FireSka's SXSW Experience - Day 3

3/19/2010 – Day3:

Wow, today was one of the most fun days of SXSW for me. It was my day off from working at Headhunters which meant I had all day and all night to check out the festival. It was also the day all of the bands I was looking most forward to were playing. I arrived downtown around 1:45 p.m. and decided to park in a parking garage which was closer to the action instead of my usual street area. Because I was planning on going to a record convention this afternoon, I wanted it to be easier for me to get to my car, rather than walking all the way across downtown, should I decide to buy any music. The parking garage was so full that I ended up having to park on the 11th floor (!!!) of it. I didn’t even know parking garages could be so tall! Anyway, after parking, I made my way to The Parish (a 6th street live music venue) to check out the open bar and free bands as part of the SXSW Music Stimulus day party. As I walked down 6th street looking for the Parish, for some reason I could not find it. Apparently during the day the sign is so hard to see because it is not lit up and is inside behind a glass window. After about 15 minutes of walking up and down 6th street, I finally found it and met up with a friend in the front who did not have a wristband or badge who was going to attempt to get in with me.

So, we walk up to the door and I show my badge, the door guy nods his head, and my friend quietly follows close behind. Success, we were in! And wow, what a day party this was! The entire venue had an open bar with over 10 types of free beer (free Blue Moon even!), all you can drink liquor. They were also supposed to have free Mexican food, but by 2 p.m. the food was gone. Thankfully I ate lunch before going downtown, however. The first band was simply called Dave Schulz. They were a piano-based rock band from Los Angeles, CA and the perfect day-party chill music. Another thing I enjoyed about this day party was that it wasn’t packed full. Surprisingly, there was a lot of room to walk around and very easy to get a drink. Another friend met us there (after using my name which was on the RSVP list to get in) and we hung out there for a good hour or so.

Next, it was off to the Austin Record Convention which was being held in the Austin Convention Center. The convention was not as big as I envisioned, but there were still probably 50-100 or so record stores and independent sellers there selling vinyls, CDs, cassettes, and more. Adjacent to the record convention was the guitar convention and the poster convention. The guitar convention was huge, with people from all over the world selling all kinds of guitars. The poster convention was really neat as well, and about the same size as the record convention. I only briefly walked through both. After thumbing through some 7″ vinyls, contemplation whether or not to buy a couple, we came across this one guy who was selling records under the moniker “I’ve Got 12 Inches.” Clever. He had a ton of old rock, grunge, and metal vinyls including some very rare and old Nirvana and Hole vinyls. The most impressive aspect to this was that everything he was selling was from his own personal collection. Wow! I had never met someone with such a large personal music collection. There had to have been over 1,000 vinyls/CD/cassettes. He said he was parting ways with all of his music to find a book he was writing. The guy was really cool – - we stood there and talked about 90’s grunge music for about 20 or 30 minutes. Apparently he is good friends with some of the ladies that played with Courtney Love in Hole and used to do a lot of promotion for them. After we talked, the guy gave me a couple free CDs from his collection from bands that sound similar to Hole. And, I purchased a promo copy of a Dead End Cruisers (local punk band that has been around since the 90’s) cassette EP from him. All in all, a fun experience at the Austin Record Convention.

After the convention, I bid farewell to my two friends and walked over to Lustre Pearl (normally a small bar) to catch Rogue Wave, an indie pop/rock band I enjoy a lot that I first discovered when watching them support Nada Surf in Dallas, TX 2006. My cousin, her husband, and my 2nd cousin were there, but already inside. I waited in a line outside for about 25-30 minutes (since it was a free event and did not require badges/wristbands to get in, the line was extremely long) and finally got in just in time to see Rogue Wave finish sound checking. They played mostly new songs such as “Lake Michigan,” and “Harmonium,” but also threw in a few old songs including my favorite Rogue Wave song “Kicking The Heart Out.” I was extremely happy to see them play this song, especially because I didn’t think they would since it is so old and wasn’t one of their singles! The fact that they played this song made all the difference to me. They put on a really enjoyable show and sounded excellent.

Once Rogue Wave finished their set, we made out way to this new Tex-Mex Restaurant downtown called “Casa Chapala.” I normally don’t review restaurants, but I must warn anyone in Austin to stay away from this one! The food was bland, the service was absolutely terrible being that it wasn’t even that crowded. Anyway, not to go into too much detail – - we ate dinner there and then it was time for me to make my way over to Stubb’s to stand in line for Muse.

