Front Gate Tickets Blog

Live Review: Broken Bells Spinner Popup Show at the Red River Parking Garage

This was definitely one of those sxsw shows that people will be buzzing about for a few days to come. Broken Bells, whose members include James Mercer of The Shins fame and Brian Burton, better known to many as Danger Mouse, played an intimate show in the parking garage at Red River and 8th Street yesterday afternoon. The promoters of the show kept capacity very low – I heard that approximately 220 people in total were let in not including media and personnel. This served to create a very intimate environment within a very unique setting. The line for the show wrapped around two sides of the garage, and most of those people peered through the chain link fence to get a glimpse of the show even once the makeshift venue reached capacity.

Now on to the show. Let me first say that I personally think that the folks over at Spinner did a great job of putting this together and building a nice set with strong sound for this show. Well done guys! The band entered from the top level of the garage and quickly took the stage launching into their first single from their new album “The High Road” with Danger Mouse behind the kit. They spoke only a few times throughout the show, but seemed to be enjoying playing in such a unique setting. Throughout the set, Danger Mouse played a few different instruments, and Mercer provided strong vocals and guitar work for the entire show. The band consists of seven traveling members in total, helping to recreate the depth of sound that can be found on the record.

The set list for the show was comprised of all of the bands material to this point, so this was not simply one of those ten minute pop-up affairs. If you have not listened to Broken Bells, do not expect some type of James Mercer hip hop project. The album has the fingerprints of Danger Mouse all over it, but is unique to anything that the two have produced before, and in my opinion it works darn well. Check out one of my favorite tracks from the album below…actually I really like them all but had to pick one.

Lots of media from this show to be seen: check out a video from the show right here and a couple photos including the set list, and go here for the rest of my show photos and here to add your own photos from the show. Hope you enjoyed the show if you were there and that this gives you a taste of it if you weren’t!

[audio:http://www.frontgatetickets.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/10.The-Mall-and-Misery.mp3|titles=The Mall and Misery by Broken Bells]