I came to SXSW with three goals. First off, I wanted to see bands I’d caught before that I knew put on a good show. Secondly, I wanted to see bands I’d heard before, to see what their live show was like. Third, I wanted to see bands that I’d never seen or heard before, to find some new music. In my first three shows, on Wednesday afternoon at Mohawk, I accomplished all three goals. I saw Anni Rossi for the third time, enjoying a new version of her stellar stage show. I saw Toro Y Moi for the first time, hearing him flesh out and expand upon songs that I’d previously only heard studio versions of. And then I saw Warpaint.
Oh, Warpaint. From the first, I was intrigued: An all-female rock band from L.A.? Worth checking out. After one song I was hooked. After two I was smitten. So smitten, in fact, that I would go out of my way to see these ladies play two more times over the course of the next three days. They became my answer to numerous questions – What’s the best band you’ve seen? Have you discovered any new music? Do you have a crush on all of the members of any band?
Warpaint is appropriately named – they attack from all sides. From the front left and right, Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman both sport deft guitarwork and phenomenal voices. Together they weave seven minute jams that run the gamut from tight pop to heady haze. When the guitars lead and Kokal and Wayman sing, the band feels like a coiled snake, ready to strike.
When guitarist Stella Mozgawa and bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg unleash the rhythm section, that strike is fast and furious. Mozgawa was the most captivating of the fifty-plus drummers I saw this week, stringing together crisp rifle-crack drum hits in explosively inventive sequences. Lindberg maintained a sense of cool that was untouchable. Together, they drove the band to rarified air.
On record, Warpaint is good. In concert, they are dazzling. After a phenomenal seven song set at Mohawk, Kokal confessed to me that she had been nervous before this, their first SXSW gig. They had no reason to be. I was by no means the only one bewitched by Warpaint – the room emptied out after the set, with concert-goers murmuring about its brilliance. I was fully converted. I would go to war for this band.
