Psychic TV Live at Elysium SXSW

Psychic TV was a stellar early start to this year’s festival. Playing a late, Tuesday night show (normally SXSW events begin Wednesday night) Genesis P-Orridge led a top-notch band through just over an hour of excellent music. Psychic TV’s appearance here was largely to coincide with the showing of Marie Losier’s film The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye. The film details Genesis and his late lover Lady Jaye’s attempts to alter their gender to become more like each other. Sadly, Lady Jaye passed away in 2007 and Psychic TV (also sometimes known as PTV3) has rarely performed since. In particular, this show was the band’s first performance in Austin since 1988. The band was a polished presentation of psychedelic rock infused with a deep gothic soul. Genesis P-Orridge took center stage behind a podium for a lyric sheet and was flanked on each side by his magnificent band. They took each number through drone-y territory, guitar solo freak-outs and even longing ballads. The band ended with an impressive twenty minute industrial slug-fest called “Hookah Chalice.” As the band completed their closing number P-Orridge quipped, “Is that all the time we have? I wanted to have sex with a longhorn.”