Haylie Davis @ The Lucky Duck
Sunday at SXSW was hot.
I don’t mean that in a Stefon “the hottest club is Austin is …” sense but in the literal sense – it was uncomfortably hot for much of the day. Luckily, it cooled off considerably by the evening, but in the meantime, things were scorching. And while the logical thing to do would be to skulk off to some air conditioned room somewhere, it turns out everything I wanted to see was outside. So, while I may have had to suffer through the heat, I ended up seeing some great shows. A fair enough trade-off, I guess.
Meg Elsier @ High Noon
Paste Magazine’s day parties have been a staple of SXSW for as long as I’ve been going and they always bring it with a killer lineup. This year, they were billing it as the “Best Paste Party Ever” and while that may have been overselling it a bit (for me, the best Paste party was the year I saw The Barr Brothers, Crooked Fingers and The Lumineers back-to-back while sipping on complimentary gin and tonics), this one was pretty good.
Meg Elsier opened up the day with a set of fun indie rock peppered with a sassy, sarcastic attitude and highlighted by a song about people in New England having really nice lawns. OK, the song’s probably about something more than that, but that’s the part that stood out for me.
Grrrl Gang @ Zilker Brewing
Coming all the way from Indonesia, Grrrl Gang singer/guitarist Angeeta Sentana noted that they were feeling at home in the Austin heat. “Not gonna lie – with this heat it feels like Bali.” She was OK with that though as she said she was shivering onstage just a couple of days before. The Yogyakarta trio play a power-poppy brand of indie rock and put on a solid show for thieir early afternoon set at Zilker Brewing. They were a lot of fun live, but not quite as high energy as expected. Perhaps they were preserving their energy due to the high temperatures. If so, fair enough – they did have a show later that evening just up the street at Hotel Vegas
Girl Tones, Mikki & the Doom @ Hotel Vegas
Shifting from Grrrl Gang to Girl Tones, it was a short walk over to the aforementioned Hotel Vegas for my next stop: a set from the sister duo of Kenzie Shultz and Laila Crowe, who were playing as part of the daylong Grillo’s Pickles-presented St. Pickles Day Party.
“Do you like heavy shit?” asked Shultz partway through their set. “If you don’t that’s too bad – we’re still gonna play heavy shit.”
True to their word, Girl Tones brought the heavy shit, including a surprise cover of The Vines’ “Get Free” (well, a surprise to me anyways, as I’d kind of forgotten about that song). They rocked out while also professing their love of pickles, with Shultz sharing a quick anecdote about drinking pepperoncini juice straight from the jar as a kid. They also urged the crowd to clap along throughout, though they acknowledged it might have been a bit of a hard sell in the heat.
It was much easier to convince people to grab a free pickle, though that didn’t stop locals Mikky & the Doom from starting off their set with their own pickle theme song. Joined by some friends onstage, the band played an ode to pickles using Grillo’s slogan (“Chill out, eat a pickle”) as its chorus. Mikky is a hell of a frontwoman, and the band’s cool, sleazy rock n’ roll vibe was just as refreshing as a cold pickle on a hot day.
Haylie Davis @ The Lucky Duck
And now for something completely different.
Surrounded by all of the raging guitars and punk rock attitude that made up most of my afternoon, Haylie Davis provided a little oasis of chill, ’70s-inspired folk-pop. While the singer-songwriters of the Laurel Canyon scene are obviously a big influence on Davis, I also detected a bit of Emmylou Harris at times, maybe even a hint of Judy Collins. It’s unfortunate that many of the folks on the patio treated her set as a bit of background music for their own conversation, but those of us paying attention were treated to gems like “Young Man” and “Give Me a Rainbow” off her upcoming debut album Wandering Star.
CorMae @ Zilker Brewing
Look, there are bands that keep busy with a bunch of shows around Austin during SXSW, and then there’s CorMae. The punk quartet are from Austin, but not content to just play SXSW this week, they ventured further afield to play yet another festival – this one all the way in Arkansas. That’s dedication. Or insanity. Maybe a bit of both.
As such, they were probably all a little worn out (the singer said she’d only had about three hours of sleep) and I’m sure the heat didn’t help. Regardless, they put on a fantastic, high-energy set as the penultimate act at Peelander-Z’s Peelander Fest. And as a nod to their hosts’ predilection for over-the-top, cartoonish antics in their shows, CorMae’s bassist took to the stage wearing a full anime cat costume with a giant mascot head. Props to them for going the extra mile, especially on such a hot day.
