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SxSW 2008 Live: Ting Tings

15th March 2008 | by Ross Riley

It's easy to forget as you trawl around Austin from bar to bar in a succession of small intimate venues, that in the background runs an event designed for the music industry to gather, network and swap plans for world domination.

The hype in the industry seems to have settled around a few bands, MGMT, Vampire Weekend and of course the Ting Tings.

In the Austin Convention Center this afternoon, in a setup that's more TV studio than gig venue, the buzz duo came on stage to showcase a few of their songs.

It seems almost cyclical for the mainstream industry to dip their fingers into alternative music in an attempt to garnish some credibility. The Ting Tings seem ideally placed to fulfill this need, erring to the corporate side of alternative, shouty, indie pop that errs just to the safe side of Avril Lavigne.

The audience is enthusiastic, especially for crowd favourite opener, Great DJ. Bizarrely the duo break off midway to perform three acoustic tracks, including an unusual cover of Norman Cook's 1990 hit 'Dub Be Good To Me'. It starts off pleasantly but the song's funky 'Tech Fly...' interjection doesn't really fit the acoustic style.

Back to what they do best, closing track 'That's Not My Name' returns to a shouty, pointy live performance, which many have perhaps accurately referred to as the band's only good song. The music industry is desperately looking for marketable commodities these days, with the Ting Tings they may have just stumbled upon one of these.

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