SXSW Live Shot: Leon Bridges

It’s not often a venue and band are so diametrically opposed. The Hype Hotel, a converted warehouse – concrete floor, steel beams, and metal roofing, with brand names galore all over the venue – made worse with laser lights and mind-numbing electronic dance music, couldn’t possibly be more soul sucking.

Leon Bridges’ music borrows from the R&B style popular 50 years ago, when such a place existed only in the background of science-fiction. The 25-year-old from Fort Worth native seemed undeterred, laying out a much too brief 30-minute set that covered all of his songwriting artistry.

To most, the immediate reaction to his heavenly vocals is “Sam Cooke!” Yet there were times when his singing recalled Stevie Wonder and Jackie Wilson as well. The cavernous setting swallowed up his stage patter, but the fivepiece band, including Josh Block and Austin Jenkins of White Denim, stayed within their appointed grooves while Bridges and two female backing vocalists did their own kind of shimmy.

As the set went on the crowd grew restless, all but drowning out one of his best tunes, the soft sway of “Lisa Sawyer,” a love song to his mother. He closed with a spiritual of sorts, “I Don’t Remember,” a shot of Fifties soul that in the right setting can be chilling. Seeing Bridges in a proper venue, and hearing his debut album – due this summer – are next.

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