SXSW Day Four: Julian Casablancas Is The Prince

Much of what you're about to read will sound like hyperbolic garbage, especially the bit about Julian Casablancas. But it ain't. This was a red-letter day in the annals of our personal SxSW history.

This morning, while normal people were sleeping in, Lady Gaga was given a microphone and asked to give her opinion about stuff, which if you're interested in you can watch in full on the internet.

Sluggish, we hit downtown behind a young kid who is sheparding two other kids through their first SxSW. “This is where it's at,” he says, “From aspiring artists playing to three people to them lucky bitches packing out venues, people everywhere, celebrities out walking among us like they real people and shit. This is where it's at, for real."
The Annex on the corner of 6th and Red River is trying to kill us all with death metal. On Red River and 8th, Ray Bans are sponsoring a pop-up barbershop and kids are queuing up for a free cut. A much larger and more predictable queue has formed outside of Stubb's for the Spin day party, where Against Me! will close out the show. The journeyman punk act has come to SxSW in a red hot cloud of fresh hype, thanks to the groundbreaking honesty of Transgender Dysphoria Blues. And Against Me! fans are crazy anyway – they came early.

Schoolboy Q finds somewhere to stand

We walk past the line like the Phantom with our magic press pass, just as Warpaint take the main stage. They are running 20 minutes late and they clock in just three songs before they are cleared away to make ready for Schoolboy Q (that's right, ladies and gents, we made it to motherflippin' Schoolboy Q). The Black Hippy rapper is confounded by the stage set up – with decks right at the front of the stage, he's got nowhere to stand, so he climbs down onto the front speakers. There is a scrum around him in the photography pit and screaming fans pressed into the barricade, and Q hits his stride with the very first beat. His crunching, lo-rider hip hop is killer, it has hips rolling, fists pumping and heads nodding. Q's album Oxymoron dropped just weeks ago, but his fans know every word. It gets crazy during the last two tracks – first Q mounts the rail to perform, then he goes all in and starts crowd surfing. He is amazing.

#Sweat with Kirin J

At the Siberia Records day party at the Valhalla, Kirin J Callinan is plugging in his gear in front of a near-empty room, a radically different scene to the chaos at his showcase gig the night before, which The Austin Chronicle called absolutely soul-crushing (in a good way). Today is only his second gig, but he feels overwhelmed. "CMJ in New York is so spread out, you really just feel like you're playing a bunch of gigs. Here, you're really in the thick of it all the time, you get no time to set up, it's just plug in and play...I'm enjoying it though." By the time he starts, there are about thirty people in the room. True to form, he doesn't leave one iota of sweat in reserve.

Over at Fader Fort, the line is thick and immobile in two directions, one for media and VIPs and one for the poor public schleps who RSVP'd in the hopes of a day of free vodka and cutting edge curated music. While we wait, Danny Brown saunters by, with his own personal film crew. We squeeze through the gate in the nick of time. Atlanta's Young Thug, wearing what looks like his daytime pyjamas, smashes through just three tunes inside, including his breakthrough-with-a-bullet tracks Stoner and Danny Glover. Neither sounds great – he hasn't been around long enough to perfect a live show – but the crowd is mad for it anyway. We eat a free build-your-own burger and contemplate decorating our own pair of free Converse hi-tops, then Dutch act MØ hits the stage. Karen Marie Ørsted, as she's otherwise known, has a powerhouse sound, pealing wide over the fat beats, and the audience seems pretty taken with her. Something irks us about her rock star posing, and her voice too, to be honest; she comes on like Lana Del Ray crossed with Miley Cyrus, and there's a lot of hand acting involved. There's a strong note of high school drama to the whole performance, actually. The kids won't care, she's the “new Grimes”. Grimes was the news Grimes two years ago.

