Future Clouds and Radar/Rosewood Thieves at Pianos

Last night was truly f'ing awesome. FC&R were incredible. I wasn't sure what to expect b/c some of the recorded stuff is pretty orchestrated but they rocked it. One guy played vibraphone, trumpet, keyboards, tambourine and omni-chord. And another incredibly bad-ass female drummer. She was killin it back there, in spite of the fact that she was in a dark corner of the stage. The lead singer is a classic Austin hippy: long unkempt hair, goatee, kinda squirrely. He could easily be in a Richard Linklater movie. Hell, he probably knows him. Genuinely funny guy, very charismatic and entertaining. To the soundman: "So man, how many do we have left?" Soundman: "You have about 5 minutes." Robert Harrison(?): "Yeah, but how many songs is that?" Ba-doomp-PA!

Rosewood Thieves played next. I wanted to hate them b/c they have the classic "we-just-graduated-from-art-school-and-live-in-the-les/wmsbrg" look. So smug and too cool for school. And let's face it, I try not to, oh how I try, and am successful in the end, but I begrudge all these little hipster-kids their youth. But damn, they were really good too. Bobby Dylan-ish at times, at others pretty Beatles-y. I would never tell the singer this, but he had moments of doing a pretty f'ing good John Lennon. Most of the time though, he sounded more like Albert Hammond, Jr. My main criticism is that in the first song they played he almost verbatim ripped off a Dylan lyric. That's a NO-NO!! (He sang: "Wow, you must think it's odd that I say I'm loving you not for what you are but what you are not.") Like I said, almost verbatim from "I'll Keep It With Mine". I'd give him the benefit of the doubt of this being some cosmic coincidence if they didn't have such a Dylan sound at times. But that didn't ruin the set for me, they have great tunes. Some good storytelling numbers, interesting arrangements and a pretty cohesive sound.