Festival News

White Denim get things sweaty at SXSW 2008

Austin garage help launch the festival in Texas with raucous gig

Austin garage rockers White Denim got SXSW 2008 off to a kicking start this afternoon (March 12), playing a raucous set of psychedelia-twinged rock at the tiny Peacock Lounge in east Austin.

Following a set of chant-led trancey pop from solo artist El Guincho, the three-piece took the stage in the already-packed venue and played a seven-song set that got the crowd sweating by the bucket.

Opener ‘Shake Shake Shake’ showed off a Hives-meets-Hendrix racket that got the crowd cheering in approval, while ‘Don’t Look That Way At It’ showed off a more experimental edge to the band, being full of catchy bleep sound effects.

Before playing ‘Paint Silver Gold’ frontman James Petralli asked the crowd if they wanted to hear a “psychedelic song or a rock’n’roll song”. The crowd roared their preference for the latter back to him, before the band played the rollocking tune.

A huge queue had formed outside the venue during the band’s set, in scenes echoed at various other venues in Austin as SXSW kicks off.

White Denim played:

‘Shake Shake Shake’
‘All You Really Have To Do’
‘I Start To Run’
‘Don’t Look That Way At It’
‘Paint Silver Gold’
‘Migration’
‘Dark-sided Computer Mouth’


NME.COM is bringing you full coverage of SXSW as it happens. Head to the NME SXSW page now for all the latest news, galleries and blogs direct from the festival.

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