SxSW Pics: Jesus and Mary Chain @ The Belmont

Still more coverage of the conference left…

Every SxSW, I like to pick a night to just camp out at a bigger venue and take in some stuff I may already know usually with the headliner that is trying to be cool. Duran Duran palyed last year’s Wednesday line up at Stubb’s that included Yuck and Rapheal Saadiq. I chose the Belmont on the Thursday night of the conference to catch The Jesus and Mary Chain with Cold Showers, Night Beats, (a band we shall ignore) and Titus Andronicus.

It was a night of noise and feedback and awesome. I made some new friends from Brazil and in the Russian Space Program, ran into old friends in the crowd and managed to meander through a freshly remodeled and tightly packed Belmont patio room to get pics from both sides of the stage (quite a feat).

Cold Showers is a misnomer with warm and fuzz gaze with lovely hooks. Aforementioned friends from Brazil confessed their love for the drummer.

Night Beats brought big noise from the three piece. The leave it on the stage, and off at times, and “it” includes pools of sweat. My like of them following Psych Fest last year confirmed…

The Arkells are still awful, even in retrospect.

Titus Andronicus surprised me. Very raw set, though the song about the eating disorder may have been a little self-indulgent, even for them.

The Jesus and Mary Chain were loud. It was a wall of sound. In other random sighting news, a friend from high school snuck in to lay rest to some unfinished business from way back when as he had never seen JAMC live. The band used a sub singer for “Just Like Honey”, in case you were wondering. For the record, they were cool, not just trying to be cool. Is cool still a cool word?

A few more pics at the photo site…