SXSW Day Three Wrap-Up: N.E.R.D., The Black Keys, Dizzee Rascal, Does It Offend You, Yeah?

Follow all of Rolling Stone’s ongoing SXSW coverage — photos, video, interviews and live reports — here. It was a surprisingly scorching afternoon in Austin on Friday, but the weather didn’t explain the high number of scantily clad women packed into Stubb’s well after the sun went down to check out N.E.R.D.’s show. Pharrell Williams and Co. took over the outdoor venue with a set that featured a handful of songs from their forthcoming Seeing Sounds and all of the band’s past singles (save “Provider”). The two drum kits — tandem drum solos! — added a large dose of power, and Williams just could not stop darting around the stage. The atmosphere was like an aggressive rock show, complete with guitar solos and Williams calling for mosh pits. The pits may not have materialized, but muthafuckin’ noise was made, hands were waved in the air, and caring, in that respect, was at a minimum. New track “Everyone Nose” manages to make “All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom” a viable chorus, and closer “She Wants to Move” was a strong reminder that “Her ass is a spaceship I want to ride” remains a fantastic lyric. A few hours earlier at the same venue, the Cribs showed signs of shaking off the Strokes comparisons, adding a ferocious attack to older tunes like “Mirror Kissers” and newer ones like “Mens Needs, Womens Needs,” during a short set that was both lean and loose. The Kings of Leon’s Nathan Folowill came to check out MGMT’s extremely well-attended gig, but while the Brooklyn band were stretching out their psych-pop tunes in jammier directions he was raving about the Panics, an Aussie act he’d seen the day prior. “You know how normally when you hear a band you can list the bands that influenced them or that they ripped off straight away?” he asked. “We couldn’t do it for them,
	Published: 2008-03-15 Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, SXSW