South By Southwest Day Four: Don't Tell Me This Ain't Got No Heart

Random encounters certainly have been a running theme for SXSW 2008, and we stumbled upon one that was nothing short of brilliance after being not so impressed by No Age at the Stereogum party.

Minding our business, we leisurely wandered into Club Deville for the Hot Freaks party. White Rabbits were supposed to be coming up in a few moments, and Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal (pictured) was supposed to be DJing in the meantime. Instead, he was on stage with an electric guitar, treating the hundred or so people to covers of M.I.A.'s "Jimmy" and the Grateful Dead's "Shakedown Street." The Of Montreal tune "Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse" also charmed onlookers.

Later in the evening, up on the real Shakedown Street, alt-countriest Tift Merritt put in an early set at the Parish, running through a handful of songs from the recent "Another Country" for a modest crowd.

As a frontwoman, Merritt is dead on; she bounces back from guitar to keys, and it'd be easy to compare her to older contemporaries such as Lucinda Williams, but her delivery is much more energetic. Her voice is flawless, ranging from sweet to sexy to downright sad at times.  Highlights included "Broken" and "I Know What I'm Looking For Now," with Merritt grinning ear to ear like a 16-year old heading to their first prom.

Over at Stubbs, Okkervil River tore up a gorgeous set, drawing heavily from "The Stage Names." The drums were crispy during "A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene" and the crowd did a bit of fist pumping during "Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe," but it was the creeping ballad "A Girl In Port" that stole the show.

Doing a ballad at the enormous, outdoor Stubbs is a bold choice, but Will Sheff's voice was up to the challenge. Over the course of seven-plus minutes, the band slowly built the song into a majestic, epic affair.

After that it was a bit downhill. A few missteps led us back to Club Deville, before we made a U-turn and headed to the Vice party for Z-Trip. $10 later, we were mingling with UT students who could have cared less about some industry conference in town.

Point and case: the crowd-surfing when Z-Trip dropped "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (the extended club remix). Standing there looking on, we liked to think we'd most definitely do that too, had we not spent the last four days beating our bodies up. Yeah, right. -- Michael D. Ayers