Thursday, March 19, 2009

SXSW 2009, Day 6

Another day as a laundry list:

Saw film, "45365" (a zip code), a day-in-the-life of a small town rural American city, at the Alamo South Lamar.

Drove downtown to park and check the day parties. Went to see Grant Hart, but he wasn't there where I had seen him listed to be. Dropped by the Sierra Mist tent for, um, ...Sierra Mist Ruby Red! (Careful, the diet and regular cans look too similar). Went up to the Red-Eyed Fly to see the Von Bondies, but they'd had a scheduling shuffle at that party and had already played. Other band was nothing special so I walked over to the Warehouse District, to Fado Irish Pub. Saw the last few songs of Chip Robertson (from Louisiana), had a pint, and listened to 30-40 minute set of The Silos. Then met up with M (wife).

Stopped at one of the parties at Brush Square Park. Had a cookie. More people handing me free granola bars.

Had dinner at PF Chang's. The large group a couple tables over looked like music band types; one guy had a super long grey beard and we wondered if they were in a band. We finished and went outside, and while debating our next move, an Oak Ridge Boys tour bus circled around and these guys came out of the restaurant and got into the bus.

We walked up to Sixth Street and popped into the Driskill to check out the venue there. It was a small room, and a Brazilian guitarist started playing. It sounded good so we stayed and watched for 30 min or so, before heading to the Conv Center to catch the movie "The Yes Men Fix The World" .... in part of it I laughed so hard I cried. (I hadn't heard of the Yes Men; they're a couple guys who play publicity stunts at large corporate events and similar shenanigans).

Then M left to go home while I went up to Emo's to catch Echo and the Bunnymen. There was a big line; I had to wait 20 minutes to get in because it was at capacity (and so, one-in one-out in effect). The band playing just before them was Juliette Lewis' band. When I got in, I saw her last 2 songs. She crowd surfed, too. Finished at 12:25, so they were running late. EATB went on at about 12:55 (instead of the scheduled 12:30). With a 2am stop, they played just over an hour. Great show -- they were one of my fave's back in the 1980's.

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