Well Saturday night was kind of a cool down from the madness of the previous 3 days and wasn’t really as eventful, either from the standpoint of scheduling or what happened. There were quite a few missed opportunities/unfortunate events that kind of derailed the night on several occasions that kind of made it hard to get any real momentum going on our final night in Austin.

First of all, as I had mentioned in my Friday afternoon post, we were unsuccessful in getting FADER wristbands at any point before this, and they were not handing the wristbands out on Saturday, so the “secret” Kanye show was already out of the question. There were a lot of possibilities out there such as the Todd P party, but that would involve the walk across the highway. Out of the official showcases nothing really stood out substantially over any of the others. I kind of would have liked to have seen White Lies, but that was the 3rd Eye Blind/Indigo Girls showcase, or possibly Wintersleep, but that was the Echo & The Bunnymen showcase.

We eventually determined we would try and go to the Belmont to try and catch Glasvegas who had been confirmed even by their record company, Columbia as playing the free Belmont party. So we headed over to the Belmont which was a fair way west (on west 4th) to check out the situation. When we arrived, indeed there were bands playing and the employees of the establishment alerted us to the lineup which was posted on the door. We browsed said lineup to find that Glasvegas was nowhere at all to be found on this lineup. We asked the employees but they seemingly had no idea what we were talking about. Well this kind of derailed the whole thing, not only in terms of that night but also in terms of not being able to see Glasvegas at SXSW. So we left the Belmont in search of greener pastures. (side note – since we left I cannot 100% confirm that they did not play, but based on talking to other people I am 99.999% sure they canceled this show and did not play, plus I have found no evidence that they actually did end up playing)

We eventually decided to go to Maggie Mae’s as there were quite a few solid bands playing on both stages and I (incorrectly) thought that we could venture between inside and rooftop patio as you could do at every other venue we had been to. After we were already in the inside portion they police taped off the staircase to the patio and we were informed that you, in fact, could not go between the two stages and you would have to pay an additional cover for that stage. This also shot the wheels off of the evening in yet another way as I really wanted to chill on a rooftop patio that night (the weather was great) and see two stages worth of bands. Before we get to the aftermath of that realization, let’s get to who we saw on the inside….

Asteroids Galaxy Tour – Maggie Mae’s – 3/21/09

Here we have yet another iPod commercial band, but I have listened to these guys’ stuff and it is pretty solid, and they actually were really good live I thought. They are a Danish band and their songs are usually kind of R&B/brass flavored indie-pop songs that actually work really well. They have the horns and everything up on stage. The girl does the majority of the singing on every song but the songs are pretty upbeat and fairly danceable and the crowd was definitely getting into their groove with these guys. Very well done and hope to see them again sometime soon.

The Little Ones – Maggie Mae’s – 3/21/09

I will be honest that between the first band and this band was when we discovered the above-mentioned limitation on our mobility so we spent most of this set debating whether to stay or leave. They sounded pretty good from what I heard, and sounded like fairly well put together and standard indie/alternative-rock, though we weren’t really able to focus much on the band at this point unfortunately. They seemed to do pretty well and actually seemed pretty excited and pumped up on stage. Sorry we didn’t really get to enjoy it because of other shit going on. Funny side note though, I’m pretty sure we saw one of the guys from Princeton, who we had seen earlier in the day at this show.

Anyway, we were kind of miffed about the lack of patio access at Maggie Mae’s so we left and were going to try and catch Wintersleep over at Rusty Spurs (?) possibly, but upon arrival there they informed us they were expecting capacity and it was badges and wristbands only. So once again the wheels on our plans were shot off for the third (fourth?) time and we once again debated on where to go. We eventually decided against returning to Maggie Mae’s and went over to the Mohawk since there were a few bands I wanted to see over there plus we knew we would get inside/outside access there.

Past Lives – Mohawk – 3/21/09

These guys were very pumped up and very intense but it was actually pretty awesome I thought. I really enjoyed their set and we really hadn’t seen enough intense punk bands in our time in Austin so this was a nice wake up call on a Saturday night that was just not going our way at all (I quickly realized the Mohawk showcase was fairly punk-centric). They played for quite a while and were pretty impressive I thought and I would definitely be interested in seeing them again or checking up more on them as I thought they were one of the strongest bands at Mohawk.

