Entries Tagged With: Austin Convention Center

Believe the Hype: Sia at Austin Convention Center

At 07:31pm Mar 13, 2008

By Niki D’Andrea

I don’t consider myself an emotional person. I rarely cry at sad movies, I don’t dote over puppies and babies, and naturally sappy people annoy me. But Sia, the Australian sensation who’s been building a buzz via distribution through Starbucks around her sixth album, Some People Have Real Problems, made me cry. I’ve seen hundreds of shows in my lifetime, but I’d never seen a performer who could actually make me weep. Until Sia. And she did it with a single note that left an audience of hundreds absolutely breathless.

Before I caught this 6 p.m. show, I expected Sia to be shy -- maybe even self-conscious -- onstage. That preconception stemmed from repeat listens to her album, which is a brilliant pop record brimming with beautiful melodies, soulful vocals, and the sort of lyrical introspection that tends to come from surviving some real bad shit and taking an internal-dialogue sabbatical.

But if Sia was ever self-conscious onstage, it didn’t show. Audience members were handed multi-colored glowsticks as they walked in the door. When the lights went down, Sia’s band came out dressed in neon happy-face costumes that glowed under the blacklights. Sia came out with a Dayglo happy face on, too, and the gimmick set the tone for an incredibly fun and laid back-but-emotive show.

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Sia sets the tone for her show with a happy face.

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Daryl Hall Goes It Alone at SXSW

At 03:46pm Mar 10, 2008

Daryl Hall is being interviewed at noon on Saturday at SXSW. And he's also playing a free show on Wednesday, March 12, at the Lone Star Lounge at the Austin Convention Center. By himself.

Because I'm fond of stupid Internet tricks, the first thing that popped into my head is, well, see below. (Image by Jaime Lees.)



-- Annie Zaleski
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