Inside Fader Fort, something you appreciate after standing in a line for ages

According to Mike, who's driving us towards 8th Street in a pedicab, SxSW has seen a massive upswing in corporate branding since 2007. He's horrified, not by the ever-present blaring music, but the visual assault of Doritos, AT&T, Vans, Spotify, Subway, iTunes and a thousand other culture-co-opting companies. “But then I make a lot of money riding this cab during South-by, am I complicit here? Maybe I'm just skimming the cream.”

There is a long and orderly line for the Pitchfork's official showcase at the Central Presbyterian Church, which opens with the one-two punch of female superstars EMA and Angel Olsen. From note one, EMA is battling a hopelessly distorted bass speaker, and the still brightly lit church weird place for her darkwave indie, but she triumphs. Her stalking rock and elastic voice make her a worthy successor to PJ Harvey and Patti Smith, and she's waited a long time for the kind of hype she's finally courting. Angel is also fucking spectacular. In her striped jumper, she looks French, like a grunge Godard starlet.

Segarra stealing all the attention

In the trench warfare that is 6th Street, The Americana Music Association showcase at The Gatsby is an oasis of gentle, aged decorum. Recent ATO signing Hurray For The Riff Raff, led by singer/songwriter Alynda Lee Segarra, play a much-anticipated indie/country set filled with swelling choruses that suddenly lift and float, light as air. Segarra has a sequinned love heart on the back of her pressed cream pantsuit and a wise, gentle, wry caress of a voice, singing those maternal country lyrics that just break you up. The blissful highlight is her new single, The Body Electric, which she says is her response to the classic murder ballad where most times a woman gets killed. It includes this incredible line: “Tell me what's a man with a rifle in his hand gonna do for his daughter when it's her turn to go?" YouTube it now, that's all we can say.

At Cheer Up Charlie's on Red River St, Solange Knowles is curating a selection of artists, including R&B woman of the hour Kelela, who has played a ton of gigs already this week. She is the big fat bomb, all of five feet tall, stunningly beautiful, with a voice like Mariah. Performing tunes from her late 2013 mix tape Cut 4 Me, she talks sweetly and gratefully to her audience between tracks, a whole package kind of deal. She too is amazing, a star in the making. She lets slide that Solange is going to make a special “surprise” appearance in the headline slot and we are almost tempted to stay, but for one very special date with destiny. And by destiny, we mean Julian Casablancas.

Kelela in Solange's cave

On 4th Street, west of Colorado, the Cedar Courtyard is teeming. The small space is bumper to bumper with a boisterous crowd, drinks in hand and a wildly jubilant note of expectation. It is such a tiny stage, and the man about to grace it is such an epic goddamn rock star, the whole scene has the air of SxSW fantasy.

Just days earlier, the news leaked that a new solo album was on the way, titled Julian Casablances And The Voidz. Little information has been released; there is no official release date yet and not much indication of what to expect. A grainy video came out last week, featuring Casablancas and the band, riot footage and an old video game. News has also spread that the band has played a couple of warm up gigs, in the auspicious towns of Pensacola, Florida and New Orleans. Tonight, SxSW gets a taste. And Julian Casablancas does not disappoint.

With his watertight backing band, he rips into a set of largely new material, including hot-off-the-press single Ego. These songs have balls. There are speeding punk breaks and seriously hard guitar riffs, weaved beautifully into the garage pop aesthetic that is Casablancas' trademark.

Dressed down in a black Houston Basketball jacket and layers of beads, he spends most of the gig cradled around the microphone while vintage computers flicker on the stage and an exuberant mosh pit breaks out in front of him. Hands reach out and he steps up to shake them. In front, there is a tiny sea of people dancing; behind, on a mezzanine level about the stage, a crowded VIP section almost-equally inflamed.

We get 45 minutes, then Julian & The Voidz wave goodbye and walk upstairs, but the crowd can see them hanging out through the glass window and they're having none of it. They chant and chant and holler and clap until they coax their idol back on to the stage. Casablancas looks humbled. “Good job with the screaming,” he says, before launching into Glass from Phrazes For The Young. One last song, and he's out, walking from the stage without looking back, like a goddamn prince.