It is hard to be excited by the sound of a wake-up alarm going off at 8AM. On this Saturday, I greeted my alarm with a smile. I was going to be performing with the band Wild Child at three SXSW events. There is nothing I love more than sharing my love of music on stage with an appreciative audience. On this day, I got to do that three times. After getting dressed and lacing up my boots, we quickly drove our gear down to Hotel St. Cecilia, just south of downtown Austin. This was a small boutique hotel with rustic high-end cottages that cater to celebrities and the wealthy. Wild Child was the featured act for a special event put on by the mobile app called Bumble. The event was set up in the immaculately manicured outdoor courtyard. There was an impressive spread of fancy foods for the guests that included cucumber sandwiches, charcuterie plates, delicate pastries, fruit salads, and more. While the food might not have been explicitly for the artists, we helped ourselves because we were hungry and it was free.
During soundcheck, I looked up and saw a familiar face walking down the pathway towards the bar. I couldn’t quite place who it was until he turned and walked towards the band. Suddenly, it clicked and I knew exactly who it was. It was the famous comedian and actor Bill Murray. He mulled for a moment and listened to our soundcheck before heading back inside. I don’t usually get star-struck but at that moment I couldn’t find the words. Just seconds later my drummer started pointing behind me with his jaw on the floor. I turned to look and standing right behind me was the lead singer of Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant. If I thought I was already star-struck, this was a whole new level. This is one of the five people or so that inspired me to pursue a life in music. I never even thought of him as a real person that I could meet. In my mind, he was more of a mythical idol. I had to talk to him and thank him. I thought about what I was going to say. I saw my opportunity and confidently walked over while he was alone at the bar. Just as I was about to open my mouth two young girls rushed up and loudly said, “Oh my gosh! You’re the guy from Led Zeppelin! My dad loves you!” This is probably one of the top ten worst things you can say to a rock god. I could see the frustration in his eyes but he retained a calm and cool demeanor. I knew I could not redeem the situation, so I just stood there silently as he walked away and left the event with his posse. I’m sure you’re thinking, show us pictures or it didn’t happen. Well, I respect the privacy of celebrities and think it is rude to take photos without permission and it is really un-cool to ask for photos. Although, I might have snapped a selfie with Robert Plant had I been able to chat with him. So in this case, you will just have to take my word for it.
Our performance was fun but very low key. We were more of background music at this high-society soiree. Other celebrities such as Rachel Ray and Kevin Bacon milled about munching on cucumber sandwiches and sipping on champagne. Polite golf clap style applause accompanied the end of each song. Even though the performance was rather subdued the overall experience was one that I will never forget. After we wrapped up our set, we quickly packed and loaded our gear and drove downtown towards our next performance.
As we pulled up to The Barracuda on 7th Street by Red River, I noticed a huge line wrapping around the block. The queue must have been several hundred people long and they were waiting for the show we were going to play. We walked right past the line to load in our equipment. This was no easy task, as we had to slowly maneuver our gear through the incredibly dense crowd. Once we had our equipment loaded to the side stage we had the chance to watch the band that was playing before us. The group called Diarrhea Planet from Nashville was blasting hard rock to an incredibly animated crowd. The band finished their set with a harrowing stunt. The lead guitarist jumped into the audience and climbed one of the stage support beams. He then hung inverted by wrapping his legs around one of the rafters. To the crowd’s delight, he swung his guitar into his arms and rocked out while hanging like a bat above the audience. To complete his stunt he jumped from the rafters only to be caught by the crowd. He then crowd surfed, while shredding his guitar, all the way back to the stage just in time to hit the triumphant last note of the set. Luckily, I was able to catch this rock n’ roll moment on video. You can watch the whole thing below.
After Diarrhea Planet cleared their equipment, Wild Child took the stage. It was another incredibly rushed changeover. Luckily there was a great stage crew and sound engineer to make the hectic process quite manageable. In ten minutes we were ready to play to a crowd of over five hundred. The first gig of the day may have been one of the quietest I have ever played and this was one of the loudest. The crowed screamed and cheered as we played our set. Everyone on stage had smiles from ear to ear. There is no feeling quite like that of playing a big and loud rock show. We finished our set on a high note and walked off the stage with crowd chanting for more. Unfortunately, SXSW doesn’t always allow for encores. Timing is budgeted to the exact minute so we weren’t able to play the “one more song” the crowd was begging for. Instead, we reminded them that we had one more show tonight at midnight at St. David’s Church.
The show at Barracuda wrapped up around 7pm and we didn’t have to play again until midnight. In order to give ourselves as much free time as possible we decided to load all of our gear into St. David’s Church so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it later. Before The Baracuda show, we were lucky enough to find an incredibly rare parking spot in downtown Austin. We did not want to risk losing the spot when we moved our gear to the church. So we made the very SXSW style decision to carry our gear roughly five blocks to the church. It is not uncommon to see a caravan of band members lugging equipment down the streets during SXSW because of how difficult driving and parking are. After our gear was loaded, we wiped the sweat from our brows and took a deep breath. During our free time we took advantage of the home cooked brisket that was available in the church cafeteria. This was no cafeteria food though; this brisket was slow cooked with love. I love Austin barbecue and I’ve sampled most of the famous spots. This brisket was right up there with the best. After dinner, the band split up and went to go see various showcases. I managed to catch an amazing show put on my good friends in The Last Bandoleros.
Time flew by and before we knew it, our set time was just a few minutes away. We were playing in a gorgeous church chapel with stained glass windows and pews full of excited listeners. The acoustics of a church aren’t the ideal situation for a rock band. Due to the natural reverb of a church, the drums and bass can get very washy the overall sound can get quite muddy. I took some time to make a few key adjustments to our equipment to better suit the room. Once we got used to the room we were able to use the acoustics to our advantage and create a very full but intimate sound. As we moved through our set we stepped up the energy and volume. The audience responded with increasing enthusiasm. By the time we got to the last few songs of our set, Kelsey (the lead singer) told the audience to get up out of the pews and come right up to the stage. The whole dynamic changed as the crowd started jumping and dancing to our music. In retrospect, we should have told them to get up sooner, because this vibe was so much fun. We had a full on dance party in the church way after midnight. When does that ever happen? We ended our show with one of our hardest hitting songs and the crowd went absolutely wild. Still feeling the frantic energy of the day I quickly packed up my gear and put it aside. I sat down for a moment and breathed a very satisfied sigh of relief. What a day. Days like this only happen at SXSW.
Unfortunately for me, my day was still far from over. All the flights into Austin were booked up so I had flown into Dallas and rented a car to drive down to Austin. My flight home was at 8AM Sunday morning out of Dallas. It was currently 3AM Saturday and Dallas is three hours away by car. After nearly 15 hours of SXSW, I got in my rental car and drove straight to Dallas. I got to the airport around 6AM and hobbled to my gate like a zombie. When I got on my flight I had been awake for 24 hours straight. Such is the life of a touring musician. No one ever said it would be easy. But it certainly is worth it. Once I found my seat I promptly passed out. The next time I opened my eyes I was landing in NYC. After a short cab ride to Brooklyn, I dragged myself into my apartment and crawled directly into bed. At 5pm on Sunday my SXSW experience was finally over.
