One More Time

Kait0

3800-A S. Congress, Saturday, March 15 You have to give the fire marshals credit for being thorough. They didn't forget to check in on this gathering at the aptly named Big Blue Warehouse, next to South Congress sanctuary Dee & Jim's -- one of the places least likely to ever have a SXSW stampede. What the officers found were enough people to effect moving the entertainment from the warehouse's second floor to the parking lot of the thrift store/organic restaurant/Grateful Shed complex. Earlier, local stalwarts Black Lipstick, Bedbug, Subset, Fivehead, and Prescott Curlywolf all played as friends and neighbors partook of the free beer and watched traffic diverted from the closed I-35 crawl along the avenue. (The most Austin thing about the party was how it ran two hours behind schedule and no one cared.) Around nightfall, Brit trio Kait0, looking as tousled and sleep-deprived as everyone else, came on to a sustained cheer from the crowd. "You haven't heard us yet," cautioned the young lass on guitar, but the twentysomething foursome validated their enthusiastic reception with a half-dozen or so songs of disheveled sweetness fueled by an over-caffeinated drive. Loosely hung on a framework of punch-drunk guitars and haywire sound effects -- they obviously have a Le Tigre album or two -- Kait0 could've passed for one of those Hello Kitty-core bands over at Japan Nite. As it was, their striking, unusual sound was ideal for late in the fourth day of the SXSW party vortex: jangled, hypertensive, ready to snap at any second. Except the funniest thing happened. Their on-edge music revitalized the suddenly amped-up audience, who let the loose-knit shards of Link Wray and the Raincoats work their sub-garage magic, and by the end, were again yelling long and loud for an encore.