Music at its Best @ South by South West

I am a big fan of Live Music. No matter what type of music, language, country it belongs to, i would like to see them. People who has similar taste will love some place which has tons of Live Music and Austin is very well known for its self-proclaimed nickname "The Live Music Capitol of the World". It is not just the nickname, i would say, it is really the live music capitol of the world. It has two Mega Music fectivals in a year- "SXSW" and "Austin City Limits". I recently tasted my first Experience of Live Music Festival @ the South by South West (SXSW) Festival which is a combo of Music + Film + Interactive and i thoroughly enjoyed the music festive this year. Here is my experience @ The SXSW:-

Day 1:- Friday Night
On a wonderfull friday evening, Sudu, Arvind, Prem and i decided to see some Live bands @ the SXSW. None of us had any information about any bands, but still we were enthusiastic enough to watch some live performance. Well, we started with the great Texan House Martini @ The trudy's and headed straight to the Auditorium Shores, Downtown.

First group we saw was - "The ARC Angels" from Austin, TX, Music Type- Rock. This is pretty famous and tight Rock Band. One of the band members from this group had performed with Rodger Waters and also became a member of Eric Clapton's Touring Band. Listening to such nice live music @ the open air auditorium is a different experience alltogether. Auditorium Shores is the perfect Outdoor place to see any live performances. Typical Spring weather which has light breeze adds more flavor to the show.

After watching 45 mins of live music @ the Auditorium Shores- we went to "Hooters" for some chilled Beer and food. Then we went to 4th street. We briefly checked this open air club "Cedar Street Courtyard". This club allways has some amazing International Bands and it lived to its expectations. The band was amazing. The music band that electrified everyone was called- "Peter Bjorn and John" from Stockholm SWEDEN, Music Type- Rock.

After a quick glance at the Cedar Street Courtyard, we went to 6th street and entered club "Barcelona". We met bunch of our frens (Mohan, Praveena, Ravi, Girish, Tim, Pablo, Prameet, Sid) @ this club. This time it was POP music. Music band name- "Fannius III" from Los Angeles, CA. Band was pretty impressive. They performed 4-5 very upbeat songs. After the Fannius III came the next band name- "..Music Video?" from Tcsan, AZ. Music type- POP. I did not like this band. Well that is just my opinion.

It was allready 1:00 am and the night was rocking. We came out of Barcelona and went to this club name- "Vice". One band had just finished performing and it was time for some other performance. What we saw was- instead of live music band, they had a DJ. This club had few people when DJ took the stage but the dance floor was jamm packed within few mins of the DJiin. The name of the DJ was:- "Papparaazi" from Los Angeles, CA- Music Type- electronic. The real name of the DJ is Cesar Rios and is just 24 years old but a well-known name on the dance floors and he surely was a surprise package for us. This guy is one of the best DJ i have ever heard. The music was mostly Trance/Electronic. His music selection and mixing was amazing and the transition was very impressive. This was the highlight of the night.

Day 2- Saturday Night
This time we had a big gang (Arvind, Prem, Sudu, Ullas, G3, Jameel, Kunal, Arun, Prameet, Nivas and i). We were outside the "Chuggin Monkeys". This band sounded pretty nice, so we entered the club. This group was playing some awesome music. The name of the band was- "AutoVaughn", from Nashville, TN, Music Type-Indie, Rock. This band is very much influenced by The Beatles, The Police, MJ, Pink Floyd. Interestingly, this live performance was not the part of the SXSW. It was part of the RedGorilla Music Fest which was going on with parallel to SXSW. RedGorilla Music Fest does not have any association with SXSW. Well, overall this group was certainly the highligh of the night.

AutoVaughn @ Chuggin Monkey's

Next stop was at my all time favouraite club- BD Riley- Irish Club. Arvind and i saw two performances at this club. First group was - "The Orchid Highway" from Vancouver BC- Canada, Music Type- Rock. It was a 5 member group. Drummer was simply rocking. This was their first road trip to Austin, TX and group members were very much excited. I would rate this band as "Tight Band". It was simply awesome. We also managed to had a great conversation with one of the band members for a long time. The next band in the same club was "The Parties" from San Francisco, CA, Music Type- Rock. It was a decent group too. Out of two bands- I personally liked- "The Orchid Highway".

Next was at The SXSW venue. Some music group was playing, Music Type- Country. It was ok. They played some nice soft songs. It was very relaxing though. Ya this band had celo instrument too.

Apart from the regular music bands playing @ the clubs/shores/venues, they also had street bands. I saw two such bands- One was country music and other was african music. One thing we missed was the group name- "Delhi to Dublin". That was one one of the highlight of the festival this year.

I liked this festival very much. You go downtown where hundereds of music bands are performing live. You listen the music from outside the club, if you like it go inside the club, get your drinks and njoy the live performance. There are tons of clubs in Austin- Downtown. During the festive- every single club has live music band and every hour different band performs. Simply exstatic.

Well to end my note i would simply say if you want "Music at its Best, be @ South by South West".