Amazing how packed Emo's gets when a "buzz band" is playing. This concert had the most-jammed audience I've ever seen at a non-SXSW show at the venue. Not that that's necessarily bad...just a sign of how much Austin is growing, I guess.

After a too-long intermission, Girls Against Boys (note that there aren't really any females in the band) finally took the stage at 12:45 and immediately entranced the crowd with a groove that can only be described as a sonic mindf*ck. GVSB's experimental sound has been compared to that of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, but there's a big difference: JSBX utilizes improvisational tangents in their songs, especially live, whereas GVSB remains tight and focused throughout. Their songs are plenty intense on their albums alone, but that intensity increases exponentially when hearing them in a live setting. And the presence they project is...well, it's just plain sultry. A friend mentioned to me she thought these guys "exude sex," and she's right; GVSB's guitars and Scott McCloud's vocals meld together in a way that's almost animal in nature.

Unfortunately the otherwise-fine concert was tarnished by a small group of drunken pubescent twerps up front who decided to start moshing and shoving the crowd around, which was a rather large and unpleasant distraction (especially since I was standing right next to them -- at least they served as a reminder why I no longer wear baseball caps or eyeglasses to concerts). Still, even that couldn't come close to ruining the experience as a whole. I walked away afterwards utterly satisfied and utterly exhausted from synapse overload.