Nashville Music Blog

Photos by Steve Cross

See the slideshows for more photos: Chairlift; Acrylics & Oblio.

Most of us have little faith in the concept of trickle down economics these days, but if there's anywhere it can be effectively applied (however loosely) it's the live music circuit. With so many acts converging on Austin for SXSW, it's inevitable a great many of them will come through town on the way there or home, thus benefiting all the little folk who couldn't afford to go. Saturday night was one such a case when Brooklyn band Chairlift came through town, bringing along fellow New Yorkers Acrylics. As you well know, we are anything but punctual and this put our arrival just a bit after openers Oblio finished up. We were, however, well on time for Acrylics, with whom we were completely unfamiliar right up until the moment they started.

What we got was slow-burning, steady-rocking, dreamy garage pop with a surfy, psychedelic undercurrent, iced over with ambient synths. Toe-tapping shuffles and hip-swinging bass grooves were locked down underneath seductive harmonies to create a sleek mystique that occasionally wandered into noisy, hallucinogenic dirges--only to ebb back into pedal steel-driven slow jams. Shorter songs kept the leisurely tempos from dragging, and solid songwriting made us feel like these tunes would be safe at any speed. Following Acrylics, we--along with a nicely packed room of folks--spent an irksome 45 minutes staring at an empty stage waiting for Chairlift to grace us with a set.

Fifteen minutes of plodding drum machines, garden variety Europop grooves and stock seagull guitar effects later, we decided it wasn't quite worth the wait. Our previous exposure to this band was limited to a 30-second clip played during a recent iPod Nano commercial. However, unlike that jaunty single-turned-jingle, the rest of their repertoire droned on like an 808 dosed on soft rock Rohypnol and locked into an aimless jam session. We were soon on a downhill cruise to snoozeville. Short, atonal interludes counteracted the clomping syncopation, but did little to break the monotony.

That said, if there were other haters in the house, they were in short supply. The rest of the room applauded graciously after each number, and at least half the crowd urged on the obligatory encore during those awkward moments after the last song has ended and the house music hasn't cut back on.