SXSW 2011 Concerts filmed - and sung - by yours truly
- Duran Duran: A View to a Kill
- The Strokes: Last Night (& fireworks), followed by Someday
- Violens: Full Collision
- The Naked and Famous: Young Blood, followed by Spank
- James Blake: Limit to your Love
What can I say. It was huge. All this is just 24h, just 5 of the 400 concerts on at SXSW last March. Lucky yours truly got to go for work but no, these concerts weren’t part of my assignment. More like part of the biggest city-wide, block-spanning, eardrum-challenging and foot-soring music festival I’ve ever experienced. Yes the conferences were great too; and very much like the concerts, there’s so much on you don’t know where to start… or stop. Or how to find the good stuff (I mean look at the schedule for one of the big music days!) Yes, it all gets a bit much sometimes but you come away with a resounding “WOW” feeling.
Duran Duran (Duran Duran!) and James Blake night were a great starter (unlike the excessively noisy Suuns just before), but the next day, the odd proper meeting aside, was a case of hopping from concert to concert checking out new bands all over Austin. Wish I could remember all their names… but having SXSW-hardened guides made all the difference. After lunch we went off to a courtyard gig, then another in a bar, then another where my discovery of SXSW (Naked & Famous, above) were playing, then a meeting, then The Strokes with Clemence, then Violens, then phone packed in and panic set in, then I finally found same guides, who were still at it, pogoing to far-too-violent duo Middle Class Rut… until the early hours. They did this four days on the trot. I’d already had 3 days conferencing & co so was done for anyway.
In short, a proper whirlwind. Sometimes painful (TAXIS ARE HELL!) but mostly mindblowing. Oh and I got lots of work done too, honest :)
