SXSW Live Shot: Steve Gunn

“We’ll try to drown out the speed metal band playing next door,” joked Philadelphian Steve Gunn early Tuesday evening outdoors at Mohawk. Competing noise bled from the neighboring Cheer Up Charlies, but the now Brooklyn-based songwriter and his touring quartet held their own highlighting tracks from last year’s Way Out Weather LP.

Switching between an electric Telecaster and acoustic six-string, the singer utilized a guitar slide to help render his recordings’ robust ethnic sense. Their African and Middle-Eastern weight remained intact live, though with a heightened psychedelic vibe.

Sporting cherry red tennis shoes, Gunn, who signed to Matador Records last week, was taciturn at the mic, only thanking the crowd here and there, while professing enthusiasm for the lineup’s remaining headliners, which included Torres, Waxahatchee, Speedy Ortiz, and Angel Olsen.

A former member (and grade school classmate) of Kurt Vile and his band the Violators, the frontman’s set developed utterly unhurried, his worldly folk sound commonly veering into arty jam session territory. The evening’s set lengths of roughly 45 minutes proved ideal in Gunn’s case as, at times, scantly sung lyrics deviated from the upbeat festival performance.

For its part, an attentive crowd remained patient to the artistry steadying the guitarist’s imaginative breakdowns, which ultimately proved just as riveting as speed metal.

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