South By Southwest: The End

So South
By Southwest is over for 2009.

Yesterday was the comedown after a long day and
night of bands on Saturday. Much of it was wandering around aimlessly and just
seeing what there was to see – a random hardcore band late at night in some
warehouse,  some random pop singer in the middle of 6th Street, The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, Fake Problems,
another random band, Fanfarlo, the
very tail end of Graham Coxon – and
it ended with me falling asleep in a booth in a bar at 2am. Fun times.

There were lots of bands I wanted to see that I didn’t, mainly Cursive and Manchester Orchestra, but there’ll be other chances. And that’s the
thing – for me, SXSW is more about the unexpected, the random people and bands,
not trying to see your favourite bands, or bands you”ve seen before.
Because you’ll undoubtedly see them again. Some of the queues were also quite
ridiculous.

I’d much rather sip margheritas on a balcony as a band I’ve never
heard before play on a stage below me. That’s exactly what happened. I caught
the two bands I really wanted to see – the rest was a delicious cocktail of
chance and surprise. Here’s to next year!