Oooooh! I'm Gonna Give You Such a Blogging!
With dozens of acts playing simultaneously in venues scattered throughout Austin at every given moment, nothing triggers an audience's ire quite like a band requiring 20 minutes of sound-checking and generally pantsing around. And even though Mando Diao (a punky Swedish rock group reminiscent of The Hives, but with less preening) played a terrific set, it had to be even better than it was to make up for the pre-show yammering from the guy yelling "YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY" into each microphone for 10 minutes. Sadly, that experience taught me that I can't kill a man with my mind. Boooooooo!
As for the rest of the evening, highlights included Micah P. Hinson, whose weary warble conveys genuine depth; here's "The Day the Volume Won" (audio), from a great EP he released last year. Rocky Votolato is always worth hearing -- as evidenced by his gorgeous "White Daisy Passing" (audio) -- though his music got a bit lost in a cavernous venue. And Okkervil River played an extended set of its crushingly sad dirges; here's the band doing one of my favorite songs of last year, "The President's Dead" (audio). That's a bleak lot of songs right there, but the music should perk up tomorrow. Maybe I'll track down some Mando Diao once I've finished my sound check.
3:43 AM ET | 03-16-2007 | permalink
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