SXSW'08: Saturday

I blew off most of the day out of mental and physical fatigue, and went on a BBQ run to Spicewood, TX, about 30 miles NW of the city. The place was called Opie's, we bought about $140 worth of various meats, and had a big old feast with about ten of us there. It was good times.

We then made a pit stop at the Outside Records party at the Saxon Pub, where I saw both Jill and Matthew Barber, though I have to confess I wasn't really paying attention to either. Their songs seemed nice enough but I was busy digesting.

From there, Flatstock was next, and I picked up five posters to add to my collection, featuring The Pernice Brothers, the Weakerthans, Centro-Matic, Okkervil River and the New Pornographers.

I then went back to the hotel and started trying to track down several of my friends who I had barely seen all week, and got a response from one that led me to hop into a cab and head to the French Legation Museum, which was hosting a daytime party that day. I "saw" She & Him, a new duo featuring folky M. Ward but mostly concentrating on the songs of the her, Zooey Deschanel. I liked them, though I couldn't actually see them because of the tent and sun in my eyes.

They were followed by the thing that lured me, another set by Okkervil River, who brought the, um, tent down with their eight-song set. Will Sheff has found his mojo and had one of my favourite lines of the festival when he was encouraging the crowd to clap along and said "C'mon, put down your iPhones and clap your hands!"

I went from there to see Welsh soul-pop chanteuse Duffy, who was nice enough though not anything I would rave about. I left the venue even though the mighty Okkervil River were the next band on, deciding that no matter how good they were I couldn't justify seeing them twice in four hours when I had only a few hours of festival left at all. So I walked over to another venue and saw Chicago's The Redwalls, a retro pop-rock band that has a big ole crush on the Beatles, which is alright by me. They were really good, and featured easily the best vocal harmonies I heard all week, which given that two of them are brothers isn't all that surprising.

I then decided to check out Justin Townes Earle -- no pressure there, your dad is Steve Earle and he named you after Townes Van Zandt, arguably the greatest songwriter country music has ever known -- and his five-man country ensemble. I enjoyed him well enough, and found the debate going on around the room about whether or not he looked like his daddy or not was amusing. (I swear I heard at least four different conversations about this in under 40 minutes.) Next up were Chicago's The Deadstring Brothers, a band I first discovered at SXSW in 2006. They were once again excellent, bringing their worship ofExile on Main St.-era Rolling Stones back to Austin yet again.

I was thinking about going to see the Slits after that, but was worried that the late start of their set, 12:15, might cause me to miss what I knew would be a great ending to the festival, British Sea Power's official showcase, at 1 a.m. So I decided to take my chances with the Autumns, from Los Angeles, who were playing before BSP, and while I didn't hate them, I didn't love them either. They were basically a shoegazer band with a Thom Yorke-wannabe singing, and their low point was certainly the song that I wrongly assumed was the end of their set which ended with all three guitar players and the bass player on their knees or lying on their backs noodling away. Tedious.

British Sea Power came on a bit late (as they had on Friday, again with the British tardiness!) but it was well worth the wait. They were absolutely off the hook, and the 20 or more other people I knew at the show, including quite a few jaded music-industry types who don't get excited about anything, all agreed it was one of the best things they saw all week. The crowd chanting "Easy! Easy! Easy!" along withHamilton on "No Lucifer" was exhilirating, and the freakout at the end while everyone wondered where guitarist Noble was going to end up was rock bliss, and a fabulous way to end a great week of rock music. Here's how that show, and my SXSW, ended on Saturday night. I think you can see my head in this shot, I must have been a few people in front of the cameraman.

That's it. I'm happy to entertain questions about any bands, and I can't guarantee I didn't miss anything in this writeup as it's all pretty jumbled still. Can't wait until March 2009 to do it all over again.