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The Laughing:

Pity the bands lodged in the first slots of a daylong festival. Rarely does a noon stage date bring with it the type of energy from bands or fans that makes for a riveting performance. I was bummed my first experience with Austin’s own the Laughing took place under such circumstances. Though, if any rock could get away with being played in broad daylight it might be this young quartet’s bizarre blend of tropicalia and new wave, relying on synth, glockenspiel and percussion in equal measure. It’s not that the band did anything wrong, they played admirably through their new LP Fever, but without much flair, like a dress rehearsal devoid of any band crosstalk or patter. That’s too bad since the rest of the day hinged on over-the-top front men. By the time the group got around to the their excellent pop tune “Help Me” they perked up a bit, but by then they were already half-way through their set. Their calypso-tinged finale gained enough momentum to convince me that the band must be more interesting after midday.

Royal Bangs:

Royal Bangs, on the other hand, delivered one of the day’s most riveting sets just after the Laughing. Right from the start, bassist Henry Gibson tore off into the crowd to play during opener “My Car is Haunted.” That trick, coupled with the insane catchiness of “Haunted” and most other songs played from the excellent, newly-released Let It Bleep commanded heads to nod, a difficult thing to get Austinites to do at the wee hour of 1:00 p.m. It also didn’t hurt that Ryan Schaeffer, the captain of the glitch factory (in the form of a Korg Kontrol 49 midi keyboard) strutted his stuff like a paunchy peacock-proud lounge singer, busting out the tambourine or wielding an extra set of drumsticks when his synth skills weren’t needed. Hyped by The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney, who produced Let It Bleep on his Audio Eagle label and brought the Knoxville-based group on tour with his side project Drummer, Royal Bangs classic rock-meets-electro dance party is exactly why you do show up early to these festivals: to catch the next big thing. The group is just at the tipping point where they’re grinning and dancing through the entire set and taking cell phone videos of the equally giddy crowd. And this was a mere half-hour festival performance. Reports of other live shows describe a signature lite-brite stage dressing and an unending supply of energy. I’m jumping in the line already formed by Austin Scaggs at Rolling Stone and William Goodman at Spin, waiting for Royal Bangs to come back.

Crystal Antlers:

Pot smoke covered the crowd before the band even came on stage, so maybe that’s why the Crystal Antlers’ set seemed a little hazy. Like most other bands at Day 1 of the Fest, Crystal Antlers had technical difficulties that they couldn’t quite shake, making their Pitchfork-anointed psychedelic punk seem more like the Doors on speed: grumpy, weird and manic. Keeping a sextet coherent through waves of psychedelia that lead singer Jonny Bell swears is jam-free is a much more difficult goal than it sounds, one that seemed just shy of being achieved Saturday. Competing with Bell’s screamo vocals were vampy guitar solos, a shirtless pretty boy drummer, newbie Cora Foxx’s out-of-place organ melodies and Damien Edwards’ (a.k.a Sexual Chocolate) bongo antics. Edwards was, as always, transfixing. The percussionist’s stage show got him kicked out of LA punk group Geisha Girls for being egocentric, but for all the Crystal Antlers’ competing interests, they embrace the showman, who dances, twirls drumsticks and generally lets the spirit move him to weird new heights. Afterward, I chatted with Edwards, who said the short set time combined with new “slower” songs prevented his normal strip tease routine, which, he hinted, might be on display at the after party they were playing with Times New Viking later that evening.

Sugar and Gold:

Not really feeling Crystal Antlers, I indulged my ADD and caught the last few songs of attention whores/ cross dressers/ dance group Sugar and Gold. They were minus sexy singer Fatima Fleming, so it was up to “PAM” (Phillip Alberto Manning), fabulous in gold leggings and kitten heels, to bring twice the camp. He certainly delivered, throwing his little leg up on the keyboard stand as he hooted rave calls, inciting the audience to jog in place to the house jam “Workout” and crawling over amps and into the audience for the finale. Several members of other bands, including those of like-minded SSION, bopped backstage to Sugar and Gold’s sexy, kitschy and sweaty disco. Manning later returned the favor, watching bands from Death to tourmates James Husband from the sidelines.

Times New Viking:

Columbus, Ohio trio Times New Viking promised “25 percent higher fidelity” on recently released Born Again Revisited, the follow-up to their notoriously fuzzed out 2008 Matador debut Rip It Off. It’s a smug little “fuck you” to the music critics who praised the band’s DIY aesthetic but closed their ears the minute that “did my speakers just blow out?” distortion hit the sound waves. The new songs TMV played didn’t depart radically from their no-frills drums, distorted power chords and whining synthesizer wall of sound. Co-vocalists Beth Murphy and Adam Elliot had some unexpectedly lovely moments during “Call and Response” and “Move to California,” both newer tunes, but they’re still the same t-shirt and jeans-clad group, dedicating their hit “My Head” to Henry Rollins, whom Elliot claims owes his mother child support, and joking “this song is not about drugs, it’s about doing drugs.” For all the critics waiting for Times New Viking to grow up, don’t hold your breath.

