AWESOMECON

Day Three has been officially dubbed Superdrag Support Day.  We had three Superdrag shows on our schedule this day, and we hit all three.  The coolest part was seeing how the band warmed up and changed the sets for each venue/audience.  Good stuff.

• Joey and Veronica arrived in the AM and we packed up to head over to the Pitchfork Party.
• We rolled into Emo’s Jr. to catch the back half of the Girls set.  Honestly, I can’t recall if I liked them or not, because it was a) the first band which mean you tend to be settling in and not really focus b) I knew nothing about them.  Its tough to grok a new band when you first roll in.  I know that I did not not like them.
• We headed over to Emo’s (Sr.) to catch the Mae Shi.  They rocked the house so hard.  At one point they threw a parachute into the audience and we all held it up as the singer stood in the middle of it for the song.  Really fun set.
• I bailed a little early on the Mae Shi (sorry guys) to get a good up front spot for Little Boots.  She totally reminds me of a Deborah Harry meets Goldfrapp.  So much fun and she really has a great voice / stage presence.
• After Little Boots, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart set up and played a solid set.  They are a blend of East Coast Post Punk meets shoegazer.  Niki loves them, and they are growing on me.
• We left the Pitchfork party to grab the car and head down to Gueros on South Congress.  We got there in time to grab a quick snack and then saw Superdrag play their first set of the day.  The sound was aweful, but the guys threw down a good opener set.
• We had an official lunch at Gueros (killer tex-mex) and then headed out to east Austin to some ones house for the After The Jump House Party.  They had set up a stage for the bands in the front yard and had free Red Stripe for most of the afternoon.
• The first band we caught was Super 400, a hard core country fried rock band.  The three piece was amazing, especially the bassist.  For the last song they had Jody Stevens, of Big Star, sit in for a song.  Very, very cool.
• A Brooklyn band, Cause Co-Motion was next up.  Honestly, I really did not like this band.  It was a typical East Coast Post Punk band with just no soul.  They had a lot of energy and the bouncy douchey trust fund neon wearing 80’s wannabe hipsters loved them, but after a band like Super 400, it just didn’t stand up.  Not every band can blow your mind I guess…
• The Pains of Being Pure At Heart played a second set and this time I was more into them.  I can see how they can grow on you and I need to check out their album.
• Superdrag was the last band we caught at ATJ and their second set was really fun.  Being that close to them with a small group of fans really is exciting and you could tell they had a ton of fun playing.
• We then headed back to the hotel, dumped my video and pics (coming sooner or later) to the laptop and then we headed out to try and catch Silversun Pickups at Stubbs.  Unfortunetly, Silversun was playing the super-secret Metallica show and the badge line was 200+ deep and it was going NO WHERE.  We bailed and headed over to Pangea to set up camp.
• We grabbed Veronica and was able to buy her way into the venue to catch the 3rd Superdrag show.  They sounded amazing on the sound system (with a proper sound engineer) and blew the place up.
• For the last set of the night we caught St. Vincent at Anotnes.  Once again Annie blew our doors off.  So good and I grabbed what appears to be some awesome video.  I can’t wait to verify the quality and post it.