Friday 15th March
Austin
Headed off further South now to Austin, for the South By Southwest
Music Festival. We didnt leave Dallas til after 11.00am
as we needed a bit of a lie in after the hectic night in Dallas.
Amazingly, the temperature here has dropped again not typical
Texas weather Im sure!
Met up with John at Starbucks in Austin, whod flown
in specially from LA. We then headed over to the Austin Conference
Centre to register for the Festival and pick up our drink tokens!
Only 8 between us - not really enough to quench Bobs thirst
for more than 30 minutes but hey, when in Rome!
Checked into the hotel where Tim bedded down for some rest. Meanwhile,
we returned into Austin Central to check out the scene.
6th Street is where all the main music venues are situated, including
the District Bar which we checked out in preparation for tomorrow
night. Wild atmosphere about town, which became more crazy as the
night wore on. A mixture of the Cannes and Edinburgh Festivals,
with a bit of St. Mary Street, Cardiff, on a Saturday Rugby International
night! Mad!
Eric went over with Bob to the airport to pick up Steve (Hoppy),
our replacement driver/tour manager for the next leg of the tour.
I'd describe his appearance as a cross between a viking and Meatloaf.
Good guy though!
In the meantime, John, Chris, Tony and myself met up with Greg
from Red Eye, the distributor handling our new album over here in
the US. Cool guy who really digs our music. Went to one of the more
subdued venues to talk. There were some really wacky paintings on
the wall that must have been created by a seriously warped mind.
One was titled "Never go out with a Clown (on a Blind date!)".
Steve and the boys eventually caught up with us at the bar. Hoppy
kindly pointed out that I bore a striking resemblance to a character
in one of the other wacky paintings on a nearby wall. This poor
unfortunate, (who supposedly looked like me!), was caught in an
uncompromising sexual embrace with Satan. Needless to say, I was
the butt of many a joke for the remainder of the evening!
Finally hooked up with FF Vinyl (our UK label) at a Sports Bar
on 6th. Theyre over here to support us and to do a bit of
self-promotion. They had just been to see the Big Leaves, the only
other Welsh band at this festival, who were on the same bill as
Elbow - also from the UK. Headed back to the hotel for
a reasonably early night in readiness for the big day tomorrow.
Simon
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