Show Preview: The Sound and the Jury @ Antone's tonight!

The Dell Lounge once again gave a number of bands (700 by last count) a chance to play this year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival via The Sound and the Jury battle of the bands. The “battle” started out online with fans voting on artists in the pool through three rounds; we’ve finally reached “The Grand Finale” (or Round 4) with the competition now moving to a live venue where a panel of judges from the industry and audience votes will decide the winner. This Wednesday at Antone’s, the final six contestants will turn in their best performance for an opportunity to inherit last year’s champions’ (Homer Hiccolm & the Rocketboys) crown. The winning act gets its day in the Sun on the Dell stage at 11:45 a.m. on Friday the 26th. As a bonus, the act will also be interviewed in the “Dell Dome” (located near the Dell Stage) on Saturday the 27th. And the nominees are…

Four Austin bands have the made the final round -- get to Antone’s and show some home town support for your options -- crunching keyboard driven ditties from The Scotland Yard Sale, vibrant garage rock from The Steps, soulful R&B concoctions from T-Bird & The Breaks, and stirring piano pop from Quiet Company (making their second straight appearance in the final round of this competition). Utah’s Good Morning Maxfield (who recently changed their name to Fictionist) are also in the running with diverse compositions that utilize assorted instrumentation to showcase their talent; a psychedelic blend of funk and rock courtesy of 60 Tigres (from Monterrey, Mexico) provides an international injection and rounds off the list of finalists.

Besides the glory, all six bands will be subjects of documentaries that can be viewed on the Dell Lounge website through ACL Fest weekend; the winner also gets to make a Dell Lounge produced, Super!Alright directed music video. Not too shabby.

[60 Tigres MySpace]
[Good Morning Maxfield MySpace]
[The Scotland Yard Sale MySpace]
[The Steps MySpace]
[T-Bird & The Breaks MySpace]
[Quiet Company MySpace]