When you're at SXSW, it starts to get pretty easy after a while to figure out who's been here before and who hasn't. The people that carry around with them the 10-page thick printed out sheets of parties and showcases, with which ones have free food and beer and whether or not these require RSVPs or not – these people have been here before. They know how to prepare. The first-years are the ones that come without anything like this and expect to be able to do everything that they want with just the normal schedule that SXSW provides you with when you check in. They think that if there's one band they want to see every hour, that means they'll be able to see all of those bands. They don't account for running from one end of Sixth Street to the other, waiting in line for half an hour even if you have a badge, and a lot of people forget to schedule in time to eat, actually. It's more like every other band.
Thankfully, people like me who have been there before know that you have to plan a schedule around where the venues are (making sure they're near each other if the shows are one after another) or you just have to get pretty damn lucky, which is what happened to me yesterday. After enjoying a nice little “blogger brunch†(sponsored by Zune, oddly enough), I hopped over to the Spaceland showcase and caught most of Monsters Are Waiting's set. Singer Annabelle's haunting voice was fantastic – this is one LA band I've been fascinated with (no pun intended, their first single being “Fascinationâ€) with for a while but hadn't been able to see live before, excluding the one song I caught at a random other show last month. If you're looking for a mellow female-fronted rock band, MAW is your band. After this is when I got lucky – I called around to see where the Filter Magazine day party was and, surprisingly enough, it was only one block over from where I was at – surprising because I was several blocks away from where all the venues were crowded together right next to each other. Walking over to Filter, I caught sets by Grand Ole Party, whose singer reminded me of Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Great Northern, a fantastic band on Eenie Meenie Records who were able to put on a solid performance despite a mic that kept on falling over. A lot.
Next was the Drive-Thru showcase. I'll be honest, I'm not really a big fan of really any of the Drive-Thru bands, I was just going to go to say hi to a couple of friends, but I ended up staying at the showcase for two hours. The open bar may have been a factor, but I'd like to blame it on some stellar performances. Steel Train put on a great performance that was a lot less “jam†than the last time I saw them, and even included a barbershop-quartet-esque singalong. I'm not sure if this is connected to the two new members who were added last December, since this was the first time I had seen them since then, but who knows. I'm sure someone will email me soon after I post this telling me if it was or not. A few more drinks with the guys in An Angle later (ha), The Early November played what would be most likely their last show in Austin ever, what with the breakup announcement and all. They played a good number of older songs for all of the more devoted fans out there and drove the crowd crazy, even enough that I was impressed and was enjoying myself.
I ran over and saw the last half of Margot & the Nuclear So and So's set at Hell Ya!'s showcase, who seemed like they were having a great time and put on a fairly good show, and then watched all of Birdmonster's set. The Bay Area band, who I've seen live one other time, puts on a damn fine live show – they know what it means like to be energetic and how to work the stage. After dinner, I caught a bit of Sage Francis's mildly-amusing-but-not-really-set and then took in a full set by Denmark's Under Byen, who put on a trippy performance complete with psychedelic visuals to correspond to their music. For fans of Bjork and Sigur Ros, I'd like to think. At Beauty Bar, I caught a set by dance rock band Foreign Islands. Their music wasn't very different or original and neither was their performance, I'll say. After them were Canadians Shout Out Out Out though, who put on a great performance punctuated with lots of dancing in the crowd. An electronic-rock band heavy on the electronics, their latest stuff has yet to be released in America yet, so I suppose this just served as a teaser. I kept on hearing rumors of a secret Daft Punk show that night which unfortunately ended up being very untrue, although I did freak out for a second because that would have been the highlight of my year. There are so many secret shows at SXSW that this would have been somewhat credible – figures that the one secret show I'd really want to see ends up being the untrue one.
