My Morning Headache

SXSW 2006 - Day 4 and wrap up

Jesus, the past couple weeks have gone by in a complete blur. between having Kat back in town and going to a couple other shows I just haven't found the time to write up the last day of SXSW. Well, the music part at least.

Saturday turned out to be more about hanging out with people than it was about going to any particular shows. As I mentioned before, on Saturday I skipped out on most of the day events to play the Austin WPBT II, which was likely a lucky break for me because it was raining a bit on and off all afternoon. After busting out of the tourney, I headed over to Mother Egan's to meet up with Brian catch the Silversun Pickups one last time. Luckily (for me anyway), they were running late so I managed to catch the entire show. They're still good. I bought their cd. It was worth it. After they finished up I watched a few minutes of the next band (Head of Femur) but they didn't make much of an impression on me so I took off early to go to the first showcase of the night.

Made my way over to Fox and Hound to catch up with Amanda and caught Whirlwind Heat who were entertaining then caught the beginning of Forward Russia who were loud as fuck. For real. That's really all I remember.

I got outta there in a hurry to make it to Karma for Rainer Maria, which was really the only show I cared about seeing on Saturday. It was a horrible pain in the ass for Karma to be on a half hour schedule rather than on the hour because it meant I was giving up two time slots at a regular club to see them, but I really like Rainer Maria so it was worth it. Their new material is really good and I'll be seeing them again when they're touring this summer.

After Karma I took a break and headed over to Mugshots to have drinks with April, Eva, Brian, Amanda, and probably someone that I'm forgetting. An hour and a half worth of Mugshots and I was ready to hit the last two shows. Nine Black Alps who sounded pretty good, but Exodus was fucking packed and I spent the majority of my time at the upstairs bar. And last but not least: Elliot Brood - which was April's pick and they were good enough that I could overlook their Canadian-ness.

The Final Score

• Slices of Hoak's pizza eaten: 6
  
• Slices of Roppolo's pizza eaten: 0 (how drunk did you think I got?)
  
• Number of Best Wursts eaten: 3 (always go for the Curry Ketchup)
  
• Number of free Monster Energy drinks: 6 (three of those were within the span of an hour)
  
• Number of free beers drank: I'll go with more than one
  
• Number of free cds I didn't throw away: 2 (I haven't listened to them yet either)
  
• Number of actual shots taken at Mugshots: 3
  
• Number of visits to Mugshots: 7 (for those of you keeping score, it's not even a music venue)
  
• Number of shows seen: I lost count
  

Memorable statements:

• "Can I get less of everything in the monitors?" - yeah, that's a once in a lifetime statement
  
• "Let's meet at Mugshots."
  
• "I'd like a glassful of head, please."
  
• "This is it. This is the song I know." - the most important statement to make when the band your watching finally plays their demo song from the sxsw website
  

That's all I remember at this point. A ton of people have asked me what my favorite show was. That's a really difficult question to answer. The band I'm probably most happy to have seen is the Flaming Lips, but Silversun Pickups, Film School, Rahim, The Gathering, Elliot Brood, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Rainer Maria, and a bunch of others that I've already forgotten were really good too. Time to start planning for next year.

posted by gus away from the metroplaza @ 4/04/2006 01:59:00 AM