SXSW: Nada Surf (Live)

Saturday, March 15, 2008 | 3:19 AM

Nada Surf is the Seabiscuit of indie-rock music. They went from one-hit wonders, to not having their label release their sophomore album, to resurrecting their career and becoming one of the most consistently good bands in indie rock music today. It must have been "Hat Night" for the Nada Surf--Matt Caws was decked out in a top hat, while drummer Ira Elliot was wearing a cowboy hat. Daniel Lorca probably skipped out, cause there's no way he's going to fit a hat over his years of grown-out dreadlocks. Nada Surf showed the youngsters how to do it tonight. As a band, they're very tight, displaying their mastery of the sweet up-tempo rock ballad. It's also refreshing to see Caws, Elliot, and Lorca laugh with each other during stop downs in between songs. If you've been in a band as long as they have and can still share a laugh with each other, you must be doing something right. The only part of their set that distracted me was Caws constantly changing out his guitars following each song. At first I though he did it for tuning reasons, but after a while it seemed a bit obsessive (I'll have to get on the case and find out why he does this). Sadly, Nada Surf hit curfew at 2AM and weren't able to properly close out their set.