Show Pics: Chaos in Tejas (6/3)

Chased the Indie crowd over to Emo’s East on the last night of Chaos in Tejas. Dreams of a comfy photo pit were dashed, but the staff did what they could for the photographers to help us out.

Why were we there? To see the Mind Spiders, of course. Oh wait, the headliner was Best Coast. Did I care? Not so much, but I wanted to shoot them. So, why not check out an ATH favorite and take in the other “openers” Laura Stevenson and the Cans and Lemuria.

Click through for a few show notes and plenty of pics…

Good bye, Chaos 2012. I hardly knew you. Quick thank you to Emo’s, DeVille and The Mohawk for all being so accommodating to the photo guys and press. No perks from the fest in being a member of the press, but the venues did what they could to help us out.

Mind Spiders, I do so enjoy your double drummer blender indie-punk. Best set on the night for me, as expected. They played a new one, loved it; Nathan may throw in an extra comment on it in the best-of post.

Laura Stevenson was a surprise for me. I mean it people, amazing vocal. Big Pipes, well-crafted songs, musically very good and a lovely contrast to the boys from Denton. Laura may have wrecked it for the headliner, more on that in a bit.

Lemuria is a three-piece that took us back to full jam mode. Great energy, time for me to listen to the recorded material to see what’s what.

And finally, we get to Best Coast. I had pretty low expectations here. I like the new album, as did Nicole. It is a good record. Unfortunately for Bethany, the live vocal was a hot mess. She was off key for a great portion of her set, way more so than the intentional phrasing of the recorded material. It was really emphasized by having to follow Laura.

The bummer is that when Bethany was on, it was really good. It was the end of her tour, and yes, you can be tired, but you should also be nailed down. She had to restart a song a few times before just giving up and moving to the next thing on the set list. The true fans ate it up, though. Perhaps their sing along helped things sound better in their heads.

There are a few more pics at the photo site…