Gift Horse at SXSW '09

hey there.


here's what we did at SXSW 2009:

Friday, March 13th: Play a really fun set at Caledonia with two of our favorite bands, TwinTigers and A.Armada. If you came to see it, thank you very much and we hope you had a great time. I, for one, think it was an unbelievable bill and all three bands were well worth the price of admission. See the 3/13/09 video from the previous post.

Monday, March 16th: Drive like hell.

Tuesday, March 17th: Drive some more. Brandon turns 27. He crosses the Mississippi River for the first time. We randomly run into Twin Tigers at a gas station in east Louisiana. We say hey and then roll out. They proceed to catch up with us and then smoke our asses on I-20 and beat us to Dallas, where we are playing a show together on the way to Austin. We arrive at the illustrious Hotel Lawrence in the historic East End where the elevator makes us whimper with fear. When we get to the room we realize that we can see the Texas Book Depository sixth floor window, Dealy Plaza, grassy knoll, and spot where JFK was shot out of our window:





The view from the hotel









There's an "X" in the road where JFK was shot









Vaughan maps out a conspiracy theory








The grassy knoll is grassy as hell

Much grassier in real life









Book Depository

The half-open window on the top right side of the building is where Oswald allegedly fired from





Hunter and I "keeps it real"

(our freaky ass old hotel in the background)



We spend about thirty minutes there and collectively agree that there was another gunman on the knoll. I'm convinced. Twin Tigers inform us via phone call that they are "post knoll" and at the venue guzzling beers. So we head off to find City Tavern. We are fed some delicious food and then Twin Tigers plays a ridiculously good set, as always. Immediately after the last note we are informed that it "was just too damned loud" and we share a laugh. Our set consists of our entire upcoming album in order. Things go well.







Twin Tigers are very very good



They played first...









...and then we came on

"Just too damned loud for Texas!"



Special thanks to City Tavern for being so good to us. Eat there and get a drink next time you're in the Big D.

Wednesday, March 18th: Get up early and grab breakfast at the Lawrence. Hit the road and make it down to Austin just in time for our first show at Cheers on 6th Street. Things are hot, crowded and crazy. The load-ins are insanity. I finally find a spot to park the van, run 19 blocks in the Texas heat and jump on stage. We play. Things go well again. We find the locals who are letting us post up at their place and relax. A few of us go see a good local band called Sunset.

Thursday, March 19th: Get up and shake off the sore muscles. Play another day set at Cheers and get to see L.A.'s Red Cortez. They were damn good and lots of fun. Later that afternoon we randomly run into our friends Ben and Nick from Arizona. We hang out with them on 6th street for a second and watch this kid on the sidewalk playing French music. He was awesome. Check out Arizona's SXSW 2009 recap for Blender. We head up Congress St. to Homeslice Pizza where Dead Confederate plays a killer slot to a grand crowd. I think they played three encores. On the way back we notice that the Texas state capital building is enormous:






Insert lame "everything's bigger in Texas" caption here



There are also a thousand people on a bridge at sundown waiting for a bunch of bats to fly out from under the bridge. Crazy. We play a night set at Agave's on 6th street. Arizona, being the cool dudes that they are, come to see us. The crowd is awesome and a bunch of people watch us on the street. I ran 19 blocks in record time once again.

Friday, March 20th: Take the day off to go see bands. Matt and I find Beach House, Grizzly Bear, Peter, Bjorn & John and Dinosaur Jr. on 4th street. We miss Dinosaur Jr. but decided that we were going to see them at the upcoming 40 Watt show with Dead Confederate anyway. So it's cool. Peter, Bjorn and John were my official "surprise of the week" and they put on a hell of a show. I think this is the night that Brandon saw Black Cobra, who rocks face. Pics from the Cedar St. Courtyard show:







Beach House




Grizzly Bear



Saturday, March 21st: Get up way too early and head to Side Bar to set up for the 40 Watt day party. We run the sound, and the following bands play the indoor stage: Dancer Vs. Politician, Venice is Sinking, Quiet Hooves, Pride Parade, Gift Horse, Dead Confederate, Twin Tigers, The Dumps. The Dumps play without a doubt the best set I saw all week at SXSW. There is blood, spit and beer cans flying. Outside stage: A.Armada, Maserati, Modern Skirts, Holy Liars, The Winter Sounds, Gentleman Jesse, Still Flyin', and Mean Creek.


Here we is...40 Watt day party at Side Bar


After packing up we head off to Club Primos on east 6th for our last gig of the week. It's a latin dance club. We eat at a very good and very authentic roadside taqueria in front of the club. Delicious. Hunter brushes up on his Spanish and promotes "Tecate, Tecate Lite y Heineken" into the microphone. The set ends with about 5 minutes of us making noise and all of our friends coming up on "stage" and making noise with us. We scare the barflies. After the show Hunter went to go see No Age up the street.

Sunday, March 22nd: We get up, once again waaay too early and head back to Athens. But before we do, we say goodbye to our gracious hosts Caitlin, Maya and Lindsey. They put southern hospitality to shame, made the stay very comfortable for us and showed us a good time. We can't thank them enough. We left Austin at about 8 a.m. Central time and got back to Athens at about 4 a.m. Eastern. See y'all next year...

2 comments:

John said...

Killer post. Sounds like it was a fun and exhausting time. And an "x" in the road? That's creepy. Hope to catch up soon. Keep up the noise!

Anonymous said...

Two "x's" actually. One for the first shot and a second for the other two. Very creepy.