SXSW | Who Knew Kaytranada Had So Many Friends?

Day 3/4: Musically we can safely say that we satisfied a lifetime's worth of musical intake last night, having hit our first show at 2pm and barreling straight through until 2:30am. Both of us came out of last night with our own little wound - one with unrelenting knee pain, and the other with spantenous blasts of lower back stabs. So, without further ado, we will detail the chronicles of what led us to such pain and furthermore onto Matthew Yang's couch.

When you show up downtown you are left with two options breakfast-wise: free McDonalds or free McDonalds. So we politely tucked into a hashbrown and a coupla McMuffins and headed to our first sessions of the day. While we may be a bit concerned about what exactly it means to have a badge, it is safe to say that no matter what showcase you go to, you will find yourself at the front of the stage, free drink and Egg McMuffin in hand - and directly in front of James Bay did we find ourselves.

James Bay played a selection of tracks from his new album, Chaos and the Calm, that comes out March 23rd. Most tracks have been produced by Kings of Leon producer Jacquire King, which is somewhat surprising given his mega singer-songwriter vibe. His genuine delivery proved the power of simplicity in music, having hit the stage with only a guitar and "his Jerry" who came equipped with the most simplistic of percussion instruments. He almost had the two of us in tears - at the very least he had us completely head-over-heels (refer to photo below for confirmation). We will say that we hope the album comes with a few tracks that aren't quite as tear inducing. No one can handle that much emotion.

Once James Bay and his lucious locks and lamentable lyrics left the stage, we headed to Hype Machine's Hype Hotel. We were presently surprised by one of our more recently blogged-about artists, Shura. We walked into the warehouse to the soundtrack of "2Shy" and enjoyed some quality time with Toronto native but LA-based rapper, BENJ. We made some new friends, one of which was ginger and provided us with the following theory: you either have gingers or are "hot or weird looking - and the same goes for personality. There is no middle ground." Half of us immediately started to question our place on the ginger scale. But alas, there is no room nor time to question identity at SXSW.

One group that does have a distinct identity is Milky Chance - their unique beats and sound filled the over-sized room the Radio Day Stage is held in. Other than Clemence Rehbein's huge, thought-provoking hair there wasn't much to their peformance. He was endearingly awkward but lacked a major stage presence. Nevertheless, they performed flawlessly - bringing out the absolute teeny-bopping best in every festival goer under the age of 18 (and maybe us too).

We then quickly became aware of the YouTube Party at an old warehouse where a few EWM faves were playing; Ryn Weaver, Leon Bridges and Future Islands. To our right there was a new YouTube Artist app showcase, to our left was free drinks and food. We looked at each other - was this blogger heaven? Did we die at SXSW and this is where we ended up? Brisket with tomato jam? Whiskey Juleps? Tacos? Some of our most blogged-about music? No. This was still real life.

Ryn Weaver was clearly hammered and between her songs she pulled a few rookie mistakes, broke a few cardinal rules of performing. She still held it down vocally though, so we'll throw her a bone. Our dream world then continued as we were thrown back to the 1950s with a suited-up Leon Bridges (even the sound was thrown back to that era) and his bopping backup vocalists. His voice was as smooth as his throwback look and swung us into the best mood to continue on our powerhouse of a day. We polished off our night at YouTube with no one other than Future Islands. They are incredible performers to say the least. Frontman Samuel Herring is the most out-there dude we've seen perform so far. Complete with his trademark death metal vocal samples and more excitingly, his not-so-trademark (to our knowledge) hip swiveling. It's all about the stage presence people, it's all about the stage presence...

The rest of the night went up in hip-hop flames. Ray Ban's Boiler Room hosted one heck of a party, putting about 20 huge names in rap and electronic up on stage in under 4 hours. First up was STWO - we weaseled our way up to the front expecting to do a little dancing and listen "calmly" to the opener....NOPE. The music started and we were practically blown to the back of the bar the bass was so heavy. No word a lie, our hair was blowing back the bass was dropping so hard. After STWO we had to have a drink and recalibrate our ears. Call us losers, but there we developped a profound respect for the inventor of ear plugs. Our homies BBNG (+Leland Whitty) then hit the stage along some of Wu-Tang's finest, highlighting a couple of songs from their most recent collaborative release, Sour Soul. Venturing back front and centre, we entered a no-flex zone as Rae Sremmurd hyped up the crowd BIG TIME. They ain't got no type fo' realz - thye know how to bring down a house. The lineup of the night definitely starts to blur a bit here but we were lucky enough to see the following: Freddie Gibbs, Madlib, Jrocc, Kaytranada, The Celestics, and surprise performances from Dipset and Cam'Ron amongst a flurry of other appearances. Our shoes turned ambiguously white, and like our shoes EWM needed some R&R for our bodies, minds, souls, and ears.

Thursday seemed like a safe day to sacrifice. A day of many repeat performances (save Miley Cyrus at the Fader Fort), we enjoyed some enlightening panels and had our minds boggled by Neil Young's eccentric feature film, Human Highway. Our bodies cried for a break so fuelled on some comforting Texas BBQ and tried to enter StubHub's event at Clive Bar. Let's just say we don't think StubHub should host a SXSW event again. Moreover, if we were musicians we wouldn't sign up to play a SXSW event at Clive Bar. Regardless we cannot wait for our last couple of days at SXSW and are eager to see what's to come...Drake? Kanye? Only the S(i)X God knows.