Friday 1 April 2011

Sondre Lechre and Darren Hanlon, Thursday 17th March, Maggie Mae's, Austin, TX (SXSW)

Sondre Lechre's set pushed up a gear after the first song which rather drifted by. He played some great guitar solos and has a nice voice, which worked well with the backing from members of Midlake.

He said he was working out how best to perform the new songs and it was nice to see 'behind the scenes' moments, such as him working out the count-in for a song with the keyboardist (who had sheet music - a rarity for SXSW) and when his guitar strap broke and he had to take one off his other guitar. Also nice to see an artist recognising the benefits of things he'd critised when younger (as when he bemoaned his own use of a capo on the fourth song - said he'd always hated people using them, but finally come to it himself).

Darren Hanlnon sounded very Australian and was joined on-stage by one Aussie after another.


He started with a comedy song and finished with a song about waiting for a bus that never comes. His songs were quite different from the one I knew ('Electric Skeleton'), which he didn't play, and we thought he wasn't who we thought he was, but it was enjoyable if a lot more jokey than expected.

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