Islands @ Cedar Street Courtyard - 13 March 2008 (SXSW Day 2, pics, live video/mp3)

If the over-arching theme of the SXSW music festival is for bands to premiere/feature new material for industry-heavy audiences then there's (perhaps without surprise) very little doubt that the upcoming Islands album Arm's Way is the record I'm most looking forward to based upon the performances I've seen so far in Austin. Somehow, even after releasing EF's #2 album of 2006, Islands have just gotten better and better; both as a live act and in terms of songwriting.

While new songs such as "We Swim" and "The Arm" showed promise during CMJ, they came across as fully realized and perfected on Thursday night at Cedar Street Courtyard. Nick was wearing full whiteface mime makeup and was on top of his front-man game, the rest of the band did precisely what they do best: subtly blow away the audience with exuberant precision. This is one of those bands that I just simply can not understand if you don't like. Welcome bonus: a rousing Sinéad O'Connor cover. I need more Islands.

You can find a bit more, in terms of pics as well as live video/mp3 (including the Sinéad cover), after the jump.




Listen:
"Where There's A Will, There's A Whalebone" by Islands live (from this show)
"Red Football" by Islands live (from this show, Sinéad O'Connor cover)

Watch:
"Where There's A Will, There's A Whalebone" by Islands live (from this show) on YouTube | download QT
"Red Football" by Islands live (from this show, Sinéad O'Connor cover) on YouTube | download QT

See more pictures of Islands (from this show and others) HERE.

Visit Islands on MySpace.