Russian Circles:

The glitch, gay dance parties and “jungle” music occasionally obscured the fact that much of Fun Fun Fun fest belonged to punk and hardcore bands. I snapped out of my daze as I squeezed into a crowd of beer-soaked dudes sporting bloody anarchy symbol tattoos waiting for Russian Circles. Actually, a lot of the sotted crowd around me thought they were seeing the Sword, who weren’t due on stage for about another hour. They didn’t seem too disappointed when they realized who was actually performing. Russian Circles’ moody, instrumental metal soon inspired actual headbanging. Each hardworking member of the trio produced a nearly flawless sound, complete with dramatic builds and the occasional synthesizer for songs proudly rooted in composition. The group also prides itself on avoiding the pomp and circumstance so common to their genre, their live shows made enjoyable by the raw power they project on stage, especially from bassist Brian Cook who thrashed sincerely on Saturday. Whether this thoughtfulness soaked into the crowd’s skulls is a good question. Unfortunately, sound problems plagued the group’s guitarist, forcing them to stop midsong near the end of the set, and they never quite recovered.

James Husband (Of Montreal):

Of Montreal multi-instrumentalist James Huggins stepped out from Kevin Barnes’ shadow to deliver one of the most pleasant performances of the day. Though Huggins recorded most of the James Husband album A Parallax I as a one-man operation, he brought a full band along, including Of Montreal keyboardist Dottie Alexander. The group sounded loose but enthusiastic, dressed as adorable cowboys and goofing their way through Huggins’ dreamy pop. After kindly introducing himself as “Jamey” and his bandmates as “Dottie, Joshy, Ricky and that douche bag back there, Davey,” the group opened with Huggins’ blippy meditation on depression, “Gray Scale,” before segueing into early Beatles pop with a hint of Breeders’ badass. Tourmates Sugar and Gold happily danced backstage, especially to “Little Thrills,” which Huggins dedicated to them. Their cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “Out of My Mind” made the original sugary harmonies even sweeter.

The Sword:

Poor James Husband. The happy band of merrymakers played their understated pop on the tiny yellow stage as if they couldn’t hear the sonic menace collecting up the hill on the black stage. Above them, leading an endless sea of enthusiasts, beloved Austinites and purveyors of fine metal the Sword played one of the best, and certainly the loudest, shows of the festival. I’m sure those drunk dudes from the Russian Circles audience went ballistic, but I was probably half a football field away, in the middle of the crowd, wearing one ear plug and still marveling at the decibels. The Sword play a sort of metal for dummies, in the best possible sense, heavily influenced by Black Sabbath and the speed guitars of Metallica and even Z.Z Top. Die-hards got a sneak preview of the Sword’s newest efforts, even more Medieval than those on previous albums Gods of the Earth and Age of Winters, of which the clear ruler was “Lawless Land.” I made it out with my eardrums intact, but just barely.

No Age:

Maybe it was because I had just eaten meatless, cheeseless, lardless tamales, but the first thing I wondered during the opening song was if the two members of No Age were eating well enough on their strict vegan diet. They were scruffier and thinner than I remembered from the last time I saw them in the summer of 2008. That did not stop them from rocking, thankfully. It must be all the Bragg’s Amino acids. The experimental punk guitar and drums duo had energy to spare, burning through much of their latest full-length, Nouns, and showing off songs from their brand new EP, Losing Feeling. The title track sounded particularly lovely, with guitarist Randy Randall building layers of fuzz via pedal loops into slow waves that culminated with the breakneck beats drummer Dean Spunt loves so much. Spunt was so focused on his drums that for a while he didn’t notice that a giant amp not three feet away from his drum seat had slipped off it’s base, angled perilously so that the only thing separating it from Spunt’s head was its electric cord, anchored to some unseen outlet. When Spunt did notice, he didn’t miss a beat. He just smiled and kept playing, like ‘either this thing is going to fall on me or it’s not.’ Between beats he’d turn his head back looking for one of the stagehands to see if they noticed the giant speaker about to take out the drummer on stage. They didn’t for a while. Finally Randall did, but he didn’t stop the song either. He just made the same smile back to Spunt and the pair went on relatively indifferent to the impending, ironic flattening. Long story short, someone onstage finally righted the speaker and everyone happily moshed to a gorgeous sunset.

