Imaad Wasif

the Dodos

the New Pornographers

Was shooting for Austin Town Hall on Friday, so head on over to their site for an actual review of the show as opposed to my brief ramblings. And as usual, click the pics to see more at my Flickr.

Ok, so I haven’t heard but maybe two songs from each band. It was still fun!

Against Me

Silversun Pickups

As usual, click the pics for more. Also, I have a ton of pics from other shows that I haven’t posted on here yet; if you want you can roam through my Flickr for them… Or just wait for me to post ‘em. Includes Indian Jewelry, HEALTH, Wakey Wakey, Octopus Project, White Denim, the Golden Boys, Cartright, Islands, Dead Meadow, and more.

Here are some of my favorites from each night:

BRAHMS
Day 1:

Day 2:

Tokyo Police Club
Day 1:

Day 2:

Passion Pit
Day 1:

Day 2:

And if you made it this far, go listen to Passion Pit’s Cranberries cover on Hype Machine. Also, that kickass Lissie cover of Kid Cudi. Oh, and BRAHMS (who I loved loved loved)! And, well, just go already.

Riders Against the Storm, Kid Sister, and the Givers were Friday. I headed downtown for the Mohawk show, and after that ended up catching the last 20 minutes or so of the Givers’ set at Emo’s… they were dynamite on stage, and are definitely going on my list of bands to catch at ACL this year.

MGMT (you can see my pics and read in detail how much I disliked them at Austin Town Hall, but not here, because the damn label made all the photogs sign a rights release form limiting what you can do with your own pictures) and Tame Impala were at Stubbs on Sunday.

Holy Ghost and LCD Soundsystem destroyed me with utter awesomeness on Tuesday.

As usual, click the pics to see more. I took a lot at LCD because the lighting was stellar.

Elvis Perkins in Dearland – Loooove me some Elvis Perkins. I went to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest at the beginning of the month, and saw this band both at the fest and in the French Quarter (at One Eyed Jacks) the next evening.

Also that night, MyNameIsJohnMichael, who is gonna be playing ACL this fall. They reminded me of What Made Milwaukee Famous live: fun, energetic, tons of stage presence, and the crowd was totally into it.

Next, Wye Oak and Shearwater at the Parish. I’d never seen Wye Oak before, and so was really effing excited. They totally justified that, and destroyed me with awesome vocals and some impressive rocking out for a two-piece band.

Then Shearwater, who are always nothing less then perfect live.

Then last week, I saw Besnard Lakes and Stardeath and White Dwarfs.

I remember really liking Stardeath, but Besnard Lakes was just utterly gorgeous to hear. Ended up buying the newest album on vinyl because I just couldn’t resist. <3 <3 <3

For more pics, click any of the photos… I kinda took a lot. What can I say, this band is just so much fun to shoot!

Confession time: I hadn’t listened to Minus the Bear at all before shooting this show for Sonic Itch… I did run into some friends in the crowd who were obviously really having fun, though, which made my evening pretty awesome (even though I did miss Caribou at Emo’s, which breaks my heart a little).

I was mainly really looking forward to Sea Wolf. I loved 2007’s Leaves in the River – though apparently Pitchfork hated it – and couldn’t wait to see them for the first time. It was also nice to finally catch the Album Leaf, but the music is so chilled out and pretty; it just wasn’t what I wanted last night.

Warpaint

The Raveonettes

Local Natives (at Antone’s, which really needs to get some damn lighting on the performers’ faces. Most of the front lighting I got here was pirated from other people’s flashes)