I'd been looking forward to seeing Loch Lomond ever since seeing Josh Bean's excellent photos from last year's Pickathon festival. Though warned that they might remind me of The Decemberists, I nonetheless faced the show with great anticipation.
Loch Lomond is a big group: seven people trading off a variety of instruments and vocal parts, sometimes with a clarinet, sometimes a plucked violin, and always with a viola on-hand. They play pleasant, rootsy rock, thankfully more folk-y than I expected from the warned comparison. The group has excellent stage presence, not shy, but not presumptuously expecting everyone to like what they did.
This said, I did walk away a little disappointed. Perhaps it was the tented venue, perhaps it's that the one-after-another nature of SXSW is exhausting on the ears (and the legs and shutter-finger), but I wasn't rocked to the extent I was hoping to be. They're certainly talented performers, and they write great music. But here I am, left without a deep and lasting impression of the group, and I think that's what's nagging me.
