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Ivan & Alyosha: NPR Front Row

Playing a free concert comes with risks. Sure, more people will show up, but they may care less about who's on stage than they do about catching up with friends; ironically, it often means the band has to work harder to win over the crowd. Seattle's Ivan & Alyosha did just that on the final night of the 2013 South by Southwest music festival, at a club called TenOak in Austin, Texas.

Ivan & Alyosha had an audience of mostly new listeners shaking and singing; by the time the band revved up to play its crowd-pleasing, Beatles-esque rocker "Be Your Man," everyone was a fan — even the bartender. Those swinging lights you'll see about two and a half minutes into the performance? That's the way bartenders at the club show their approval. It was a four-lamp night.

Credits:

Producers: Saidah Blount, Bob Boilen, Mito Habe-Evans; Assistant Producer: Denise DeBelius; Audio Engineers: Suraya Mohamed, Kevin Wait; Videographers: Christopher Farber, A.J. Wilhelm; Editor: Gabriella Garcia-Pardo; Special Thanks to: Apes On Tape, South by Southwest, TenOak; Executive Producers: Anya Grundmann, Keith Jenkins

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.