People really come to SXSW for three things: music, partying and meetings. Almost every trip to Austin has some kind of combination of the three and either fortunately or unfortunately (I haven't decided yet), yesterday was one of those days where it was almost all meetings, all day long. It's good for me because I got work done and didn't have to walk around as much as I normally would have, but also it means I saw significantly less bands yesterday than I normally do and that makes for some pretty boring writing.
Having not gone to sleep until 3:30 the night before, waking up in time to write about Day 2 was hard enough since I had a 9 AM meeting, but it was done, despite me sleeping through my first alarm. Meetings continued throughout the day and the first band I was actually able to see was, of course, Telepathe playing at Waterloo Records for an in-store at 5. I've already written about them a couple of times so I'll skip it for now. I tried to see what was up with the Metallica secret show afterwards, but the rumors that I was hearing was that people had been lining up all day, and so especially since I had another meeting at 7, by the time I was out of that, there was essentially zero chance of me getting in. Bummer but oh well, since instead I went to Buffalo Billiard's for the ILG showcase, starting with As Tall As Lions. Currently recording their next record, they were energetic as ever and put on a great show. The crowd was obviously there pretty much just to see them, since as soon as they were done, the venue emptied out. Funeral Party was up next and by the time they started playing, the room had filled up a bit but definitely nowhere near as much for ATAL. Still, the boys in Funeral Party played a fairly good show; it was the kind of slightly danceable indie rock with ATDI-ish vocals which made for lots of energy but after a while, the songs began to blend together. Not bad overall though.
After Funeral Party was the main attraction though, P.O.S.. In all honesty, I haven't really listened to P.O.S. before, but I know that several friends are obsessed with him and he's been getting plenty of buzz in other places too, so I felt obliged to check it out at least. He definitely didn't disappoint - one of the few acts I've seen this week, aside from Little Boots, to really get the crowd into the show, which is fairly impressive since the majority of the crowd are stuffy industry types. Asher Roth even came on to perform a song with P.O.S. and even though I kind of hate his "I Love College" song that is everywhere nowadays, I have to say that the guy knows how to put on a show. The two of them together was pretty magical, and makes me really want to see more hip-hop shows. That was pretty much the end of my day music-wise (I know, like I said, not my most music-packed day), but tomorrow should be more interesting, Perez Hilton party and all.
