This was like an all American blue collar Smokey venue (if you could still smoke indoors) type gig and impressive it was too!

A cold damp Tuesday school night is, just the night to be whisked away to a seemingly virtual Texas bar at SXSW first with, Brooklyn’s Caveman.

 

Caveman are a very solid band led by an exuberant and crowd engaging lead singer, Matthew Iwanusa. They got a decent length set to entertain us with a rocky Americana that warmed up the rather disappointingly sparse crowd nicely.

 

 

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The venue was around a third full I suppose and centred on the stage for the arrival of Matthew Houck and six piece band otherwise known as Phosphorescent. Whether solo or with Band, Matthew Houck has honed the ‘Phosphorescent’ name into something meaning thoughtful modern day Americana and tonight’s set was no exception.

 

Nod’s back to the past, Reasons to Quit from ‘To Willie’, and a solo ‘Wolves from Pride, the set generally borrowed from the past two records, 2010’s Here’s to taking it Easy’ and this year’s ‘Muchacho.

 

The band is now so well gelled together musically that, they will need to be surgically separated once Matthew is back in solo Phosphorescent mode. Songs that where pure country, to Americana, to ballads and the aforementioned Bon Iver’ish’ Wolves, this was a great show that rocked well into the night.

 

The surprise once we were outside the venue was that, we were in Cambridge, and not Austin

 

Pete

 

 

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