Yet more SXSW - our show!

Thought we'd get to finishing up our SXSW-blogging-about sooner - it was over a week and a half ago now, wasn't it? But what with the New Arrivals this past Friday and other stuff going on, well, you know... And now it's April 1st so we probably should make some stuff up about, like, how Metallica actually also played OUR show at 1am calling themselves "Elm" (and did only Diamond Head covers - you shoulda been there!) but as it is we're behind with the blogging so we'll stick to the actual facts, no foolin'.

So, the show. We're happy to report it turned out really well!! Not exactly without a hitch, but no major ones anyway. Does John Dwyer taking a tumble off one of the concrete steps of the Spiro's "amphitheatre" count? He was ok, does stuff like that every day no doubt...

Bands started turning up at the venue around 5 o'clock, with the show due to start at 7pm. It was nice to see those Gunslingers guys from France once more, we'd met 'em for the first time the previous week in San Francisco. And cool to finally meet Proscriptor McGovern and the other dudes in Absu, and all their wives! (Absu Wives, that sounds like another band name right there...) 

Anyway, there wasn't that much for us to do before the show, just some last minute fiddle faddle. Most of the difficult stuff had been dealt with already by the WFMU folks, who'd already been at Spiro's the previous day getting things set up to do their live radio broadcast. We did have to help solve some minor issues with the backline, particularly making sure that the drum kit on the outdoor stage was up to Proscriptor's exacting specifications. And then there was the business of locating the guy from the club who had all the drink tickets for the bands, very important! (One bummer - the club only would allow the tickets to be redeemed for Miller Lite...). And we had to find the box of Gunslingers LPs we'd shipped from Aquarius to Spiro's when they showed up in the mail in SF the day after those guys left for LA.

Then suddenly it was 7pm and the AQXWFMUXSWSW 2009 showcase was officially underway! Prizehog on the outdoor stage, Gary War on the indoor stage. We were a little worried that 7 was sorta early for a start time, people might still be out at afternoon parties and stuff, but lo and behold, folks showed up. By 8 o'clock, when Wildildlife and XYX were scheduled, there was definitely a decent crowd, and it kept getting bigger. The highwater mark crowd-wise was probably during Absu's set, when the outdoor area was TOTALLY packed, with Woven Hand likely getting the biggest indoor-stage crowd, later on. 

All the bands rocked. We knew we liked all of them (well, took WFMU's word on a couple we hadn't really heard before, and were right to do so, and vice-versa) but hadn't seen all of 'em live before. Even Ovens from San Francisco, it was Andee's first time seeing them play and he had already put out their cd! So we weren't sure what to expect in all cases. Fortunately, all the bands definitely delivered. We were rushing back and forth between the two stages to try to see it all. We could have not seen any other bands at SXSW and been satisfied (actually, that's pretty much what Andee did).

You may have already read Andee's Twitter tweets about each band, he kinda reviewed 'em as they played (hmm, 140 characters max, maybe we should do our New Arrivals list reviews Twitter style too, whattya think?). You can find 'em here if you missed his play-by-play account of the evening. My camera's battery crapped out pretty early on, but I got some pics with my phone. Also our friend Denman managed to take video of some of the sets which we'll link to, too.

Here's a few shots...

The outdoor ampitheatre stage area empty, while things were being set up. I think that's Ovens sitting against the wall on the right.

A blurry Andee chatting with the sound guy outdoors.

Prizehog! Awesome droned out guitar/synth/drums sludge. A nice start for our "heavy" part of the evening, outdoors. And until we saw 'em, we had no idea there was a woman in the band.

Gary War!

 Wildildlife!

Ok, gotta run now (otherwise I'll be late to tonight's Bohren & Der Club Of Gore show at the Great American). So, more pics/posting tomorrow...