SXSW: Foxygen

Saturday, March 23rd, 2013 // Blogs,SXSW

Wednesday afternoon, Paste and HGTV held their SXSW Day Party at the Stages on Sixth I was mostly there to see Foxygen, a band that has been gaining a lot of buzz on Pitchfork and other blogs, and has been featured in almost every “Bands to see at SXSW” article I’ve read.

Foxygen’s psychedelic pop has been met with a lot of comparisons to artists from the ’60s and ’70s, inciting references to Dylan, The Kinks and other artists of that era. The similarities are definitely there, especially on “San Francisco” the single of their new record We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic, which is a mellowed out song with a bopping melody and high even-tempo vocals. This is the song that has been getting play across the internet, but it has a very different sound from the rest of the record, and strays even further from the energy of Foxygen on stage, which has caused some problems for the band at SXSW this week.

Foxygen’s core members are Jonathan Rado and Sam France, two friends who have been making music together since they were 15 year old high school freshmen in Los Angeles. France is the front man, and is definitely a presence on stage, pulling at his hair and bouncing back and forth between mock crying, screaming, and singing and marching in place like a soldier. Rado and France are joined by a drummer, bassist, and female vocalist to round out the full live band. The whole group seems to be running with the ’60s and ’70s thing in full force, wearing paisley pants, tightly tailored patterned dress shirts and one big sun hat.

The day show at the Stages on Sixth was a solid performance with a set consisting of mostly cuts off of their new record, but France apologized for not being very into it and asked the crowd to please see them later that night. I took his advice and showed up to see them again at the Hype Hotel, a week long party sponsored by Hype Machine happening on San Jacinto.

Sound problems have been plaguing Hype Hotel all week, and Foxygen went on an hour late after a lengthy sound check. By then, the crowd had checked out and was pretty disinterested. The fact that Jim James was ending the night didn’t do Foxygen any favors, as the crowd skewed much older and did not seemed amused by Foxygen’s 70’s style of music and clothing. Although they did play the single San Francisco to some applause from the crowd, it was a warped rocked out version very unlike the recording that one crowd member referred to as a ‘bait and switch’. As a fan of the band, I still enjoyed myself, and there was still a high amount of energy despite it not being entirely reciprocated by the crowd.

Post and photos by Eden Weingart.