Friday 20/03/09 South By Southwest @ Various Venues, Austin, Texas

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Exhausted from the night before, I got little sleep as I was ready to brave the third day of the festival.  Today was going to be filled with free breakfast and mid day Miller Light so I picked myself up and planned my schedule.

First up, the delicious BMI brunch at the Four Seasons hotel. I quickly stuffed my face and then headed over to SPIN Magazine’s annual day party at Stubbs where the lineup was as diverse as they come. I walked into Stubbs and caught the last half of Passion Pit who was the perfect afternoon treat.  When they broke into ‘Sleepyhead’, I couldn’t help but dance a bit, beer in hand.
I needed to be sure to see Hot Leg, Justin Hawkins new band and needless to say, I was mortified.  He now looks like he belongs in Judas Priest with a leather jumpsuit covered in metal studs and highlighted, bleach blonde hair.  Not only did he look scary, but the band was absolute crap. It was wrong on so many levels to say the least.

After stepping into a bad version of the 80’s with Hot Leg, I needed to go and see something familiar again, Late Of The Pier at the Filter Magazine party. Decked out in "disco-meets-indie" attire, the band was over an hour late to perform their set.  All went well until midway through ‘Bathroom Gurgle’ when a security guard pulled the plug on their set and the tour manager stepped in to re-plug it back in.  From there it turned into a load of pushing and shoving till it got so bad that the singer actually stopped performing and got involved.  A mini brawl was happening right before our very eyes!

Being troopers, the band soldiered on and finished their set to a very amped up audience.  Late Of The Pier are my new heroes…
Trying to follow up Late Of The Pier’s performance at Filter was going to be tough, but if any band could do it, it’s Razorlight.  Johnny Borrell in all his indie pop glory stepped on stage with a new Mick Jagger swagger and danced along to his own music as the band performed tracks from their latest release ‘Slipaway Fires’.  He even knocked over his own piano in the process and kept going...talk about dedication!

Managing to catch a bit of White Lies after Razorlight, I was impressed with what I saw.  They must have been very hot in their all black attire, but it fits with the sound so we can forgive them.  Now, on to the one and only Metallica!

Heading over to Stubbs to see the one and only metal legends, Metallica, was going to for sure be THE show to get into at SXSW.  Already 3 hours before the gig and the line was wrapped around the block!  Waiting patiently, I made my way into the venue rather quickly with a lot of time to kill.  Lucky for me, Silversun Pickups were performing before them and they were fantastic!  Even the new stuff sounded great, which made me excited for their new album!
Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for…METALLICA!

"Surprise”, stated James Hetfield as they all walked onstage as people went absolutely nuts!  Playing a greatest hits type set list was the perfect cure for the fans that had been waiting for hours to see them.  ‘Seek and Destroy’, ‘One’, ‘Master Of Puppets’…you name it and we pretty much got it.

It was going to be hard to top Metallica, but I attempted to see if it could happen and went over to catch Dinosaur Jr.’s set at the Cedar St. Courtyard.  Surrounded by a wall of Marshall amps, J Mascis stepped out onto the stage with his signature white long locks alongside Lou Barlow and Murph, ready to get this late night crowd alive.  Playing a diverse set of new and more familiar, older tracks, there is a reason this band is still going strong since 1984.