Yesterday, 6th Street in Austin didn’t quite resemble the musical mayhem to come. The occasional badge holder walked by, but the St. Patrick’s Day crowd was out in full force. Still, I managed to see a couple of bands tonight even before the true festivities began.
I saw a handful of acts for varying lengths of time at the Beauty Bar, but the two that actually made an impact were Carol Bui and Shunda K from Yo! Majesty. Carol doesn’t have her full band with her (read: no cello) but she still turned heads by singing her first song in Arabic and then launching into “Mira, You’re Free With Me” which shows the same guitar chops that she’d already demonstrated on her <em>Everyone Wore White</em> songs but vocally she cuts loose. She lets some of her guard go and coupled with the tambourine, and it sounds awesome. I didn’t see nearly enough of Shunda K, but so far, she’s been the only artist I saw that had the crowd shouting and dancing right along with her. She’s a consummate stage performer, no doubt about that.
Also, if something seems too good to be true…it probably is. We rolled up at La Zona Rosa at 10:30 pm not entirely sure if we were going to get in to see Voxtrot because only one of the three of us actually had a guest list spot (and apparently the badge-only events started early!) The guy at the door just said, “Don’t worry about it” and told us to enjoy ourselves! How awesome is that! Well…more awesome if we’d moved a little quicker. We got inside for Voxtrot’s last song. After going through a huge crush of people in the outside smoking area, we found that there really weren’t as many people close to the stage. Maybe this is because Voxtrot is local, but Ramesh was jumping around with long jumper sized leaps and they always have this palatable energy onstage…and last night was no different. Furthermore, the rumor mill told me that this was going to be their last showing with keyboardist Jared Van Fleet who was going to pursue his solo project Sparrowhouse. Of course, the rumor mill also told me that The Magnetic Fields were going to show up for a set. After staying for an hour of the following DJ and free Shiner, I decided not to see if this (highly unlikely) rumor was actually true.
Off for day one!
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