Quick Hits from My SXSW Weekend

Digitalism is good in concert when the crowd stays off the stage and on the floor dancing. There wasn’t much dancing going on Saturday though, since it was bright and hot outside of Stubbs (people don’t dance in the light out of the rightful fear of ridicule). Digitalism’s Austin performance almost made me forget about the crowd surfing 18yr olds that ruined their Wednesday night show in Houston.

Chromeo is about 34 better live than in studio. Dave 1 has great stage presence and crowd interaction that made for a fun show and extra points to P-Thugg for the wardrobe change from a streetwear version of a male NY Knicks cheerleader to a two-piece African dashiki that put my affirmations of Black pride to shame. Chromeo hit all their best songs during the show, plus squeezed in the Journey song Any Way You Want It which, based on the number of people singing along in the crowd, must be mandatory learning for every White child in America.

With a light show on stage that resembled Lite-Brite on cocaine, the performance from Simian Mobile Disco was able to be boring and cause epileptic seizures all at the same time. I literally saw a dude on the ground shaking and frothing at the mouth (not really). I’ll give them some slack though, by that time I was operating on only 2-3 hours of sleep in 24 hours, two cans of Red Bull and pure sexiness alone.

The MSTRFRFT concert in Houston on Friday was not a performance, it was a DJ set (they only “performed” about 4 songs off The Looks). The set became hype after 2 though after all of Rich’s regular spiky haired, overly tanned and steroid injected patrons left for the night, leaving us MSTRKRFT fans room to enjoy an almost hour-long encore. Not enough room however, as I was still elbowed in the eye by a reveler performing a mixture of the electro fist pump and the Point to the Lord.

Quote of the Weekend: “Damn hipsters!” – Greg Kohlhof, referring to every person he saw wearing skinny fit jeans, including me