CraveOnline SXSW: Day Four

DAY FOUR

Ah, St. Patrick's Day. As if this crowd needs an excuse to get hammered.

A good way to determine how drunk you are at SXSW is to pay attention to how you react to the endless array of people handing you shit throughout the day. At any given point from noon till 2 AM or so, you can stick out your hand in the middle of 6th street and have everything from flyers to CDs to condoms to ice-cream sandwiches shoved into it. I started my day accepting each promotional offering with a smile; by mid-afternoon, I'd begun mostly ignoring the hand-outs, grabbing the occasional energy bar or sticker. By midnight I was simply smacking the items to the ground, weaving through an ocean of drunk audiophiles dressed, painted or otherwise covered in green.

Launching into the final day of this frantic music marathon, I pulled the standard Jedi antics at the always-packet Fort on 4th, slipping inside and catching the second half of a tight set by Redman. I found a spot on one of the stage-side couches with the day's first free drink, watching as the breathing stereotype to my left devotedly sipped from two separate cans of beer, apparently waiting for his chance to be an Arctic Monkeys stand-in.
The afterparty had a block party feel to it, steadily growing as the DJ filled the air with early hip-hop classics. Cops began to arrive as the crowd spilled into the streets, and I moved on.

Passing the adorable, chain-smoking Kirsten Dunst in the street was interesting; the lung cancer bug-chaser seemed to be on the lookout for someone, maybe trying to avoid puffy paparazzi parasite pansy Perez Hilton, who could be found flashing his gleaming tusks for cameras wherever a star was in hugging range.

I gravitated to the sound of scream-thrashing Pantera wannabes BlindDryve down on the corner, getting inside the club just in time to get landed on by a flying guitarist. One head gash, a fucked up ankle and three shots later, I watched Bad Wizard conquer Emo's main stage with their Kiss-meets-MC5 seventies party rock.

Afterwards, I vaguely remember providing unwanted harmonies and laughing my ass off at some fool standing outside the bar in a bandana topped with a sideways hat, singing like an even-lower-rent Nick Lachey to a bunch of swooning young idiot princesses.
But I suppose that's neither here nor there, considering what happened next. Suddenly I found myself breakdancing with an equally drunk Jamie Kennedy, there promoting his new movie by challenging people to breakdancing battles. I don't have any goddamned idea how to breakdance, but that wasn't about to stop me. I may have damn near broken my neck, but hell, I got a slap-bracelet out of it.

Feet aching, Chris and I made the seemingly endless walk across the river to the Town Lake stage, where Public Enemy tore shit up twenty-four hours ago. Feeling a lot like James Caan from that nasty scene in Misery, it was tempting to flag down one of the "Dikes on Bikes" (actual company name) bicycle-taxis zipping by left and right.

Metal-gods Mastodon had already taken the stage when we arrived. Dominating the fairgrounds, they eclipsed every metal band I'd seen yet at SXSW with dumbfounding ease. There wasn't a painted green face or leprechaun hat to be found in the riotous and very Ozzfest-looking crowd, either; these fans were here for one thing only.

Note to self: No matter how drunk you are, no matter how much you're into the band playing just outside, do not rock out in a porta-potty.

Tech-metallers Child Abuse pulled me across the river to the Redrum club, sounding like Meshuggah on acid at the circus. Blown away, I headed outside to talk to the guitarist while female-fronted squealrockers Blackaholicus set up. The patio area looked like a Nikki Sixx lookalike contest, however, so I decided to leave before nausea got the best of me.

Scattered throughout 6th street were the sole source of nourishment for thousands of SXSW attendees: Best Wurst hot-dog stands. Restaurants were either too time consuming, full, or unwilling to cater to hordes of drunk fools dressed in green. Lines for the overpriced, delicious meat-tubes ran forty to fifty deep at any given time, but they were worth the wait to me at least ten times throughout the week.
Besides, it's a bit surreal, buying bratwursts from a dude with magnetic field equations tattooed on his left bicep.

Random lines heard today:
"How'd you find my nipple so fast?" - One drunk stranger to another
"And then Bob Saget walks in, and acts like he doesn't fuckin know me." – Some chick
"My girlfriend said I can have a second girlfriend that just gives head." – Some dick

Grupo Fantasma's spicy, drum-heavy Latin grooves were pulsing from Emo's, momentarily distracting me as I made my way to the Presidents Of The United States Of America show at Maggie Mae's rooftop. The Seattle band had all in attendance jumping, clapping and singing along, shaking the entire upper level as they played weirdo hits Lump, Peaches and so on.

SXSW 2007 was very close to being over, but my favorite moment of the entire festival was yet to happen; I got to Stubb's just in time to catch shirtless, serpentine and always-demented Iggy Pop leading The Stooges through a devastatingly powerful TV Eye, launching himself across the stage like a speed freak who's won the lottery. The Stooges truly ruled the night, a timeless example of pure, unfiltered Rock N' Roll.

My final reserves of adrenaline still raging from the show, I thought I'd try for one last performance. The line to see Cursive at the Beauty Bar was impenetrable, so I climbed the side fence, over a porta-potty and into the fourth row. All in all, they didn't blow my skirt up, but they were worth the climb.

By 1:30 am, the streets began dissolving into madness. Drunks arguing, puddles of vomit popping up with increasing frequency, cops left and right... time to go home.

Blackaholicus rock the Redrum