Nancy had been recovering from a fractured Sternum for four weeks when spring break came. We had made arrangements with Claire that Madeleine's spring break visits would be the second weekend starting Thursday night. Owen had plans as usual, so we decided it looked like an opportunity to get off for a weekend. Nancy had also had an MRI on her knee that indicated knee replacement surgery would be happening in the near future, so it looked like this would be our opportunity to celebrate our anniversary a couple weeks early. We now know the surgery is going to be April 4, so we made right call going while the going was good.
I had suggested we go to Austin because I got a notice from the Texas Historical Society that the Bullock Museum of Texas History was kicking off an exhibit of Texas Music History called the "Texas Music Roadtrip." For the opening of the exhibit, they had enlisted the Texas Tornados for a free concert in the plaza. The Texas Tornados have revived in the last few years around the legendary musicians Augie Meyer, Flaco Jimenez, and Doug Sahm's son, Shawn. For the most part, they pay musical tribute to their founders, Doug Sahm and Freddy Fender.
The down side was that the week also coincided with South by Southwest in Austin, and we were worried about crowds, traffic, and the high prices for hotels and everything else. Fortunately, we found that we only had to get out to Round Rock to get a very reasonable rate at the Marriot Courtyard. So we decided we would try to have a fun and musical weekend around the fringes of SXSW. When we got settled in at Round Rock, we decided to check out the local live music venue, Junior's Icehouse and Grill. They had a rock band outside in the beer garden and a folk singer inside, whom we sampled in succession. No trouble with crowds here, but we had a good time.
One of the things I intended to check out was the "Dangfest" at Threadgills. We tried to get in there Friday morning for their event called "Roky Erikson's Ice Cream Social," but couldn't find a parking place, so we proceeded to plan B, which was Lucy's Fried Chicken Revival, chosen because John Fullbright was scheduled to perform there. Lucy's has a great menu for lunch, and we saw a rockabilly-ish band called the Belfurries when we got there - quite enjoyable. Lucy's just opened last year, but is adorned with memorabilia from Austin's rich musical past, kind of like Threadgills. They called their event South by South Austin, so it kind of fit our fringe of SXSW motif.
Then came John Fullbright's set, which was exquisite as expected. Ian
and I had seen him at the Kerrville Folk Festival as an opening act, and
he hushed the crowd with his first couple songs. I read in the
newspaper that he is one of the SXSW performers that is really expected
to break out in the coming year with his debut album to be released in
May. He played songs I heard him do last year and some new ones and
some covers that I hadn't heard before. Could be Kerrville this year
will be the last chance to see him before it is a pretty expensive
concert ticket.Friday afternoon we drove down to Gruene for another shot at fringe of SXSW fringe live music. Gruene Hall had free live music Friday afternoon by a band called Grey Hogg, led by a guy named Pat Green, to the left of Nancy below. He relate how he met the famous Pat Green and they came to an agreement about the use of their names and played a song or two together.
Saturday morning, we went to Threadgills again and were successful this time in finding a parking place because we got there 20 minutes before they opened at 11:00. The "Dangfest" event for Saturday was the Folk Alliance concerts, with an excellent lineup of musicians. When they opened, we got a great table for the indoor acts, which began with the DBs. The DBs were celebrating 30 years as a band and their first time performing together in 17 years. A lot of their die hard fans showed up to celebrate the event, and they clearly still had what the audience came looking for. They were from the time shortly after I left Austin, but I could see why they had such an enthusiastic following. Next up was our second chance to hear John Fullbright, which we were very satisfied to get. He played several songs we didn't hear the day before. Then we went out to the beer garden and listened to a band from Nashville called the Farewell Drifters, who played kind of a folk/rock/alt country blend - in other words, not very Nashville-like.
Then we went to the Texas Music Road Trip opening at the museum. It was a great collection of memoribelia, both old time and new and everything in between. It was a little strange to see museum exhibits for people like Beyonce, who are actually still in their prime, but on the whole it had a good balance of the various eras of music going back over the last hundred years. We toured all that, then went to the cafe on the second floor and sat on the balcony for most of the Texas Tornados concert - picture is our view from there.
Saturday evening we went back to Junior's Icehouse in Round Rock, just to round out a music filled weekend.
