Silversun Pickups

Silversun Pickups

This wasn't Silversun Pickups' night. The capacity crowd at Antone's grew increasingly impatient as a couple of the group's earnest roadies sound-checked endlessly. Then we waited. And waited. Finally, the L.A. quartet emerged onstage, beatific grins on the members' faces, before ripping into "Well Thought Out Twinkles" from their 2006 debut, Carnavas. Singer Brian Aubert gushed about how mind-blowing SXSW is and thanked the audience for coming to see them, especially given the magnitude of choices across the city. This led to a horrible false start for the next song, which disintegrated a few bars in. Aubert laughed it off: "That sounded awful! Did you hear that? Do you know who that was? Me!" A few other technical difficulties ensued, causing further delay, but the Pickups weathered it with good humor, clearly thrilled to be playing right at that moment, even though the set devolved into sameness. "We've got a new record coming out soon," Aubert said by way of good night. "This song is not on it." And so it was that "Lazy Eye" closed the door on another SXSW.