Daigle’s SXSW Saturday Night Showcases
Posted April 14th, 2009 ·
Once again, originally posted basically identically on my website, here is the final part of my writeup of SXSW 2009. Go here to find BVaz’s excellent take on the same evening of fun.
Continuing to march down the line following the Friday Day Shows, the Friday Night Showcases, and the Saturday Day Shows, this is the final installment of SXSW 2009 for me or for DBF - the Saturday Night Showcases. Saturday night there was not a real solid plan. Most of the bigtime shows that we had planned in advance of going to had come and gone so we were ultra go with the flow. All we knew is that we did not want to go see Kanye at the Fader Fort. (Kanye at SXSW? Why, exactly?) After hitting up some grub, we began by heading way down to the Belmont because Glasvegas was the headliner, plus open bar and no cover. Upon arriving at the Belmont they had an updated bill….with no Glasvegas. Find out what we did in our desperation and terror upon realization Glasvegas would not be playing the Belmont the jump.
After figuring out that we would be seeing no Glasvegas (sniffle) we then debated between Maggie Mae’s and Mohawk. Both venues had multiple stages so we figured if something was terrible on one stage, we could just go to the other stage in the same venue. We happened to be having a drink next door to Maggie Mae’s, so that won out. First band we saw was Asteroid Galaxy Tour:
Apparently they are another iPod hit band. Apparently they played the song. (I did not recognize it). I liked these guys – they were somewhere between MGMT and the Village People, style-wise. Music wise, I was ok with them; they didn’t blow me away but didn’t offend my delicate ‘drums. The next band that took the stage at Maggie Mae’s I did not get a photo of because we had realized that Maggie Mae’s was charging a separate cover for each of the stages in the same venue – like they had passageways blocked off so if you wanted to go upstairs from where we saw AGT, you had to go outside, pay another cover, then go up. This was exceptionally irritating because they made no indication of this when we were waiting in line preshow.
We decided to head to (can’t remember the name of the venue) to try to see Wintersleep, but upon arriving there, the surly door guy informed us that they would only let in badges and wristbands. This was honestly the only time we had any problem with not having a badge or wristband. Distraught, we turned to go to the Mohawk, because through the magic of Twitter we still were under the impression that they had two stages (which they did – all for one cover, too. In your face, you cheap, dirty Maggie Mae’s.) Upon arrival at Mohawk, we went inside to the middle of the set of the band already on, Past Lives:
I liked Past Lives. Very anguished. Very troubled. Verrrrry serious. SER-I-OUS. Next up on the indoor stage was Fiasco:
These guys were hilarious yet sort of huge dickheads. Hilarious because I think they had all been drinking, and their band – a trio – was of the “everyone just solo all at once” kind of mentality. That is very amusing, but it doesn’t make for very good listening. They were kind of dicks because they kept making these negative and sarcastic comments to us like, “Oh thank you for coming to see us. This is THE largest crowd we have ever played to.” Anyways, we left to go upstairs and have a taco before Mae Shi took the stage outside:
Mae Shi was pretty fun, their lead singer looked a little on the crazy side, engaging the crowd in various hardassed staredowns, but I liked their music. This shot is of when they bring out this huge parachute and pass it over the crowd and everyone is under the parachute while they play. While I was really enjoying Mae Shi, I was exhausted, and after about 5 songs I started to look for a cab. Did you guys know that Austin has about 4 cabs in the entire city? Yeah, it sucked and I literally never found a cab – even after walking around for over 25 minutes downtown. Lame lame lame, Austin.
All in all, I really enjoyed my short time at SXSW. I wish I could have done 3 things, though – 1) that I could have seen the entire Wavves set, 2) that I could have seen Glasvegas, and 3) that I could have seen The Hold Steady. But, instead of Hold Steady, I got to see Loney, Dear which was my biggest surprise of the festival, and them along with Beach House and Department of Eagles were my favorite shows. I honestly am really ready for and already excited about SXSW 2010. Can’t wait!
