DODOS at the Parish for SXSW Rating: NNNN
The advantage of being the night’s closer at a SXSW venue is the amount of time available to straighten out your stage set up, sans another group shooting you eye daggers to move your ass.
Since San Francisco duo the Dodos play such a sparse, clean-sounding mix of guitar and drums, it was a tremendous benefit for them to have their levels mixed and EQed properly, as this is band who very much doesn’t hide behind a wall of distortion.
Playing mostly from their new album, No Color, which dropped the day prior, frontman Meric Long looked energized despite it being their second show of the night. Though they’ve become known as mainly an acoustic duo, they were accompanied by a second guitarist and both axes were fully electric.
Long is a fantastic player, crawling all over the guitar’s fretboard with a delicate touch, while drummer Logan Kroeber plays every imaginable beat other than a straight 4-4. Their music emits power but without resorting to typical rock band bluster.
Long’s monotone vocals are the only weak spot, which is perhaps why they enlisted mega chanteuse Neko Case to sing on the new album. If only she could have made a guest spot.
