SXSW 2010, Day 1

[_little_leaf]

food:

• brunch at The Counter Cafe
  
  1. breakfast taco
  2. MexiCoke (sugar, not HFCS)
  3. blueberry pancake
  4. another breakfast taco
• dinner at The Hideout
  
  1. berry smoothie
  2. sea salt and rosemary bagel with cream cheese

music:

• 7 pm @ Central Presbyterian Church: Balmorhea beautiful noise, great acoustics
• 7:30 pm @ Buffalo Billiards: Hesta Prynn 25 minutes late, too much cliche posturing. boring. left in the middle of the first song
• 8 pm @ The Hideout: Two Star Symphony great 8 piece (5 strings, a winds guy, 2 percussionists) with interesting fun instrumental pieces. wanted to buy an album but i don't think they had any
• 9 pm at Galaxy Room Backyard: Choir of Young Believers lovely Danish shoegazer pop. wish they had a longer set but there were sound problems at the beginning and they only got about 20 min of play time. audience complained loudly when they were asked to vacate the stage to make way for the next band (they pack the schedule quite tightly). If they're playing again, I might try to catch another set.
• 10 pm at Galaxy Room Backyard: Fanfarlo love this band. As my friend Anna said, the male lead sounds like David Byrne, but with a purer, rounder voice. quietly joyful bell-like pop. the two leads look like siblings. Are they?
• 11 pm at Opal Divine's Freehouse: The Coal Porters they call themselves alt-bluegrass. I just thought they were a lot of fun and they sang a few drinking/regret songs and a few traditional songs. The banjo player was amazing.
• midnight at Copa: Delhi2Dublin saw this band at the same venue last year. Love them. Punjabi dance music with an Irish fiddle. Pure joy. I've seen them in outdoor festival settings and didn't enjoy it as much. You really need people packed into a small space - it's like a revival. All the energy stirred up by the dancing bodies.
• 1 am @ Courtyard Marriot: bed Really. My back was killing me. I wanted to see Bushwalla at 1 am, because I caught the very end of a set last year and thought he was great, but the venue was too far and I was too tired.