Gayngs overtakes—and conquers—First Avenue

Sunday’s Gayngs Affiliyated show at First Avenue offered a foretaste of South By Southwest in more ways than one. The artists and side projects that fuel the supergroup stocked the Mainroom, the 7th Street Entry, and the Record Room all night, forcing fans to make choices as tough as any faced by festivalgoers. Catching exuberant solo sets by P.O.S., Dessa, and Mike Mictlan, for instance, meant missing much-praised Alpha Consumer and Megafaun in the Mainroom. And nabbing a spot near the front for Solid Gold (testing new material while bathed in fog) and Doomtree (typically raucous, despite lacking Sims and Paper Tiger) only barely made up for skipping the by-all-accounts excellent Marijuana Deathsquads show next door.

For the Gayngs affiliates (affiliyates?), that was the point. Facing a chock-full Record Room before his solo show, P.O.S. marveled that the event was “the best possible use of First Ave.” Other artists echoed his onstage enthusiasm, thrilled to share a space with so much talent and to celebrate collaborative, genre-crossing Twin Cities music. P.O.S. himself went on to pack the Entry with Marijuana Deathsquads, tear up the Mainroom stage with the other Doomtree MCs, and finally croon soulfully with Gayngs, a fatigue-defying run that felt like it could be possible only in Minneapolis.

Gayngs took the stage well after midnight, packing it with equipment and a shifting sample of its 23 members. The tired but game audience might have expected surprises, given Prince sightings at last year’s Gayngs show and, reportedly, during Sunday’s Doomtree set. Har Mar Superstar was up to the task, sashaying onstage in a white robe and belting George Michael’s “One More Try.” The band’s Autotune-enhanced vocal harmonies and saxophone-laced slow jams played just fine on their own, though, and the band had total command of the crowd on transcendent songs like “Faded High.” Wrangling the busy, sprawling crew can’t be easy for Gayngs, but making their Affiliyated show an annual fixture of the local calendar is worth a try.

[Full disclosure: Snowstorm logistics forced this reporter to leave before the encore, meaning I missed a guest appearance by Channy Moon Casselle of Roma Di Luna. I won’t make that mistake next time; there will be a next time, right, Gayngs?]