Deerhunter Take Control During SXSW Set

Bradford Cox and his Deerhunter were a tremendous blast this afternoon (March 18) at Club Deville. Cox -- who is playing a few other shows around town in Austin, Texas, at SXSW with his other project, Atlas Sound -- walked onto the stage requesting a "high E string" from members of the audience, an indication of this whole set's ramshackle nature.

Once the band finally took the stage, Cox proclaimed, "Hi, we're Deerhunter. We're an American pop group from Atlanta, Georgia." That overly simple statement might not have been right on the mark.

The set was sprawling, epic and jam-heavy: a fantastic step forward in the live arena for Deerhunter (who, frankly, in years past suffered from overly complicated and unbalanced tendencies). The songs from their most recent album, 'Halcyon Digest,' went over the best, 'Revival' an explosion and, later, 'Helicopter' chopping beneath the real example flying above the crowd (Did 4AD, the band's record label, orchestrate that?).

Aziz Ansari was there -- he's been somewhat of a fixture around town this week -- as was Kurt Vile, who played before Deerhunter and cast his folk-rock onto the sunburned masses.

The tunes were very spacey, but much tighter than in the past. This is one of the era's great bands -- like it or not -- and once Cox and company reached their last song of the night (which is also the last song on '... Digest'), 'He Would Have Laughed,' the band seemed in total control. The place was packed. "Where did my friends go?," Cox sang, to a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. Oh, the irony.

Watch Deerhunter Performing 'Helicopter' Live at SXSW 2011

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