Off the beaten track of SXSW’s main drag, the backyard of the Vegas becomes a haven for various hues of hardcore fans gathered under tarpaulin and gazebos. People mill around in this year’s festival uniform of jeans, black T-shirt and arm tattoos, as a nonstop conveyor belt of bands play under the venue’s makeshift tent. Two of the lineup’s most anticipated bands, however, are increasingly drifting away from hardcore’s sound. Sheer Mag and Iceage both have roots in the scene but have gravitated to Thin Lizzy-style hard rock (Sheer Mag) and a style of punk that’s more reminiscent of the Birthday Party’s anarchic early work (Iceage).
Sheer Mag – tipped as a possible breakout act at this year’s festival – are on first. Starting their short set with What You Want, arguably the standout from their latest 7in, it shows what the Philly band are all about: brazen big riffs, catchy hooks and solos, all pinned to Christina Halladay’s emotive vocals. They deliver what Gordon Ramsay might describe as simple, strong flavours. Rather than singing about jailbreaks or whiskey and jars, Sheer Mag take the aesthetic of cock rock and mix it with more introspective vulnerability like on Sit and Cry and Point Breeze. That introspection comes across in the delivery, which isn’t quite as lapel-grabbing as you might hope, but the songwriting is what’s set them apart from the pack, and it clearly translates live.
Iceage don’t so much come across vulnerable as volatile. Frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt isn’t exactly known for his convivial nature (he inspired the headline ‘A cheerless weekend with rock’s most difficult frontman’), and on stage he stalks around pushing over mic stands and generally looking every bit the malcontent, wearing an S&M-style belt. It’s a command performance, though, as he shoves would-be stage divers on to the asphalt and halfway through the set, performs a series of Donna Summer-style orgasmic groans.
Despite the on-stage theatrics, the crowd, who’ve been revved up by five hours of hardcore and rather a lot of Lone Star beer, are intent on forming circle pits and moshing to what at times sound more like Merle Haggard than anything by Bad Brains. The band stick to songs from their third album Plowing Into the Field of Love, and as the set draws on, tunes like How Many and Forever stand out as they aim to pull off epic moments of self-reflection in a dusty backyard in Texas.
