Sitting in the convention center, typing away at this blog while the iPod recharges prior to the flight out of town, watching the people line up for music bade registration… insane. Everyone was right, everything changes when the music festival starts. New types of people, new types of rules, new environment. Every bar has a million bands playing. Awesome.
Meant to blog earlier this morning, but the gang and I had to pack up and get out of the hotel room. Pete should be home by now, and Don should be in his new hotel (he’ll be staying until Saturday). Me? I fly out in just under 4 hours, which means I’m about 2 hours away from leaving for the airport.
Last night was fun, we all went to the closing night party at Maggie Mae’s and made our final peace with SXSW, as one should. Once I realized I had had all the film conversations I was willing to have, we decided to move on to a local bar, el casino del camino, for some final late night hanging. The bar was amazing, great jukebox selection, quality people inside and “Slither” on the TV screens (a movie which caused me to wait until after it had ended before I would try the burgers everyone was bragging about tasting so amazing).
In an effort to finally get a taste of the music side of SXSW, I made it down to Emo’s earlier today for the Metro Chicago party, mainly to check out Sybris live. They were awesome, and I’m glad I finally got to see them play. And to Mr. Chris Gore, who taunted me about being unable to attend the last time they played Los Angeles (a show he attended while I covered CineVegas), the band was gracious enough to give me a disc of new songs. So, uh… TAKE THAT, GORE!
Also just saw Robyn Hitchcock walk by. If I weren’t leaving, I’d be checking his show out tonight too. Luckily he’ll be doing some LA shows soon enough (with the mighty, mighty Sean Nelson), so I’ll get to see him play.
There you go, SXSW 2007 is in the bag… for the most part. We’ll have new reviews and videos running all through the end of this week and weekend, with a wrap-up of all the coverage to come on Monday (for those of you who want a one-stop shop). Thanks to Matt Dentler for another solid line-up of films, and thanks to Red Bull, Jagermeister, Vodka and the Suicide Girls for making Sunday a night none of us will ever fully remember…
I know I write for the site and all, so I naturally like it, but I liked it even more this week with all the dedicated SXSW coverage. Kudos to you Mark for marching at the head of this band of film-obsessed brains. There’s been some good reading all these days.