The Canadian presence at SXSW reached an apex on Friday, with a big three of Broken Social Scene, Metric, and Fucked Up leading the charge.
Broken Social Scene started with a packed show at venerable Stubb’s BBQ on Thursday, and continued with a superlong set on Friday down the street. Much of music came from their first album in five years, the brilliantly titled Forgiveness Rock Record, due out in May.
Kevin Drew continued his Bono-like between-song banter, commenting on hokey news-of-the-day items like Sandra Bullock’s recent marital drama.
He also made documenting the show a bit of a challenge, asking cameras and cell phones to be turned off and audience members to enforce that rule.
On the Thursday gig Drew trotted out Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw from Metric for the classic BSS jam Anthems of a Seventeen Year Old Girl, but Metric had their own spotlight to fill.
An annoying aside: a promotion at Stubb’s pitted Metric and BSS against each other with the vague/fake poll, “Who Do You Care About – Broken Social Scene or Metric?” Um.
Canadian flag in the middle of Austin, for some reason.
Metric opened for fan-favourite Muse, paying a loose homage to a Neil Young. Young is rumoured to be in Austin for his wife, Pegi Young, who played a rootsy affair on Wednesday.
Metric was also the muse for Fucked Up singer Damian Abraham, who riffed on the band’s soreness after losing the Polaris. Just the fact that the Polaris is being mentioned in Austin is enough proof of the level of Canadiana here.
Besides passive aggressive taunts, FU keep Canada in the rumour mill by threatening a nightly show on a bridge crossing Austin’s Colorado river, a repeat of last year’s hijinx. This time the whispers are that they’ll play with the xx. It hasn’t happened yet, but that doesn’t stop people from showing up every night with their cameras.
All this while the Canadian government-funded Canadian Blast makes several appearances, Diamond Rings plays almost every venue in town, and the NXNE BBQ hosted a mansion party with all-Canadian music and beer in north Austin.[rssbreak]
