La Vida Boheme, Live In Concert: SXSW 2012

NPR

By Stephen Thompson

Published March 15, 2012 at 3:46 PM EDT

Backs to the stage, shirts drenched and spattered with blue paint, La Vida Boheme opened NPR Music's SXSW day party in kinetically jumpy style Thursday, setting the tone for an afternoon of genre-jumping surprises. By the time the Venezuelan dance-rock band hit the "gabba gabba hey" bit in the chorus of the set-opening "Radio Capital," it was clear that nuance would curl up and take a backseat to chant-along charm and stage-shaking energy.

A boundlessly gleeful young band, La Vida Boheme invigorates Latin rock with the grit and viscera of punk and the churning drive of dance music. The result synthesizes entire cultures and genres to form a hard-driving, paint-splattered party. What could be better?

Set List

"Radio Capital"

"El Sentimento ha muerto"

"Huxley"

"El Buen Salvaje"

"Hornos De Cal"

"Danz"

"Nicaragua"

Credits

Producer: Robin Hilton and Amy Schriefer; Video by: XI Media; Edited by Mito Habe-Evans; Photos by Katie Hayes Luke; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait

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Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

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