Saturday was quite a good day, as I had a chance to chat for a few minutes with Emil Svanängen before Loney Dear’s set at Red Eyed Fly. Admittedly, it wasn’t anything too substantial, or I would have recounted it in full for you as its own post, but it was quite a pleasant experience to look up from my bite of veggie burger to find a nice Swedish songwriter preparing his own veggie burger right next to me. When he looked up, our eyes met briefly and I took the opportunity to tell him that I have really been digging Dear John and that I’m looking forward to his band’s show that day. He responded with, “Thank you,” and asked me how my SXSW had been so far. I told him that it had been great and asked him the same question, to which he replied that it has been good, but the band has been busy playing shows all over the festival. I replied with something akin to, “I can’t imagine how busy bands must be during SXSW, but I hope they have fun while they’re here in Austin. So, I wish you well with your show.” He said thank you again and we both went our separate ways. Hopefully, our little exchange wasn’t too awkward for him.
Takka Takka (12:45pm)
I arrived at Red Eyed Fly in hopes of catching Eli “Paperboy” Reed’s fantastic soul revue, but it turns out that he cancelled due to a scheduling conflict, leaving attendees to watch a quite blasé indie rock act featuring a caterwauling lead singer. The songs were fairly well constructed, but the band’s lack of energy caused each track to fall flat before reaching its apex (and leaving my ears somewhat unfulfilled). Maybe I’ll look them up later, as there were enough occasional strains of mathy tendencies to make me at least slightly interested.
Continue reading “SWSW 2009 – 03/21/2009″