Saturday in Dallas, KXT held their fourth annual Summer Cut Festival at the South Side Ballroom and it was a great night of music. It was a first for the Summer Cut, which is usually held at Gexa Energy Pavilion, moving from outdoor to indoor, a welcomed change from having to endure the infamous Texas heat.
While almost everyone was there to see the Scottish indie-pop band Belle & Sebastian, the show’s headliner who drew the biggest crowd at the end of the evening, The entire line up was superb. The local stage was still present and went well with the acts of the main stage as concert goers flowed back and fourth between the two.
Memorable performances included Jessie Frye, who played the local stage and a new unreleased single “One in a Million” from their new album that drops October 9th. Jessie has an awesome and energetic stage performance and got the crowd engaged, telling audience members to come closer to the stage after their first song.
Related Topic: Images from the festival
Repel the Robot and Doug Burr were other notable acts from the local stage, with Doug Burr performing songs from his new LP, Pale White Dove. I hadn’t heard of Repel the Robot before the night, who hail from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I was about to go out for some air when they began their first song and I stayed for their whole set. In fact, almost every band had that effect in the line-up.
Another stellar performance came from Fantastic Negrito, with an electric presence brought by their front man, Xavier Dphrepaulezz, and funky and soulful sound. While Sarah Jaffe did a cool version of “Clementine” making it more of a sing-along and Israel Nash (another artist I was new to) played great old school-ish, psychedelic sounding rock. Even though I don’t listen to Belle & Sebastian that much, there is no denying they know how to put on a show. The 10 member band really provided style and substance in their set nicely and shifted smoothly, playing an evenly divided set of early and recent songs.
KXT’s Summer Cut is a great showcase that I will continue to look forward to and hopefully the change in venue to South Side Ballroom will be the same for next year. It is a great festival for any alternative music lover in North Texas.
Here is the full line up for anyone curious to check out the band names listen some readers might not know of:
Jessie Frye
Catamaran
Doug Burr
Repel the Robot
Calhoun
Fantastic Negrito
Israel Nash
Sarah Jaffe
Belle and Sebastian
