SXSW 2008: Day One (in prep)
March 12th, 2008 Posted in Music, sxsw 2008
For the third year in a row I am kicking off the SXSW 2008 daily recaps. At the moment of writing this paragraph its not really a recap yet since we are still in Dallas getting ready for our jaunt down I35. At this point it has become tradition for me to fly into Dallas and then head down to Austin via car with Niki. Xina is joining us this year for her first SXSW experience. Its kind of hard to describe the musical chaos that is SXSW, its pretty amazing how much is going on all the time.
This being our third time around, Niki and I are approaching it with more of a laid back attitude about what acts, day parties, and showcases we need to hit. There are only a few must sees for us this year and luckily they are most are playing the NPR day show (Jens Lenkman, Radar Brothers and Adele). I would have thrown Vampire Weekend in there but after their lackluster SNL appearance I am not as excited as I once was. I know they are the hot topic of the week but I was really, really disappointed with how they presented themselves on the show. I am still looking forward to catching them and giving them a second chance, but they are going to have to put on a brilliant show to convince me they are worth the hype.
This is our first year where all of us have badges. The last two years, Niki decided to go the cheaper route and bought wristbands. One of the benefits to living in Dallas and having friends in Austin is that it made getting a wristband an easy task. That and it is ~$300 cheaper. The issue with having a wristband is that some day parties (the official ones) require a badge to get in or the queue to get in without a badge can be pretty intense come Friday/Saturday nights.
Niki broke down this year and got the badge, which is a good thing because SXSW drastically changed how they handle wristbands. To help curb scalping and out of town purchasing cough SXSW implemented a lottery system. A few weeks back people submitted their name into the lottery with a max of two tickets. If you won the lottery, which everyone who submitted this year did, you have to show up at a location with ID and have the wristband put on there. This prevents scalpers from buying a shit-ton of bands and then selling them to people like me or coughNikicough.
We are about to hear some rough cuts off if Fate Lions next studio album so I will call it a post for now…
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