Did I tell you about the time that I lied and cheated my way into church? Terribly ironic for an agnostic, isn’t it? The chance to catch the mighty Tune Yards at her official showcase will make you do wacky things, it turns out.

About a half hour before show time, we approached the front entrance of the gorgeous Central Presbyterian Church on 8th Street, an official SXSW venue since 2006, to investigate which long line we were supposed to stand in. They were split between badges and wristbands, with preference to badges. Class warfare at work, folks. At the front of the designated line for us wristband plebeians, I spotted a gentleman wearing this shirt. That’s an ISO50 design from my favorite graphic artist, Scott Hansen. If you hadn’t noticed, The Decibel Tolls’ interface is basically a second-rate rip off of his aesthetic. Hey, all art is imitation in some form. At any rate, I approached him. “Dude, you an ISO50 fan?” “I dunno man, got this at a second hand store.” “Ah, well you should check it out. The designer is Scott Hansen and he’s amazing. I know that guy [editors note: I don't, this was a total lie] and he’s totally rad, blah blah blah.” We shot the shit for a while, and as the conversation trailed off… we just sorta stuck around… right there, at the front of the line. After all the badges were let in, there was only room left for 20 wristband holders. Had we entered the line in an honest fashion, we wouldn’t have been admitted. I did this at a church. I maliciously bullshitted in the eyes of our Lord Jesus the Christ. Should it exist, I’ve secured my coach seat in the 2nd or 3rd layer of hell.

Was total damnation worth it? Yes. Tune Yards slayed. As evidenced by the photos, Merrill Garbus is bananas live.

Tune Yards treated the supposedly over-capacity room (the fire marshall showed up) to their first taste of her forthcoming full length whokill. Apropos to her more expansive sound, Garbus produced a backing horn section to do proper justice to lead tracks “Bizness” and “Gangsta.” Additionally, she accurately recreated just about all her dynamic recorded sounds in a live setting flawlessly. Beyond her famous acute uke licks, it turns out she’s a decent percussionist as well, spending much of the performance behind a tom set. After a particularly powerful rendition of “Fiya” from Bird Brains, Merrill remarked, in an almost paradoxically soft spoken tone, that this show might’ve been the best they played at SXSW. That’s always nice when your best performance is at the official showcase, but I’m sure the palpable energy in the room played a notable part. I don’t follow hype, but there’s a reason why people coming out of South By Southwest were talking about Tune Yards. If I had to pick my favorite performance from the entire week, it’s a safe to say Tune Yards claimed that prize. She crushed it, dudes.