The best part about festivals....

With the Austin City Limits music festival approaching, I came across a listing of all the "after party shows".  This is rad!  As I'm now learning about the larger music festivals, it seems a lot of musical acts play side-gigs in bars around town.  What an unbelievable way to see some of your favorite bands! 

The first time I experienced this was at the New Orleans Jazz Festival that Julie and I attended in Spring, 2009.  There were so many of those type of gigs, often running concurrently, that we had to make some hard choices between who we might get to go see.  The saving grace, of course, is that when one act sells out, there's ususally another one to go see the same night anyway...disappointment averted!

In NOLA, one act that I was dying to go see was Tim Reynolds.  He's more commonly known as one of Dave Matthews' colleagues.  They've released two live albums together, "Live at Luther College" and "Live at Radio City Music Hall".  Tim now plays and tours with DMB full-time.  He is an absolutely ridculous guitar player.  We caught him at a bar called Tipitina's.  Maybe 250 people there or so...up close and personal.  I think the tickets were $12.00.  And he did not disappoint.  I remember he started the gig with a Led Zeppelin cover and finished the show with a Led Zeppelin cover.  Bookends, as it were.  Naturally, a lot of people at the gig were anticipating a guest spot by Dave and Tim played with us on that.  In the middle of the show, this guy dressed up in a Winnie the Pooh costume danced out onto the stage (wearing a gas mask, no less) and bopped around for a couple of songs. 

At first everyone assumed it was Dave, and although the life-sized Pooh bear never revealed his face, I think everyone eventually realized the joke was on us.  But let me tell you, the effect of it all was so much fun!  That was a terrific show.

Another special one that we saw was Death Cab for Cutie.  They played in the underground unloading dock at the New Orleans Art Gallery, so picture going into an underground parkade, all cement and very spacious.  The crowd was maybe around 500 people, all standing and dancing, packed together.  Tickets for that one were $20.  It actually still stands up as one of the best shows I've ever been to.  I wasn't even a monster fan.  But after seeing them play live, especially in that kind of intimate setting, I was hooked.  Ben Gibbard was almost made for that kind of gig....he portrays an intimate kind of personality and I was lucky to have seen it. 

Other highlight gigs we saw included Susan Tedeschi at the House of Blues and one of Julie's favorites, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, also at the House of Blues.  Julie got her picture taken with the five foot nuthin' Ms. Jones and afterwards, while walking back towards Bourbon Street, we met up with a couple of the Dap Kings on a street corner while waiting for the light to change.  We walked with them and talked for a couple of blocks and were totally blown away by how accessible and friendly these guys were.

Anyway, for ACL the list of bar gigs include Thursday night shows by First Aid Kit (a Swedish pair of girls we've recently discovered) and Spoon, who we saw play at the NOLA Jazz Fest.  Friday night, the highlight gig will be the Black Keys, playing at a place called Stubb's. But the best of them all....the one that we can hardly believe, is Sonic Youth, playing on the Saturday night at a bar called La Zona Rosa.  As mentioned before, this is Julie's all time favorite band.  She's never seen them play live and to be sure, they are the main reason she's so excited to go to ACL.  Now to find out that not only are they playing at the festival, but also in a bar while we're there...it's almost too much for my poor girl to take!  It promises to be a helluva gig. 

The energy for these kinds of experiences are fantastic.  For bands that have reached the "big time" and are  playing stadiums for 70,000 people all over the world, it's got to be a thrill of sorts to get back to where they all started; playing bar gigs.  And for the fans to be so up close and intimate with their heroes...well, even though I'm not as big of a fan of Sonic Youth as Julie, let's just say I have my own reasons for wanting to see Kim Gordon, et al up close.  ------------------>

*wink, wink*

Now, if we could only convince Phish that they should play in a pub....