Show Pics: The Fixx @ 3TEN (8/24)

So, there are risks in going to shows of bands that you loved from twenty years ago, hell even ten years ago. The Fixx was booked at 3TEN, probably the ideal venue for shows like this. It is a band that will draw a crowd of nostalgia seekers and the younger audience that made the discovery. I mean, Reach the Beach was among the first CDs I bought after getting my first player. It was important to me and I will put that record up against any of the current crop of nostalgia-driven indie prominent right now. The rack of keyboards, the front man with a specifically strong vocal and the mix of guitar and synth to build the layers – it is all there for you to love and rediscover.

We had a little extra dose of semi-local nostalgia in Deep Blue Something. You know who they are…

Read on for thoughts and pics.

I will continue to laud the sound at 3TEN until someone proves me wrong. It is the best sounding room in Austin (though I do need to check out Antone’s, #soon).

Deep Blue Something sounded great. Sure, everyone wanted “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”. As expected it was the last song. But as a treat for hanging out while they ran through a set of mostly old and a little new, they treated everyone to a cover of INXS’s “Don’t Change”. A security friend overheard a lady say, “Oh, now I know who this band is.” Never mind the video board read Deep Blue Something the whole time and they had a smartphone in hand. But OK, we know shows like these bring out amateur night show-going.

The Fixx came out to “Red Skies” and launched into a time-shifting, now and then set list that included classics, a couple obscurities and some new stuff to balance it out. You see the new stuff is very polished and while sounding like The Fixx, the songs are cleaner. In some ways, they have better more mature songwriting, but are not better songs. It was cool to see how the guitar work of Jamie West-Oram manifests. He uses two amps on the ground, both mic’ed with different effects into each. Cy Curnan is the show though. The strained vocal machinations of his narrow but strong range has not dropped form from the recordings all the way back in the early 80’s. Highlight – a very early track called the “The Fool”. I was bummed to not get “Reach the Beach”, but only so many hits can be fit into the time on stage.