LITE - Soho Lounge, SXSW, Austin TX - March 19, 2015

[Tokyo] The band I was there to see. I loved the band. The guy next to me loved the band. The girl behind us loved the band. Everybody loved this band. Prog metal – math rock. They sounded like Rush at first but were more Can or Genesis. Three noodlers and a drum – some keyboard for some songs. They bombasted us sometimes but they didn’t feel the need to all the time – sometimes the drummer had his moment – sometimes they took a break for a quiet thoughtful moment. There were some seconds of funky Red Hot Chili Peppers – a few Afro pop moments – then hard and spacey - but no real departures. It was all a journey – you saw some different scenes but you were always in the same great car. And this all made me think, if I could tell a new band anything, I’d tell them to pace themselves – 100% bombast is BORING. And so male. I also loved that they would face each other in a circle when they’d hit a real jam – just like Tia Carreara used to do. (A girl walked by in a scrunchie – what?) They broke my mid-day SXSW slump and it was ironically a Japanese band and the difference of 6^th street (diverse) that brought me around to feeling affection for Austin for the first time since arriving.