? Not much that can be described with any precision in the pages of this newspaper. There was a funny riff on how the folks who work at the New York New York Casino in Las Vegas felt on 9/11 ("I work at the fake Mulberry Street Pizza," he imagined one dismayed employee crying, "That's near the fake World Trade Center.")

And there was lots of anti-Republican and anti-Catholic Church material. In these regards, Cross was preaching to the choir. It might have been nice if he had challenged the choir instead. Most of his jokes about the church weren't jokes or even ideas for jokes; they were ideas, or maybe just ideas for ideas. Priests who practice pedophilia and denounce homosexuality are hypocrites? Fair enough. But is there a punch line coming? Much, much later, there was. It was a brutally funny punch line and one that is inappropriate for a general audience. But it was the rare example of Cross bothering to turn his material into material. Anyone who wants an entire set of jokes that sharp will have to wait a lot longer than an hour.

— Jeff Salamon

Jessi Colter at Continental Club

How's this for a magical SXSW moment? Jessi Colter, looking as gorgeous as ever, sits down at the piano while the rhythm section of drummer Richie Albright and bassist Don Was light into a swing groove, while guitarist Reggie Young sprinkles the mix with some of his trademark sparks. "Stop breakin' down/please stop breakin' down," Colter snarls, as she thumps the electric piano with Pentecostal fervor. Then her mic stand starts breakin' down. She's playing with left hand, trying to fix the mic with her right and suddenly son Shooter Jennings, looking like a younger, leaner version of his dad Waylon, swoops in from the wings and tightens up the stand to the right height. And the bounce never breaks.

So many scruffy kids from all over the world have descended on Austin to get a record deal, but then, as she pointed out by saying "I'm up for grabs," so has Colter. Somebody had better sign her up, because there was definitely something special about her rollicking performance at the Continental Club Friday night. The honky tonk version of "Storms Never Last" isn't as good as the original, and her goldest oldie "I'm Not Lisa" didn't transcend nostalgia, but it was the new songs like "C'mon" that showed her to be a gutsy pop rocker, a Bonnie Raitt behind a piano instead of a guitar.

The set, which included two numbers by Colter's new songwriting partner Ray Herndon (ex-McBride and the Ride), ended with Shooter coming up again to reprise the first duet his parents sang together, "I Ain't the One." It was all that and an audience that included Kris Kristofferson and Billy Joe Shaver, two of the greatest musical brothers Waylon ever had.

— Michael Corcoran

The Hold Steady at Elysium

Ten years from now, when The Hold Steady tribute bands are crowding our clubs and lengthy biographies of the group are being given as Christmas gifts, a large handful of people are going to be able to say they were there, bearing witness to one of the most joyfully, explosively nerdy South by Southwest debuts our fair city as seen in years.

Why only a large handful? Who knows? Sometimes, SXSW buzz bands don't pack the house because people think they won't be able to get in.

This is too bad because singer/guitarist/songwriter Craig Finn tossed out enough bon mots and cheeky wiseacre lyrics for a crowd 10 times the size.

Now, even the most devout fan probably would admit that The Hold Steady's basic rock sound acts as a vector for those lyrics, and not much else. This is a band that doesn't much care about breaking new sonic ground.

And they might also admit that songs such as "Hostile, Massachusetts" and lyrics that namecheck Frankie Knuckles, Right Said Fred and Freddie Mercury (what, no Freddie Jackson?) come off as a little too clever in the privacy of your room. But when paired with Finn's geek-flail arm gestures, classic rock riffology and fondness for a good guitar solo, everything comes together.

Even Finn's habit of getting so worked up, so juiced on his own dorky will-to-power, that he completely ignores the mic and simply yells at the audience works in his favor.

This was rock as doofus catharsis, the hum and whine of clever boys amped on their own wit. Some people can say they were there. I hope you were one of them and I hope the band's first trip to Austin won't be its last.

— Joe Gross

The Hives at Stubb's

Even as he resembles Jim Carrey doing a Mick Jagger impression in an outfit he picked up at Pat Boone's garage sale, Howlin' Pelle Almqvist of the Hives is the best frontman in rock today. Nevermind that his stage act was a conspiracy of high kicks, crowd-milking cupped ears and swinging mics and that the singer spent more time in the photo pit than Neal Preston. What sets Pelle apart, even more than his energy, attitude and instinctive phrasing, is that he's hilarious. And if confidence is sexy, about a thousand women at the Spin party Friday afternoon at Stubb's would've stepped over Jude Law to give their phone numbers to the Swedish rocker in black and white.

"Do you want to hear another new song?" he said after unveiling "No Pun Intended" from an upcoming album. As the crowd cheered politely, expecting another untested jackhammer, Pelle switched the cliché on them. "Well, too bad. Here's an old one" and then charged into a crowd fave from the "Veni Vidi Vicious" career-maker.

