SXSW: Thursday, March 18 wrapup
After sleeping in, enjoying our delicious morning breakfast, coffee & laptop/work sessions, we headed over to the Convention Center to check out some of the Trade show. Much eye candy to be seen there... and free {guitar} picks galore... Oh! And free beer!! There's a lot of free beer at this ol' SXSW thing!!Then we headed over to the Caucus club where we saw the end of The Rosebuds (who were good!) and then had the distinct pleasure of watching Britt Daniel (lead singer from Spoon) play a solo acoustic set. So fantastic!!!
After that we cruised over to the Lucky Lounge where Lane was, and the Decemberists were playing. We saw them several months back and they've been a band I hardly even listen to anymore, but I didn't mind seeing them again. Afterwards we all went to grab something to eat. Tantek & Matt met up with us too and we enjoyed a quick meal at some place called Paradise (I think it was called) on 6th St. A fairly basic quick eats kinda place, but I had these really yummy Bar-BQ chicken tacos... only in Texas :)
That night we had a lot to choose from, but we decided to first hit the StellaStarr*show at The Red Eyed Fly... however shortly after getting there & getting in the door, we realized we didn't get there early enough, and we had to stand in this tricky (aka sucky) second line to get into the back. Bummer! This rarely happened as with the pass you're in most every show with an ID and a flash of the badge, and it's especially rock star when there's a long line of wristband peeps waiting and you just get to go right to the front and in the door! sweeeeet. But like I said, this instance sucked - and we could barely see or hear StellaStarr* as they finished up their set. We got in right after that & watched The French Kicks... who I saw open for Hot, Hot, Heat in Sept 03, and as much as I love their CD, I STILL can't get into them live. Next up on the lineup was supposed to be The Unicorns, but apparently they had some kind of visa/border problems coming here from Canada, so they replaced their set with The Dears. I had wanted to check them out, so we stayed for a few songs - and I even bought one of their CD's!
At this point it was about 12:30, so we headed over to a bar called Friends to watch The Wrens play their 1am show. It was PACKED!!! But we stuck it out and enjoyed possibly the BEST show we saw the entire time!! OH MY GAWD ARE THEY AWESOME LIVE!!!! I had no IDEA they were going to rock so hard, but I was absolutely blown away. They were incredible!!
