It's not every day that the first performer on a five-act bill is the only one on it who fills the venue to capacity. And from what I'm told, it's not exactly every day that the courtyard at Stubb's BBQ reaches capacity either. But both those things happened last night as Fiona Apple opened up NPR Music's SXSW showcase with her first "comeback show," igniting the buzz of the day - if not the week - around Austin. Having made it within 15 feet of the front of the line when they maxed out, I got to experience it by listening from Red River Street and reading the influx of live tweets that blew up my feed as if this was the sentencing at the trial of the century.
My day began at the Spotify house where young New Zealand singer Kimbra played a 15-minute midday set abound with various loops for one or two hundred Spotifiers. First SXSW show to rely primarily on an iPad: check.
After her short and nearly half-hour late set, I bounced over a couple blocks to Bar 96 to catch the second half of the headliners at Goodnight Records' showcase and an old favorite of mine that I'd yet to see live, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. To my surprise and great elation, they dipped into their seminal 2002 album Source Tags and Codes multiple times. First sighting of a SXSW mosh pit: check.
On my way to Stubb's, I stopped at Beerland to see fellow Bloomingtonians Apache Dropout. Read my coverage of their set in an upcoming IDS article on Bloomington bands at SXSW.
After the Fiona fiasco and subsequent draining of hundreds of attendees, I got into Stubb's just in time for Sharon Van Etten, who of course provided a singing voice every bit as good as Apple's for the cheaper price of not-shoulder-to-shoulder-crowded. ("I've been in hundreds of photo pits, and I've never seen one like that," said one photographer who allegedly had been in hundreds of photo pits and had never seen one like Apple's.) Everyone then donned their dancing shoes for back-to-back sets by Dan Deacon and Alabama Shakes, but not before a hilarious series of technical difficulties preceded Deacon's set, culminating in Deacon publicly asking if anyone had a cable and then clashing with the sound crew: "We'll cut the set short, you don't gotta talk to us like we're children." First SXSW technical clusterfuck: check.
And that brings us to that "other" main event of the night. Having just released his newest LP, "Break it Yourself," earlier in the month, Andrew Bird played an incredible, hour-plus catalogue-spanning set that demonstrated the stage value of his new material, especially the ornate "Danse Caribe" and "Eyeoneye," Bird's most "rock" song in years. Other highlights included Armchair Apocrypha cut "Plasticities," and older Bird essentials "Tables & Chairs" and "Fake Palindromes." Finishing on the latter at 2:00, Bird sent home a Stubb's crowd (and to bed the NPR live stream listeners) with reassurance that he's still one of the most consistent and detail-obsessive songwriters and performers out there, even if he didn't end up the true "headliner" of the night.
Post and photography by Steven Arroyo