Briefly checked out Clipd Beaks outside but then went back inside for….

Fiasco – Mohawk – 3/21/09

Also fairly punk but also kind of schizophrenic and all over the place was Fiasco. They really had a lot of people doing a lot the whole time and it was a lot to take in and kind of eschewed structure for energy. I actually liked it in some ways but it was tough to keep up with at times.

The Mae Shi – Mohawk – 3/21/09

This was actually the second time we saw The Mae Shi at SXSW, the first time being at the Pitchfork day party at Emo’s on Friday. They were good stuff then and probably even a little bit better here. The crowd was certainly a little more pumped for them here and they kind of went a little more all out with the show, which was pretty awesome. They once again pulled out the parachute, but this time when the parachute was pulled back it revealed Chicago rapper Kid Static who dropped a rap on us, and that pretty much took this show to the next level of awesomeness. Despite the myriad of difficulties we faced that evening it was kind of a sublime moment and was a great cap to SXSW.

Pre – Mohawk – 3/21/09

I was trying to continue rallying and stay around for HEALTH and Monotonix so I went inside and caught some of Pre. They were even more punk than the previous bands and there was a lot of intensity and screaming into the mic involved in their set. They were very into it and perhaps it was just the post-Mae Shi letdown but they didn’t really win me over too much, but I was impressed with their whole approach despite not really getting super-into the music.

After they played for a while I went back outside to wait for HEALTH but quickly realized I was fading and decided to just call it a night. As I wandered back towards the convention center I peered up 6th street harboring some thoughts of returning to Maggie Mae’s to catch the last few bands there but by this point 6th street was a madhouse and I gave up and continued on to the shuttle. In hindsight I probably should have tried to make my way to the Perez Hilton party and catch some Kanye but I have to be honest I had completely forgot about it at this point and it slipped my mind until I was back at the hotel reading tweets.

Oh well, despite a kind of shitty and disjointed Saturday night we still managed to have some fun with it, and overall the entirety of the week/weekend kicked all kinds of major ass and I really can’t wait to go back to Austin and do it all over again next year. There are a few things I learned along the way that I would use to make for a better year next year, and here is what I took away from this year’s SXSW:

1. Ear plugs – seriously, I was kind of anti-earplugs until this weekend but thank the lord I had them
2. 6th street – seems like venues actually on 6th street get way more crowded than the ones off 6th street, which leads also into:
3. Planning – I thought I had done a fair job of planning before the festival but what I realized when I got there was I had not done even 1/100th of what I should have. Listen to as many bands as you can, browse the schedules, figure out who you absolutely want to see and make sure you do. We kind of largely winged it with the exception of Friday, and while we ended up ok, there are still bands I know we could have seen that we didn’t because I didn’t plan it out well enough (White Lies, Glasvegas, etc).
4. Twitter – Twitter may have jumped several sharks with this year’s SXSW as that was by far the best way to keep on top of what ’secret’ shit was happening and otherwise. Twitter led me to Dinosaur Jr. on Thursday night and I will be forever grateful. And the final thing…..
5. This thing is awesome – seriously, Lolla, ACL, etc are fun but this really does trump them all in awesomeness. Can’t wait for next year, bitches.

Check out my other writeups on our time at SXSW 2009:
Thursday Day Parties – March 19, 2009
Thursday Night Showcases – March 19, 2009
Friday Day Parties – March 20, 2009
Friday Night Showcases – March 20, 2009
Saturday Day Parties – March 21, 2009

Check out all of our pictures from Saturday at SXSW 2009 here!

The Mae Shi – Run To Your Grave – From Hlllyh
The Asteroids Galaxy Tour – The Sun Ain’t Shining No More – From Around The Bend EP
Pre – Popping Showers – From Epic Fits
Fiasco – Oh, You Horny Monster
Past Lives – Strange Symmetry – From Strange Symmetry