Austin continued

Getting up slowly on Saturday, this is the only day we did not secure tickets to the actual festival.  We only had Friday and Sunday tickets, so we figured a day about town in Austin would be a good thing.  We trotted down to Annie’s for the brunch that Bill had been selling us on the day before.  Delish!  Some mimosa’s to get us awake and off down the street we were!  Of course, this is now 2:30pm…heh, heh.

We wandered around the downtown core and sixth street, running in and out of all the little shops.  We considered a vacation tattoo as we did in N’awlins, but after checking out the portfolios in the plethora of tattoo shops we decided they were pretty much all scratchers.  There was some cool stuff to be seen, though.  About halfway into the trek, Julie felt the warm flow of bird shit creeping down her arm after becoming the victim of a pigeon’s target practice.  Haha!!  “Isn’t this supposed to be good luck or something?”  That’s my girl….

After walking up and down, we deked into a pub called the Jackalope.  We had read that this bar recently won the distinction of Austin’s best dive bar.  Just so happened to hit happy hour, so for my beer and Julie’s tequila/ soda it was only like, $4.00 or something ridiculous.  Needless to say we stayed for a couple.

We wandered around a bit more, then hit dinner in the hotel before walking to tonight’s aftershow.  The one we’ve been waiting for:  Sonic Youth in a bar!  It was about a half hour walk from our hotel.  This whole weekend so far I’ve seen people everywhere with their cameras, happily snapping  up pictures at events that called for the ban of cameras on the tickets.  So this time I decided to be brave and bring my along.  Of course (!!!) we get busted at the door…”you can’t bring that in here”.  I pleaded, begged, offered up the card…anything.  Nope.  This meant, a half hour before showtime, that I had to run back to the hotel in order to get rid of said camera.  Fak!  In the interest of moving fast I left Julie there and ran.  By the time I returned and gained entry, maybe 25 mins. had elapsed, Warpaint had just taken to the stage to open the show, Julie was on her second drink and I was dripping sweat all down my red, red face.  But at least I was there now!

Warpaint was killer…terrific band!  Sonic Youth was also amazing.  For the second time this weekend I bought into Thurston’s guitar and Kim’s rocking.  There were maybe 350 people in there or so.  They played three encores.  By the time we were crawling out of there, my feet were killing me!  Back to the hotel for bedtime….but not before yet another hot dog fiesta!

We wandered back down to the festival for Sunday and were amazed how many people were packed into the little TV lounge area there because the football game was on.  In the middle of a music festival, crowds in front of the stages were being lost to the football game on TV.  The season has barely even started..not like this was the Super Bowl or something.  Anyway, had a couple of beers to cool off and then tried some fried pickles (yum!).  Met some rad people that we chatted with for a while.

Saw Devendra Banhart, then got a good spot on the grass for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.  In the distance we could hear, I think, The Gayngs doing a cover version of the Beastie Boys, “Sabotage”.  Before Mr. Sharpe ended, we snuck out and hit up Martin Sexton and ran into those aforementioned rad people on their way to see him, too.  Julie bought all of us a beer and fast friends were made.

We then jetted off again to catch Band of Horses.  They sounded great and very much like their studio selves.  We stuck around for a few songs before Julie declared being “over them” and off we went in search of more beer and the stage for The National; another terrific live presence.  By the time they wrapped up, we were tipsy and only one show remained:  The Eagles.  In the eternal words of one Jeffery Lebowski, “I hate the fuckin’ Eagles, man!”  We decided to forego those festivities and head back out.  No aftershow tonight, so we headed to find our own fun.

Wandering down our now comfortable Sixth Street, we popped into a couple of places for one beer, then off.  Until we walked past a place and heard this guitar player from the street.  He was getting on the blues and sounded good so we went in.  He was awesome!  We sat there and listened the rest of the night…and this cat didn’t stop all night.  It was a style of Texas Blues, his name was Alan Haynes and truly, this guy was awesome.  Really enjoyed that.

We made it back to the hotel by midnight or so and since we skipped out on our now nightly hot dog, hit up the hotel lounge.  Julie continued her Texas meat attack by getting the croissant loaded with smoked turkey and applewood bacon!  She ate it like a pro.  Drunkenly, we stumbled back up to our room after that.

Monday was home day, so we just took a few touristy pictures downtown and got ourselves all ready for travelling.  All in all, had fantastic time and look forward to the next travelling adventure that Julie and I set ourselves up for.  Hhmmmmm…..what will it be?