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Day five - Saturday

There is a strange ritual to be undertaken whenever you enter one of the SXSW venues that serve alcohol, which is this – you have to show ID to prove you are over 21 and therefore legally able to drink.

This is strange principally because, even in good light and having had eight hours sleep and a veritable fleet of beauty treatments, no one is mistaking me for a 20-year-old stripling. Take the me of recent days – jetlagged, heat-wilted and in no way getting my quota of five greens and fruit – and even Stevie Wonder would be able to tick me off as a weary old fart from a distance of 100 yards.

Anyway… I wake this morning with two things on mind: 1) It is the day of the Q SXSW party; and 2) I forgot to look for a record for my sister-in-law during my earlier visit to Waterloo Records.

Addressing the second part first, I once more walk the couple of miles to Waterloo Records to purchase a self-titled debut album by one Landon Pigg, of whom I confess to being entirely ignorant. Being there, of course, means I can’t resist picking up further collateral damage to my credit card by getting Seattle garage rockers The Sonics’ great Boom album in reissued form and also The Avett Brothers’ last album, Emotionalism, since more than one person has told me in recent days that I was an idiot for dismissing them so readily after their show at Stubbs on Wednesday.

Then I walk the two miles back accompanied, remarkably, by the sight of some 30 buzzards circling overhead. The buzzard, a hardy bird of prey, is prone to feed on the weak. More normally this would be small mammals or birds. Today it seems to be a pasty, sun-reddened Englishman with an increasingly bedraggled gait.

This being the day of the Q party means I cannot simply go poncing around enjoying myself. Rather, I first have to fret. What if no one turns up? And if they do, what if it all goes terribly wrong? And so the morning passes, with worry, worry and more worry; the load only lightened by the fact I haven’t been pecked to death by a big bird.

In the event, and to a heaving sigh of relief, there is a queue snaking around the block of The Parish, venue for the Q party (held in association with our chums at Guitar Hero, who provide two vast gaming consoles for the day, which are quickly monopolised by the bands), come the appointed time of 2pm. The Parish is yet another atmospheric Austin venue – this one up a flight of stairs, and being a long room with a bar at one end, a stage at the other, and the smell of beer, fags and spit in the air. Lovely.

The Delta Spirit open the show and these rootsy rockers from San Diego have all the tight-as-a-gnat’s-chuff-ness of a band who have been playing their debut album, Ode To Sunshine, for almost two years now (it’s just getting a release in the UK). They’re also far more powerful on stage than that record might suggest, with singer Matthew Vasquez’s voice being a particular focal point.

You may have seen Fanfarlo opening for Snow Patrol on the latter’s recent UK dates. They share management and a musical eccentricity with Sigur Ros, but really, their driving, wide-open sound and use of a range of instruments (fiddle, what looks like a dustbin lid, etc), they come on very much like Arcade Fire. Too much so at times, but there is more than the kernel of something here.

Jay Jay Pistolet, a charming man with a face too young to fit his old school crooner of a voice, is suffering throat problems so limits himself to just four songs, performed solo. Close your eyes through them, and you’re cast back to a speakeasy with velvet drapes and men in tuxedos. Open them, and Jay Jay Pistolet has the wry lyricism and warm, rich voice of a Richard Hawley. Hear the lovely Happy Birthday You for proof.

If Jay Jay Pistolet soothes, Reading indie-rockers Pete And The Pirates come to bounce. A sort of cheerier Franz Ferdinand, by way of some Britpop moves, they’re the first band of the day to get people dancing, albeit scarily, in the case of the large American gentleman who stands in front of - and on - me for their set. In the likes of Come On Feet they also have at least a couple of proper tunes.

Graham Coxon is, of course, a man who knows his way to a tune, and will be following that path once more when he rejoins Blur. His meandering solo career, on the other hand, has often charmed rather than engaged, meandering as it has through musical styles, with Coxon appearing intent on pleasing himself first and foremost. His new album Spinning Top sees him taking on English pastoral folk of a decidedly Nick Drake hue, and if it’s short on memorable songs, it does – as ably demonstrated here – highlight just how accomplished a guitarist the man has become.

There is a lot of love for him in the room as he sits down, looking as awkward as ever, and apologises for being “a funny Englishman playing his strange little songs”.

You Me At Six have the unenviable job of closing proceedings. Unenviable because being last on at SXSW parties doesn’t mean you’re headlining, but you have to try and retain some semblance of a - by now drink-weary - crowd while hundreds of other things are vying for their attention elsewhere around town. All credit to the Surrey emo-rockers for pluck and spirit in gamely going about their task.

Q business done and deemed a success, our final destination for SXSW ’09 is once again the incomparable Stubbs. Alas, the final, British-leaning bill is more of a damp squib than a climactic roar.

White Lies are something of an exception. They attack their short set like men on a mission, and framed by brilliant white light beneath a setting sun they have impressive imagery on their songs. There’s still the sense with them that they have two terrific songs and we’re waiting for the rest to follow, and also whilst theirs is a distinctive sound, it’s one that Joy Division started and Interpol smoothed out for them.

Now, there are any number of ways in which I open myself up for public ridicule (supporting West Brom, inability to grow a beard and currently sporting a sunburnt head being among them), but an ongoing enthusiasm for Razorlight is perhaps chief among them. Regardless, Slipway Fires remains, to me, a very good record crippled by people reviewing Johnny Borrell rather than his music – and, let it be noted, he doesn’t really help himself in this respect.

Tonight, though, even I have to admit that something is very wrong with the band, for Razorlight are a shambles. They have, so clearly, lost their heartbeat in drummer Burrows, but even that doesn’t excuse the arrogant, tossed-off nature of their performance here. Borrell makes no attempt to engage a crowd who have no idea who he or his band is. And shorn of Burrows’ ballast, their songs suddenly start to sound as big and empty as their many detractors have always accused them of being.

As Razorlight depart to near silence, having made less than no impression on this part of America, one thing is very obvious: somebody, somewhere needs to lock Johnny Borrell in a room and talk, or perhaps better still slap, some sense into him.

The crowd – and Stubbs is packed – are here for PJ Harvey anyway. Tonight she is performing with her occasional collaborator John Parrish. He clad in dark suit and hat, she in brilliant white dress and odd little hat; they look like they’ve stepped out of some ‘50s film-noir. They sound more like a David Lynch film, as they traverse selections from their two albums together, Dance Hall At Louise Point and the current A Woman A Man Walked By.

The likes of Sixteen Fifteen Fourteen and The Soldier, all voodoo blues and hidden, fragile menace, are hard things to pin down, but do reward repeated listens. And Harvey, so obviously, with her whoops and her shrieks, her dark eyes and her darker heart, is one of music’s most fascinating creatures. It’s just that here, and a warm night at the end of things, something more celebratory is needed than this musical obstacle course.

That, and the fact that the wretched Third Eye Blind are looming, drive me to the exit and the hotel early. As I walk down 6th Street for the last time this year, the same thought occurs as did last year: it’s been a blast.

Paul Rees, editor in chief, Q

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3:53 PM | 22/03/2009