The Frights Blew Out My Eardrums At SXSW

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AUSTIN, TX- For most of our SXSW artist coverage, we’ll keep it relatively short and sweet. We have over 80 artists to cover, so cut us some slack! 😉 We’ll basically be formatting each post into two parts: (1) Why our contributor wanted to see this act and (2) what our contributor thought of the performance”. Easy peasy. If you want to learn more about the act, make sure you click through to their social media links to get in the know. You won’t be disappointed!

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Why I Wanted To See The Frights: Being from New York City, I hadn’t heard much about California natives The Frights, who were performing as part of Stubhub’s showcase at Bangers on day four of SXSW. However, I happened to speak with a fellow photographer while waiting to get into the venue and he gave rave reviews of their music, calling it “awesome, chill surfer rock.” That definitely hyped me up for the performance as I was ready to experience some laid-back Cali vibes.

What I Thought Of The Fright’s Performance: So it turned out what I was told, about this band, was not accurate about their live shows. The Frights comprised of Mikey Carnevale, Richard Dotson, Marc Finn, and Jordan Clark did not put on a surfer-rock concert (although some elements of the music remained), but rather they put on a 90’s punk-rock concert that almost blew my damn eardrums out. There was nothing chill about their set. Clark on guitar shredded solos like a rock star bringing the guitar above his head mid jam, Finn on drums looked like he was about to fly out of his seat and Dotson played the bass guitar as impassioned as I’ve ever seen anyone play bass guitar. Carnevale seemed to be the only one quite tame on stage, despite being the lead singer and guitar of the group.

The Frights exhibited a collection of songs from their EP’s as well as their most recent album dating back to 2016 titled You Are Going To Hate This. This Cali “surfer band” rocked so hard they induced mosh pits on several occasions, adding to the excitement of the show.

The coolest part of their set included a 10-minute long medley of popular songs from the 90’s and early 2000’s such as “All-Star”, “Smells Like Teen-Spirit, “Miss Jackson”, etc. It was a really unexpected addition to an already surprising (in a great way) concert. I really enjoyed The Frights and their set despite almost losing my hearing. They released a single called “CRUTCH” a few days ago so I’d recommend giving that a listen.