Those Darlins Get Rowdy at SXSW

During Those Darlins' half-hour set at the SXSW Billboard.com Bungalow on Thursday night, drinks were spilled, instruments were dropped and blood was shed. Needless to say, these three ladies (and one dude) from Murfreesboro, Tenn., know how to put on a show.

Dressed in all red, they opened with 'Red Light Love,' which features the lyrics, "We'll dress up nice, jump in the car, go out and paint the town." Even on that first track, bassist Kelley (they all take the surname Darlin) was playing on her knees, with her back on the ground, and in 'Wild One' following it, with the appropriate warning: "If you can't handle crazy, go ahead and leave/ If you don't want a wild one, quit hangin' 'round with me."

Those Darlins' music has equal parts country twang and bratty punk, and neither side of that was ever compromised. Singer/guitarist Jessi was most fun to watch, with her eyes wide, tongue sometimes hanging out of the side of her mouth and arms flailing during her spastic guitar solos. Most of the songs came from the group's self-titled debut LP, but one of the exceptions was a new track, which Jessi dedicated to Alex Chilton of Big Star and the Box Tops, who died of a heart attack this week.

Even with that brief moment of seriousness, these ladies were having fun (early in the show, ukulele player Nikki spit her drink onto Jessi), but the end got a little sloppy: At one point, Nikki said she was bleeding then told the crowd not to laugh at her for being tired. In the course of the set's last two songs, she straddled Kelley on the ground, dropped her ukulele on the stage and grabbed Jessi's drink. Kelley then smashed into her to send the plastic cup soaring across the stage. But hey, thinking back to those 'Wild One' lyrics, no one can say they weren't warned.