Bye Austin! I'll Miss You!

March 21, 2004 | 4 Comments

Oh boy.

I’ve possibly had the greatest week of my life. Seriously.

SXSW was so damn fun. In so many ways. I’ve already talked about the interactive portion, let me tell you a bit about the rest of the week.

Wednesday

Slept in. I was a bit tired after Bruce Sterling’s terrific party. My little brother, Steve, flew in and we met up in the early afternoon. We went to some irish pub place for St. Patty’s Day. We also met up with my older brother, John, his girlfriend, Amy, and my niece, Taj, who we hadn’t seen in quite some time. I mean Taj is 18 now and the last time I saw her she was maybe five.

It was amazing to see them. Great people.

We then hit the town. First show we saw was Julie Delpy, who I didn’t pay much attention to and a great band called The Shore. They reminded me a bit of Travis. Drinks and conversation were flowing freely. Peace and love and good music filled the air. It was a perfect start.

Later that night we saw one of the best bands (musically anyway) of the week. They were called The Dears. We met one of the band members. He was an asshole.

We finished up the night at Ozomatli. They weren’t as good as other times I’ve seen them, but still put on a nice show. After the show they went out in the street to jam with the people. In doing so they managed to get arrested by the overzealous Austin PD. Aside from the pepper spray and commotion it was a good way to end the night.

Thursday

We started off catching the end of Runner & the Thermodynamics. I really wished I could have seen more of them. They were really good.

We kind of hopped around for a bit, I’m not too sure who all we saw but we ended up at Stubb’s for the B-52’s and Junior Senior. That was a party as you might well imagine.

We then hit an after hours party which was pretty much a kegger at a bar with bands. Really, really good bands. It was really cool because it was a small place without much of a crowd. I got to meet the bands and have a chat so that was great.

We saw a local band called The Real Heroes. They were killer and very nice. Had a great chat with their lead singer.

We also saw one of my favorite bands of the festival. The Grim Northern Social. They were in from Glasgow and I highly recommend you check them out. Very cool guys as well.

Friday

I slept in a bit and really tried to take it easy. I started out my night sharing a few pints with James. That was great. Wish I would have been able to hang out more, but we wanted to catch Learning From Las Vegas and had to jet.

The streets of Austin took on a bit of a different feel Friday. It seemed like there were many more people and a good portion of them were not in town to catch shows.

We tried to drag some people to see The Grim Northern Social, but it seemed like lots of folks had caught on and we couldn’t get in.

It was harder to get around than the previous days. We spent quite a bit of time in line and missed some shows we wanted to see. It wasn’t a total loss, we did see a few bands I rather enjoyed. The Emeralds, who were a great Japanese punk band and Kishidan who just just plain silly.

Saturday

My last day in Austin was a great one. We headed about 45 minutes out of town to John’s former brother-in-law Judson’s place for a party. He has a beautiful property out in the country. He also has a stage.

We saw The Oranges Band and The Hold Steady. They were both great bands and great people. I really, really enjoyed The Hold Steady and wished I could have seen them earlier in the week.

Once in town we say Handsome Boy Modeling School, who I knew were going to be a bit lame as I’ve seen Prince Paul before. It just doesn’t translate well on stage, but it was funny.

I really wanted to check out Coheed and Cambria so I left everyone to see that. It was alright. They’d lost their voices the night before so it wasn’t as good as it could be. Good thing most of the kids in the audience knew all the words.

We ended the night with some hugs and tears and promises to keep in touch.

I’m really going to miss everyone I met and can’t wait until next year. Until then I want to give mad love to John, Taj, Amy, Heather, Lizette, Tim, Matt, Judson, James and everyone else we’re not going to see for awhile. Hopefully y’all will make it up to Seattle sometime soon, a year is just too long.

We do have Bumbershoot coming up!

We’ll I’m off to catch a plane. See you later Austin!

Filed under: Life and Such