I managed to win my way into the Frida Hyvonen show last night thanks to the Austinist (thanks Austinist). The show was not well attended nor was it expensive, so it wasn’t exactly like winning the lottery. But I’m a sucker for free stuff, so no doubt I was there.
Frida is a swede who’s songs are simple piano arrangements and sharp lyrics. What she does, she does extremely well, but in the end, I just wasn’t feeling it. Perhaps the week I became obsessed with Regina Spector was not a good week for another piano playing female to try to get in my head. I felt like the lyrics were interesting and dark and I guess I wanted the melodies to match a little more instead of what felt like constant, intentional, juxtaposition of sing-song type melody with biting commentary. This isn’t pitchfork, so I can’t really explain why it didn’t hit me the way I wanted it to, it just didn’t. Even for free.
The real discovery was Tacks, The Boy Disaster, who opened for her. They’re an Austin band with a keyboard frontman, and they were really super sharp and fairly energetic, even before something on the order of two dozen people. Perhaps I’m late in discovering them, perhaps everybody and their brother thinks they’re swell, but I’m new here, so you have to forgive my ignorance. I will seek them out in the future. I might even pay to see them.
