SXSW strikes again

Or should I say, The Return of SXSW? At this point, we're far too many sequels in for a cute title. Of course, while my boyfriend and I are whatever enough to get into some private parties, score some free drinks, and even for him to weasel his picture into the newspaper, we still had to pay for our wristbands. All the same, a good time was had by all. We had a houseguest who was here to write it up stay with us the entire time and I hope he got a good balance of local flavor as well as the touring shows that make up the majority of SXSW. Saw some really great shows, and in fact managed to get into shows that some reviews claim were impossible to get into. I guess we've figured out the trick to getting in that out-of-towners don't get somehow. Well, whatever it is, I did manage to squeeze into the TV on the Radio show that turned into a nightmare to get into. It was great, but yeah, it was way overcrowded. We went to the punkvoter show early but left before even David Cross went on so we weren't able to get back in later. But that's okay, because it means that there's probably alot more dedicated young voters than I realized and there's always another show to see at SXSW. We ended up going to see Neal Pollack's show, which killed. I missed the Yuppie Pricks day show at the Elk's Lodge because I had to work, but my boyfriend took some pretty good pictures. Next year I'll actually be eligible to take vacation time, so I'll go ahead and do that. You need your sleep in the day during SXSW to keep going.
By Saturday night, burnout was setting in. A friend from San Antonio came up with his adorable cousin for the night. They didn't stay the whole night, but it's always good to see him. We hit a couple of day shows and then settled into Room 710 for the night, since my friend and his cousin didn't have wristbands and couldn't bounce from club to club. Still, it was good to sit and drink and bullshit and listen to music. Bisquit (from the Big Boys) was supposed to emcee, but I never saw him. Nor did anyone else. That doesn't actually mean he wasn't there, so if he was there and cracking your shit up, more power to you.
So it took a couple days to recover. My boyfriend's back to rehearsing for the night. Maybe next year he and his band will pull it together enough to play and I can get a free wristband. At this point, I'm thinking it's quite possible. In a year, pretty much anything is.