Emmylou Harris, Josh Ritter and The Head and The Heart, Thursday 17th March, Radio Day Stage, Convention Centre, Austin, TX (SXSW)

Emmylou Harris opened with the first track from her up-coming album. The second song was about Kate McGarrigle who Emmylou was close and who died last January. She only played two songs, but around them there was a question-and-answer session with a presenter from the radio station the set was going out live on. She told some really interesting stories about her time with Gram Parsons amd made a call to support the campaign for public radio to continue to be funded. She was in amazing voice and provided good, simple accompaniment to herself on guitar.

Josh Ritter played a superb set that kept the audience in rapt attention.

He started off very stongly with 'Change of Time' which was excellent. He just sang and played guitar and, without being willfully strange or tricksy, his playing and singing was interesting without being over-stylised and seemed to fit the songs really well. The second song, 'Folk Bloodbath', he introduced as a comedy, but was sad, with some really nice fingerpicking accompaniment. The next song was more strum-y and louder. It didn't seem quite as effective as the first two songs as a solo performance in the Day Stage setting, but worked well in terms of balancing the set. 'Kathleen' was really good. Josh seemed really into it and seemed to enjoy playing it, bouncing off the audience's appreciation. He played a really majestic version of 'Moon River', which was light of touc hand really cut to the core of the romance at the heart of song. He dedicated the last song he played to the 'folks in Japan'.

The Head and the Heart were absolutely excellent.

A real SXSW treat, and a new find for the people I convinced to come along to see them. They played lovely Americana-tinged songs, with beautiful harmonies and good use of multiple percussion. They had Ray Lamontagne-style vocals and a ramshackle-esque, but very tight, band, sounding like Faces or The Band playing acoustic instruments.

There were lots of photographers and the seating areas in the Day Stage seemed to be almost completely full. At times it was hard to tell who was singing what as the voices melded together really well. The set had a really joyful, almost gospel-style feel to it, with really belting singing in places.