We arrived at the Filter Party at Cedar Street Courtyard early in the day, to get a good spot for Phantogram. I was determined not to miss their show, so we arrived a few hours early. I spotted a girl with a killer haircut watching the earlier bands from the VIP section, and had major hair envy. Little did I know, she was actually the female vocalists/keyboard player from Phantogram. I was super jealous!
I was enjoying the show too much to mess with my camera, so the picture above was all I got. I did find these great shots via Flickr:
The vocals were amazing, and the sound perfect. It was my favorite show of SXSW 2011. Surfer Blood was up next, but we decided to wait to see them the following day, so we could make our way to Matt & Kim at the Fader Fort party early enough to get in.
We headed out to the Fader Fort on the East Side, where we waited in a long line for our wristbands, followed by a long line to get in the door...but it was all worth it. We walked around for the first hour, had some free popcorn, fought our way through a tight crowd for free drinks. Then, we headed to the stage to see Odd Future perform, and we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. The crowd was rowdy, somewhat angry. There was a guy that wanted to get up to the front and started pushing people out of the way (quite forcefully) to do so. Another guy decided to crowd surf and fell to the cement right next to us, losing his glasses (and couldn't see!). Someone from the crowd took the opportunity to pour out a full beer on top of him, while he was still on the ground. Then, people started throwing full water bottles across the audience, hitting people from behind, while the crowd grew even more restless and loud...chanting "Wolf Gang Wolf Gang Wolf Gang." One of the musicians was encouraging the rowdiness, and let the crowd know that if he saw any more cameras while they were performing, he would kick them to the ground. It was quite an experience. Apparently, P. Diddy was there, but we were so busy keeping a watch out for flying water bottles and watching our backs for drunk guys trying to start fights, that we didn't even notice! (P. Diddy photo via spratt504 Flickr photostream).
The final act of the night was Matt & Kim, and it was amazing to feel the shift in energy as they took the stage. Everyone went from angry and amped to happy in about 2 minutes. Even though the performance was very similar to what we saw during ACL 2010, we couldn't help but enjoy it. They are just so fun to watch! You can really tell they love what they do. Kim is drumming her heart out with the biggest smile on her face, while Matt sings out to the audience with all he has to give.
They are always full of so much energy and just make you want to get up and dance. Somehow, Kim managed to do some booty dancing while standing on the crowd:
It was such a fun show! Afterwards, we grabbed our bikes and headed through the 230,000 people on the streets of Austin to get home. The night came to a perfect end as we rode our bikes past Auditorium Shores, just as fireworks went off above Lady Bird Lake. It was such a great day!
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