The Afghan Whigs surprised fans with a last-minute announcement of a show at SXSW‘s Converse-sponsored Fader Fort.  It was interesting enough that the band played “On the Corner” the single from the latest Twilight Singers album Powder Burns – but an even bigger surprise was waiting for fans that were able to catch the show in person or via the internet live stream.  The roof blew off when pop and R&B star Usher came out during a performance of his song “Climax” and continued to front the band through his “OMG” and the Whigs song “Something’ Hot.” Sinkane also joined the fun for a rendition of the song “Runnin'”. The band was augmented by Steve Myers on background vocals and Natural on second guitar.

The entire performance is available for streaming on Youtube. You can find out how this came to be at Billboard. Of note in that article, Sylvia Rhone was in attendance at the show. Rhone was the former head of Elektra and inspired the Afghan Whigs song “Neglekted.”

Setlist:

• Blame, Etc.
• On the Corner (Twilight Singers)
• Lovecrimes (Frank Ocean)
• Climax (Usher)
• Somethin’ Hot
• Runnin’ (Sinkane)
• OMG (Usher)

Press:

• Spin.com: Genre-Mashing “Climax”
• Popcrush: “Worked on the cosmic level”
• Live Music Blog: “one of the more surprising and random pairings in the history of live music”
• Flavorwire: “Dream about a collaborative album”
• Dangerous Minds: “unexpected and mindboggling musical”
• Chicago Reader: ” the entire crowd collectively lost its mind”
• Spinner.com: “huge moment of crossover brilliance”
• Ew.com Music Mix: “everyone in the crowd lost it”
• Onion AVClub: With the place going apeshit, Usher called the Whigs “indie-rock royalty”
• Fuse.tv: “It shouldn’t be too shocking, really”
• Vibe.com: “Usher surprised music fans”
• Billboard: “Whigs indeed breathed new life to Usher’s stage show”
• Hip Hop Wired: “Unsuspecting fans were wowed”