SXSW 2011

I love SWSW.... unfortunately I didn't meet any band members this year or really do MUCH that had to do with SXSW. But I did go see the free Strokes concert that was held downtown at Auditorium Shores.

But before I get to that, a side short (promise) tangent. I had one final pressing car thing to deal with, brakes. I took it to this place (after calling several and getting the best price, so proud of myself) and dropped off my car. Since everyone I know works springs breaks, I said I would call a cab, but they said they would take me home (SWEET!). Later, they called and said I could come pick up my car but when I arrived they said it didn't do well when they test drove it. So I had to wait another 30 minutes and I told the guy I had a concert to get to and PLEASE HURRY. It took a little longer than expected, and he asked if I drank beer, I said "duh!" (not really, I just said yes, bet people that know me would think that is what I said). Then he went to his car, came back and handed me a ten dollar bill and said, "here, your first beer's on me!"

(Now, this man may have ripped me off by $100 on my brakes (not that I think he did), but the pure fact that he did that made that place golden in my book!!!)

Anyways, Emily, an old friend of ours, Lyle, and myself hit up Auditorium Shores for the concert. It quickly brought back memories of Lollapalooza, which made me soooooo happy!

And may I say first, people are crazy (like you needed me to point that out). But this was a FREE concert. You didn't even have to do anything in advance, you just showed up and got in. But yet, for some reason (I hear the line was long was the reason, however, that doesn't justify this in my mind) people felt the need to jump the fences AND CRAWL OVER THE PORT-A-POTTIES to get in. We were waiting in line to use "the facilities" and they started doing this. REALLY???? REALLY???????? (Said like they say it on Saturday Night Live)

Well when Lyle went and got back, he said to us, "man I was lucky to survive the stampede, they knocked down the fences and mobbed the place right behind me." To which Emily and I blew off as him exaggerating.

But then I saw the fences laying on the ground when we left.

And heard the news report on it.

Guess he wasn't kidding.

But we had a lot of fun! We couldn't even see the top of the stage, but we had lots of fun! And when we had to go to the bathroom before the show was over, we walked to the back and people made comments like, "how can you leave now?" And Lyle responded with, "Cause we're old, and we have to pee!"

But we found out that the back had much better views where you could actually see the stage! And we actually enjoyed it even more back there (second sign of getting old).

A few days later Emily and I were already reminiscing about "the time we went to the Strokes concert.(Third sign of getting old)" And she said, "hey, look at this cool video I took of the fireworks show at the end, I didn't even remember taking that video until the next day! (Fourth sign of getting old)" And I watched it, and I said, "wow, that's really cool, I wonder why I didn't take any video of that?" And then I wondered what I did take pictures of and low-and-behold look what I found on my camera:

Soooooo..... I guess that's a sign of a good time. You don't even remember what you did or documented that night.

We tried to be all young and hip and do more SXSW stuff. And we went to a couple of bars while we tried to find great shows to go to. But all it led to was us eating a second dinner and yawning and eventually saying our beds sounded MUCH better than staying up and going to music shows. (Fifth sign of getting old)

I mean, are we getting too old for SXSW???

Naw, I happen to know a friend that has a mom that goes regularly every year. If she can do it, we can too!

But maybe she could give us some helpful advice of how not to act so old! :)

(P.S. Friend's mom... love ya and much respect to ya!)