And while tightness isn't always a good thing (witness the UT basketball team's first half against Princeton), this marvelous band was locked in like bolts on a submarine.

Amid all the recent hype of the big garage rock revival, the Hives album just didn't seem that special. Without the live show, you're getting only half the equation. That's the great thing about SXSW, a festival that celebrates live music. If you can't pull it off onstage, you might as well stay home and spend the money you saved on a video. But if you can bring the noise like Pelle and the Hives, you can convert skeptics by the thousands.

Kneejerk punk rockers the Bronx opened the party to a sparse crowd. Next up was the Killers, whose Las Vegas home base gave license to their new wave dinner jacket sound. They had good songs, too. Reports from the Von Bondies' set Wednesday at Stubb's were mixed. Survey says: "They were OK." On Friday, however, the band blazed through their screechy punk blues as if they wanted to embarrass naysayers. A lesser band than the Hives might've wilted from the Von Bondies' heat.

— Michael Corcoran

Petty Booka at Cheapo's

Look up the term "novelty act" in the encyclopedia, and you'll see a picture of — well, today you'll see Tiny Tim. But in a few years, Tim could be supplanted by two Tokyo ladies who share the Tiny one's fondness for ukuleles. They call themselves "Petty" and "Booka," they are very cute, and they sure like American music.

Paving the way for the night-long showcase of Japanese girl bands at Elysium tonight (which looks to be a hot ticket), Petty Booka took the stage in color-coordinated western shirts, cowboy hats and loud custom boots. While they eventually did play "I Fall To Pieces," the pair's dress didn't guarantee an all-cowgirl set. From Cyndi Lauper to "Rainy Night in Georgia" to "Do You Want To Dance?," they bounced all around the American pop spectrum. Given the two-uke setup, of course, they weren't limited to the continental U.S.: Two of their more charming tunes revisited the heyday of Hawaiian exotica.

It was hard not to like the duo, but it was also hard to get all that excited. Their set list stuck mostly to slow, fairly straight renditions of familiar tunes, and the novelty wore off quickly. As an appetizer for the Saturday showcase, though — where the variety of bands promises to range from cute and poppy to punk — it was an entertaining tease.

— John DeFore

Jolie Holland at Antone's

"The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs," according to Jolie Holland, and there may be something to that. Holland's no dwarf, but a full-sized guitar would be too large for her, and the singer's unassuming stage presence makes her seem even smaller. (She made the songbird comparison inevitable halfway through the set, when she broke into a beautiful display of whistling midsong.)

Holland's voice more than matched her whistling. On songs about borderline hobos and morphine addicts, she warbled with a deceptive laziness — her subjects are underachievers, but Holland puts four notes on a syllable with ease. She could have been an old-school jazz star, but these days vocalists with diphthongs as inventively strange as hers are automatically labeled folkies.

Holland's arrangements aren't typically folk, though. Accompanied by a restrained drummer and an electric guitarist who occasionally used a slide, her music had a twang that didn't keep it from being urban.

Holland projected sadness fairly consistently, but the mood picked up when two guests joined her, the mandolin and banjo players from Holland's old band, the Be Good Tanyas. The already enthusiastic crowd loved this, though it was hard to say whether they were fans of the old band or just happy to see Holland smile. "I've often considered the impracticality of my life," she sang at one point — but songbirds with voices like this shouldn't have to worry where their next meal is coming from.

— John DeFore

Cooper's Uncle at Mother Egan's

Somebody call the Coen brothers. Friday night's bluegrass showcase outdoors at Mother Egan's featured homegrown openers Cooper's Uncle, who picked and sang their way through a set that would have made the movie-directing brothers itch for soundtrack rights. As the only Texas band performing at the showcase, Uncle's musicians plucked their way through an impressive set filled with plenty of frantic banjo and mandolin solos and just enough twangy harmonies to keep things real.

After an instrumental opener, the four-piece band rolled into a number of covers, including "High on the Mountain," "Salt Creek" and bluegrass legend Bill Monroe's "On and On." Each tune was distinctly old school, and their rather simplistic form of delivery only increased the sense of authenticity. The boys stood huddled center stage around only two condenser microphones and shifted according to which instruments were front and center for each song. There were no wires or enormous amplifiers lining the rear of the stage.

Just four guys, two instruments and their microphones. Despite the lack of modern sound equipment, each note from the mandolin and banjo was cleanly articulated. The steady rhythms from the upright bass and acoustic guitar seemed comfortably tucked in the background. Singer and mandolin player Tyler Balthrop's country intonation and mellow mastery of his instrument kept things rooted in recognizable traditions the whole way through. Near the end of the set, Balthrop asked someone offstage how much more time they hand. "Three more? But we only know one more," he replied, generating a chuckle from the audience. They played three more. It's just too bad these guys played to a virtually empty parking lot.

— Adam Longley