SXSW
Seeing as SXSW has been over for a few days and I've had some time to recuperate, I suppose it's time to go over some of the highlights.
Beware of long entry...
Wednesday was my first day working so I went to the Belfast Rocks party and listened to some bands from, you guessed it, Belfast. They were ok, but I think the open bar was really the highlight of that party. 1 beer and 4 or 5 whiskey sours later I went and met Aimee for lunch. I went, briefly, to the Lemmy Kilmister interview but I unfortunately had to leave early to start my shift. He was highly entertaining however. My shift was good; my crew was pretty awesome and the bands were all super easy to work with and most of the music was really good. I don't suppose I need to go to far into what happened during my shifts because it was basically just moving stuff around and occasional crowd control. Everything went fairly smoothly and it was all in all a very good time. However, on my way home I hit a giant chunk of metal in the road that destroyed my tire and put a huuuge dent in my rim. At 3 am. That was not so awesome.
Thursday I went to the premiere of 'Strange Powers' which is a documentary about my favorite ever musician, Stephin Merritt. It was pretty great. Most important, his mom is also an Alix. Woo. I think I went to another party that day too...I was running on so little sleep that things sort of run together. My shift that night was easy because it was mostly electronic bands who didn't have much equipment. However, there were some hellish crowd control problems. More importantly, Bill Murray was there. There were two stages at the bar where I was working and he was upstairs and I was working downstairs. I had a little free time so I ran up there and sneaked my way to the front of the crowd so I could violate his personal space with my rad dance moves. He hung out at the bar for a little while after the show, but I didn't want to be obnoxious and he was already swamped by people, so I hung back a little. Because I'm so nice like that.
Friday was the most awesome day because of free alcohol and not having to work. I dropped my car off at the shop to get my rim repaired and headed downtown. Aimee was working a party at Maggie Mae's so I went and drank a lot of beer and listened to music and ate free food. I think I drank like 5 beers before 12:30, so life was pretty good. At some point I wandered over to Wave because there was free Fat Tire and some cool country/rockabilly sort of bands. My new friend Marco/Mondo the bar manager also made me free drinks. Woo. That's also where I spent most of the evening and listened to a lot of cool French bands. So yeah. Good night.
Saturday was the last main day and I went to the Aussie BBQ at Maggie Mae's. A lot of the Australian bands were pretty meh, but Washington was good. Also, the drinks weren't free. WTF. I think that was all I managed to do before my Saturday shift, but Saturday's bands were freakin awesome. I didn't manage to leave until almost 3 am (my shifts were supposed to be 6pm to 2am) but all in all it was a fun night.
So yeah. SXSW was awesome and I can't wait for next year.
Here are some of the best bands I saw (that I can remember, anyway):
The Yellow Dogs (Iran)
Banda Desenhada (Brazil)
La Strada
Wild Yaks
Ear Pwr
Motorhome
Washington
Mad Juana
Lady Dottie and the Diamonds
The Zeros
Beware of long entry...
Wednesday was my first day working so I went to the Belfast Rocks party and listened to some bands from, you guessed it, Belfast. They were ok, but I think the open bar was really the highlight of that party. 1 beer and 4 or 5 whiskey sours later I went and met Aimee for lunch. I went, briefly, to the Lemmy Kilmister interview but I unfortunately had to leave early to start my shift. He was highly entertaining however. My shift was good; my crew was pretty awesome and the bands were all super easy to work with and most of the music was really good. I don't suppose I need to go to far into what happened during my shifts because it was basically just moving stuff around and occasional crowd control. Everything went fairly smoothly and it was all in all a very good time. However, on my way home I hit a giant chunk of metal in the road that destroyed my tire and put a huuuge dent in my rim. At 3 am. That was not so awesome.
Thursday I went to the premiere of 'Strange Powers' which is a documentary about my favorite ever musician, Stephin Merritt. It was pretty great. Most important, his mom is also an Alix. Woo. I think I went to another party that day too...I was running on so little sleep that things sort of run together. My shift that night was easy because it was mostly electronic bands who didn't have much equipment. However, there were some hellish crowd control problems. More importantly, Bill Murray was there. There were two stages at the bar where I was working and he was upstairs and I was working downstairs. I had a little free time so I ran up there and sneaked my way to the front of the crowd so I could violate his personal space with my rad dance moves. He hung out at the bar for a little while after the show, but I didn't want to be obnoxious and he was already swamped by people, so I hung back a little. Because I'm so nice like that.
Friday was the most awesome day because of free alcohol and not having to work. I dropped my car off at the shop to get my rim repaired and headed downtown. Aimee was working a party at Maggie Mae's so I went and drank a lot of beer and listened to music and ate free food. I think I drank like 5 beers before 12:30, so life was pretty good. At some point I wandered over to Wave because there was free Fat Tire and some cool country/rockabilly sort of bands. My new friend Marco/Mondo the bar manager also made me free drinks. Woo. That's also where I spent most of the evening and listened to a lot of cool French bands. So yeah. Good night.
Saturday was the last main day and I went to the Aussie BBQ at Maggie Mae's. A lot of the Australian bands were pretty meh, but Washington was good. Also, the drinks weren't free. WTF. I think that was all I managed to do before my Saturday shift, but Saturday's bands were freakin awesome. I didn't manage to leave until almost 3 am (my shifts were supposed to be 6pm to 2am) but all in all it was a fun night.
So yeah. SXSW was awesome and I can't wait for next year.
Here are some of the best bands I saw (that I can remember, anyway):
The Yellow Dogs (Iran)
Banda Desenhada (Brazil)
La Strada
Wild Yaks
Ear Pwr
Motorhome
Washington
Mad Juana
Lady Dottie and the Diamonds
The Zeros