Upon arrival at Stubb’s I bumped into a friend that had already been waiting in line for quite some time and was almost all the way to the front. She told me to get in line with her, so I took her up on the offer and got in almost instantly! What luck! I was so glad, because the line was starting to wrap around one side of the building. While in line, I discovered that Metric was playing and had just started their set about 10-15 minutes prior. So we got inside and I was able to catch most of Metric’s show. I’m not the biggest Metric fan, but I had heard some of their songs before and enjoyed them so it was nice to get the opportunity to see them live. Apparently, a lot of people in the line were waiting to get in and see Metric. My friend in line didn’t even know Muse was playing! Haha. Anyway, I stood by this tree toward the mid-right side of the venue and watched Metric play while sipping on a beer. Emily Haines, the lead vocalist/synth player was very entertaining to watch. The entire band seemed like they knew what they were doing and the sound was polished. The place was packed full of people, for Stubb’s is the largest non-auditorium venue in Austin.

Metric finished their set and it was time to push my way all the way to the front for Muse, the SXSW secret show and one of my favorite bands of all-time. This was to be my 5th time seeing them live. I realized while standing there, I have seen Muse live once a year since 2005, except for in 2008. Well, I made my way pretty far to the front with the help of this very rambunctious guy who kept saying things to me like “Let’s push all these fuckers out of the way!” and basically helped me push all the way up to about 10 people back from the stage. I now had a near perfect spot. Shortly after, the crowd roared as Matt, Chris, Dom, and Morgan from Muse walked out. Muse kicked off with “Uprising” and played through a set which consisted of all singles from the past 3 albums except for “Unnatural Selection” which is an album track from their latest album. While watching Muse, I noticed how much they have changed live. No longer does Matt Belamy (lead vocalist/guitarist) smash guitars and stand on instruments while he plays. No longer does Matt switch between different instruments mid-song. They even had a 5th person playing guitar riffs off to the side. This show was simply not as energetic as any of the past Muse shows. But, they sounded great and were certainly entertaining. Matt uses some pretty awesome types of guitars including one with a small LCD screen embedded in it and another with a keyboard embedded into it. During “Stockholm Syndrome,” which was mid-set, the crowd went wild which allowed me to jump/mosh my way up to just 3 people behind the barrier. At this point I was only about 15 feet from the band which was pretty awesome, considering the last time I saw them it was in Texas Stadium in Arlington, TX supporting U2 and they looked like ants from where I was sitting. Muse finished their set with a killer “Knights Of Cydonia” encore.

Now, it was time to rush off to catch Broken Bells back at Lustre Pearl. On the walk over to Broken Bells I struck up conversation with this random guy who was in town from Los Angeles and had also just seen Muse and was rushing over to Broken Bells. He had a SXXpress pass, which is a pass that allows you (and one friend) to bypass even the line of badges to get into a venue. Could I have had better luck!?! So we get up to the front of Lustre Pearl where there is an extremely long line and this guy uses his SXXpress pass to get both me and him in. Fuck yeah! I think I had only missed about two songs from Broken Bell’s set by the time we got there and neither were favorite songs, so I was extremely happy. Broken Bells played a purely awesome set which was probably my favorite show of the evening. I was able to see them play both of my favorite songs, “The Ghost Inside” and “Mongrel Heart,” as well as nearly every track from their album (including their single “The High Road”) and a non-album cover song. The fun didn’t stop there… Because they were playing at such a small outdoor bar, there was no backstage, so once the band finished playing they went off to this area on the side of the stage designated for the artists. I decided to walk over there and see if I could meet James Mercer (lead singer of Broken Bells and also of The Shins) since there were a few random questions I had wanted to ask him for quite a while. After sitting down on a bench near the artist’s area for about 15 minutes or so (which felt great after a day of walking and standing up – - I think this was the first time since dinner I had actually sat down) James came over to near where I was and I was able to talk to him and his manager. Both were extremely nice and we actually got into some pretty good conversation for about 15-20 minutes. He told me that they are planning to tour later this year and told me some secret information which I am not allowed to repeat. The fact that James was such a nice guy has given me massive respect for both Broken Bells and The Shins. I definitely plan to try to see them every time they tour here now.

Anyway, I felt like there were probably others who wanted to talk to him, so I bid farewell and it was time for me to make my way over to 6th Street to see Hole. Originally I was going to pop in and see Broken Social Scene in between Broken Bells and Hole, but since I had such a long conversation with James Mercer I was not able to… worthy trade-off though!! Upon arrival at The Dirty Dog which was where Hole was about to go on, there was a line of badges down the street, for they were at capacity and doing the one-in-one-out thing. I wasn’t with a random guy with a SXXpress pass this time so I had absolutely no chance of getting in. I waited in the line for about 10 minutes, but then decided that seeing Hole was not worth the wait. And, if I even did get in the show would be almost over… so I decided to briefly pop into another bar on 6th Street (one that was NOT doing SXSW stuff) where a couple friends were hanging out and say hi. Once there, I realized I was tired and burnt out on music/beer for the day and just wanted to go home. So I left and headed home to instantly pass out.

Overall, it was a quite awesome, fun, random, and exhausting day. 3 down, 1 to go!