DEATH:

Original punk rockers Death had a lot to live up to. Their mega-underground LP …For the Whole World to See finally saw light earlier this year, as Drag City released the gritty proto-punk disc shelved since 1976, when Columbia records refused to release the album unless the band changed its name. The story of three brothers from Detroit who refused to sell out transfixed journalists from the Guardian to the New York Times, so the crowd to see this middle-aged comeback was ravenous for some musical miracle. The remaining Hackney brothers, Bobby on bass and Dannis on drums, joined by Bobbie Duncan on guitar, dampened that enthusiasm almost immediately with a lengthy sound check and a cheesy entrance involving druid capes which they shucked off in unison to reveal dress shoes, black trousers and new-age vests. It was perfect. Death initially raised bloggers’ pulses by being an unlikely punk rock band, and their stumbly beginning only drove home their outsider status. This time, instead of being three African-American teens, they were three aging, dreadlocked fathers, maybe even grandfathers. With Bobby’s first jump into the air, though, fans knew Death still had it. Dannis and Bobby kept up their musical chops with a reggae band, Lambsbread, and added longtime guitarist Duncan to fill band founder and eldest brother David’s spot, since he passed away before seeing any of Death’s current success. Two scrolls on either side of the stage invoked David’s presence though, showing him imperious with an afro and martial arts garb, using his guitar neck like a scepter. Bobby frequently looked toward the portrait as they played opener “Keep on Knocking” and the rest of their MC5-flavored, seven-song album, in sequence. Bobby thrashed, Duncan mastered David’s guitar solos and Dannis drummed with such ferocity I thought the old man would have a heart attack, but he and the other members just broke into huge smiles between songs. Right before launching into closer “Politicians in My Eyes,” Bobby, the lead singer, thanked a long list of people including his son, who begged his father to release the master tapes, and the audience “for bringing back Death.” It’s been said by now, but the final audience chants of “Death! Death! Death!” were likely never more happily received.

Neon Indian:

Sadly, Neon Indian’s schedule had the group going onstage just ten minutes before Yeasayer. I would have liked to vindicate Alan Palomo (also of VEGA), my hometown compatriot from Denton, since our last review of the group’s festival act was less than glowing. I did manage to catch a couple of songs, and I can say that the show seemed decidedly more electric since their banal set as a last minute replacement at ACL in October. For one thing, Palomo brought the band’s visual aids along, which can only be appreciated in low light settings. The appropriately neon graphics buzzing along the projector screen matched Neon Indian’s unabashedly-Nintendo electronic pop. While Palamo and his sexy crew manned the front, I was more charmed by two Weird Science-esque geeks sitting on the stage in the back, twiddling all sorts of knobs on three different efx boards. I blew them a kiss as I ran over to Yeasayer.

Yeasayer:

I tried to squeeze my way into my normal front row perch at world music/psych-poppers Yeasayer, to no avail. Despite not putting out an album since 2007, the orange stage buckled under VIP weight and the crowd packed in so close that nary a whirling-dervish dance move could be executed. What I’m saying is, personally, the quantity of the audience overshadowed the quality of the music. The small flourishes that make Yeasayer so unique, splashes of chimes, maraca-driven beats, and jingle bells, just get lost spreading out over so many heads. Singer Chris Keating compensated by leading his trio (augmented for the live performance) like a Pentecostal preacher, yodeling through new feel-good single “Ambling Alp” off the forthcoming Odd Blood and promising more new tracks, before being reminded they only had one song left. “It’s ridiculous, I’m totally unbiased, but it’s ridiculous,” he said of Odd Blood before getting the word that finale time was closing in. “Aw, fuck the new shit, we’re going to play the old shit,” he announced as the crowd roared, and the band broke into 2007’s hit “Sunrise.”

Les Savy Fav:

Chastened by my Yeasayer experience, I doubled my efforts to jam myself into the media pit for Les Savy Fav. That’s probably the best decision I made all day, if not all year. Not only did I right a supreme wrong, not seeing Les Savy Fav before this fest, but I also got a literal front-row view of art rock’s premier mad genius. Tim Harrington, leader of the arty hardcore band, greeted the audience in a wedding dress (which he said belonged to his brothel-owning step-grandmother) and a lizard-man mask. The mask came off in 30 second, the dress, maybe a minute later during the intro song “The Equestrian,” as he howled “you make me shake/you make me shiver,” and dipped his fingers in what I hope was red body paint somewhere down stage. Beer-bellied, balding and clad in nothing but periwinkle briefs and purple tights, Harrington seduced the audience by playing with his belly button, tweaking his nipples, stuffing latex gloves down his underwear (and later a scarf), attempting to eat the wedding dress and humping an ecstatic male audience member on top of a twelve foot ladder, flattened and supported by the audience for the grand finale. And that’s the mundane stuff. Les Savy Fav’s music is just as surprising as their leader, veering from punk rock to dance grooves. Seasoned guitarists Seth Jabour and Andrew Reuland barely acknowledged Harrington’s existence as they plowed through a set heavy on their 2007 LP Let’s Stay Friends, drummer Harrison Haynes and bassist Syd Butler didn’t have time to as they kept the frenetic pace. The most surprising thing from the group all night was the last-minute decision to cover the Silver Jews’ “Punks in the Beerlight,” with Harrington hollering the “I love you to the max” chorus at the audience. I could go into more detail about the show, as Harrington packed every minute with more crazy than Tom Cruise on a talk show, but you get the idea. Hard to believe I liked them based solely on their music up until now.

Ratatat: