
I've been back in Nashville for two days now and I STILL feel like I could sleep for a week. But I'm at least rested enough to finish running down the rest of what we saw last week:
Thursday night
I already went on and on about the NPR party we caught at the Parish - suffice it to say it was amazing. Afterward, Becky and I caught up with Ryan from Muzzle of Bees and his friend Jake, and the four of us headed over to the Rio early to catch MGMT's official showcase. The setting was definitely bizarre - the Rio is a Mexican/margarita joint, and they had turned what felt like a little tiled indoor patio area into the stage and dance floor, complete with adjacent fountain. The first two acts on the bill were Florence & the Machine (pretty powerful female vocals - they opened up with a Cold War Kids cover which was kinda bizarre and cool) and Wild Light (I completely honestly do not remember much about them at all). MGMT was good in a really crazy way - I haven't listened to them that much and their stuff was way more psychedelic and proggy than I expected, with vocals that kept reminding me of Rush, but people were going berserk during the more rock-out parts of the set and there was even some moshing. I think if I wasn't experiencing a beast of a midnight hangover (drinking all day + stopping drinking + beer and strawberry margaritas = feeling awfully crappy) I would have loved it a hell of a lot more, but as it was the band left me vaguely impressed and vaguely bewildered. Our attempts to get into the Wombats showcase afterward were foiled, so we went to bed.
Friday
If Thursday was the best day of the festival, Friday was the absolutely marathon. The day started off HOT - the first show we hit was White Williams in a parking lot at the Free Yr Radio stage, and even at 11 a.m. it was sweltering. Just the fact that a week prior we had snow in Nashville and now I was experiencing 95 degree temperatures was pretty ridiculous. White Williams sounded pretty good, although they're probably more 11 p.m. music than 11 a.m. I think the other 10 people who were in attendance probably would have agreed.
Becky and I pretty much decided to lay off the booze until late afternoon and hit up the a/c as much as possible, and we started off with The Dodos and Ola Podrida at Hot Freaks. Both were excellent, although The Dodos were a bit less engaging than I expected; while they sounded great they were pretty stationary on the stage (the lead singer was sitting with his guitar). I love Ola Podrida's album and it was great to hear some of the songs live; I would love to see the band come to Nashville and play somewhere like the Basement.
The Wombats were our next target, so we hustled off to the Cedar Street Courtyard for the Filter Party, where we found out that the schedule had been shuffled a bit and the band was in a later slot. So it was off to the Next Big Nashville party across the street to cool off and catch a great set by our very own local boys Pico vs. Island Trees. I'm becoming bigger and bigger fans of theirs, and hopefully I'm going to get them on the show sometime soon.
Back at Filter, we got to see a bit of The Pigeon Detectives (who I had embarrassed myself in front of at SXSW last year) while we were waiting for the Wombats to take the stage. THAT's when I saw a familiar face next to us in the bar, and after two quickly-pounded drinks and a lot of freaking out, Becky and I finally approached our favorite helicopter pilot. Pretty. Damn. Awesome. The only thing that could have topped that was a ridiculously long overdue and rockin' set by The Wombats, which was exactly what we saw next. I saw a lot of great bands last week but The Wombats were probably the most fun - and I'm so glad I finally got to track them down.


The rest of the late afternoon/early evening was Nashvilletastic - a set by American Bang at Next Big Nashville, then dinner with my friend Michael from Yewknee and his friend Jamie at a white tablecloth-ed restaurant that made me feel like the dirtiest festival-goer ever. The setting was weird, but the crepes were delicious.

With Vampire Weekend, Jens Lekman, White Williams and Frightened Rabbit all checked off of my "must see" list, that just left White Rabbits. So Becky and I paid our way into their official showcase at Club de Ville, and decided to wait it out until the band took the stage at midnight. I'll admit I was struggling for the first part of the night - booze and a long day of fresh air had me ready for a nap - and The Builders & the Butchers and Bobby Bare Jr. didn't do much to wake me up. But Langhorne Slim was a completely unexpected surprise - for some reason I expected his set to be a snoozer (is a lot of his recorded stuff kinda slow, or did I imagine that?), but instead it bordered on being a crazy party. The other thing that helped me wake the hell up was that as Becky and I were sitting there, I saw someone short and dark-headed walk into the crowd and stand directly in front of me. Frodo freaking Baggins. Yup - Elijah Wood is apparently Langhorne Slim's #1 fan, and he rocked out for the duration of the set. We didn't want to interrupt his rocking and he booked during the last song (when half the audience was invited onto the stage) so we didn't get to say hi, but I was still thisclose to a HOBBIT. Damn.


White Rabbits were next and they ABSOLUTELY exceeded my expectations - which were even higher than they usually are for a new-ish band I love, since I've been dying to see them for almost a year now. Which means I'm already crossing my fingers for a Nashville date, because I'd love to see them again pretty much immediately. I would also love to describe their set with terminology that goes beyond "awesome," but looking back I think I was pretty drunk. White Denim wrapped up the showcase, and their stuff is well-suited to drunkenness - it's insane and messy and rock of the face-melting variety. It was an excellent way to wrap up 14+ hours of live music.

Saturday
Saturday was pretty much the day when my body really decided to hate me. Becky and I were trapped in our parking garage by shitty traffic until 3:30 or something ridiculous like that, which put bedtime somewhere in the realm of 4:30 - and despite the fact that it was the last day of the festival, we really couldn't suck it up and get out of bed before 11:30 a.m. Instead of heading immediately downtown, we decided to head to the UT campus to check out Tacks, The Boy Disaster at a KVRX show, which was a perfect and soothing way to start off the day - with sunshine, a cool breeze, pretty phenomenal acoustics for an outdoor concrete courtyard, and a set of songs that sounded even better than they did when I caught Tacks at Grimey's last year. Please come back to Nashville, boys. Please.

Oh, and while strolling around that neighborhood, we even saw some protesters in front of the Church of Scientology. Apparently they were part of a global picket, and while they were initially kinda intimidating (they were all wearing some scary masks) they were actually pretty entertaining and got WAY psyched when people honked as they were driving by.

We took it easy for the rest of the afternoon, and cabbed it downtown around the time most of the day parties were ending. Then Becky and I met up with Lee and Tracy from the Scene for what Becky dubbed "Meatfest 2008" - the second-best meal I ate this year in Austin (sorry, the chicken-fried avocado was totally #1). There's nothing like four girls putting away a ridiculous amount of ribs. And almost dying in a pedicab on the way there.

For the very last show of SXSW, Becky and I decided to hit up Buffalo Billiards to see Delta Spirit. We also saw Oh No! Oh My! (I've seen them before, they were okay this time but we were pretty far back for their set) and Tally Hall (they were all over the place and kinda meh, although they played a crazy cover of "Praise You," the Fatboy Slim track, that was kinda fun). Delta Spirit, who I got to see open for Cold War Kids last year, were officially my final band of SXSW. I've been listening to their album Ode to Sunshine more and more lately, and definitely falling in love with the band. While their set wasn't the crazy packed, sweaty jam that the Mercy Lounge show was, it was absolutely the perfect note to end the festival on.
Remember, more pictures are over on my Flickr.
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