This is a tough post. I want to tell you all about the music. But first, here’s the play by play of getting to see the music.

So you’re driving, for those of you non-Austinites, out to what used to be the furthest you would go to see a concert. 20 miles or something. But now, it’s surrounded by a strip mall. A big one. So you’re driving, and it’s like ‘is this where we turn in?’ ‘do you see a sign anywhere?’ ‘that lady in the Suburban is going to hit us.’

You pull in. You go through the strip mall. For a mile. You go in a gated back lot of dirt, and see people walking in the dirt you’re kicking up. ‘do we have to walk in this?’ You park at the far far back of the lot. And start walking. It is a death march. ‘this is killing my buzz’. You climb over the river, through the woods, through the Best Buy parking lot, through some metal gates that look like what you need to herd cows and zig zag back and forth. ‘what is this all about, we could have just walked straight‘. You get through a security checkpoint. ‘they didn’t even look in my bag’. You walk some more, through The Glenn ‘apparently this is someone’s way to have a concert stage at another concert stage’. You arrive at the Backyard. Just in time. And a little tired of walking. You get a drink, and the show starts.

Now we can talk about the music.

The Shins think it’s funny. Somehow, they know what you just went through.

One dude: “Thanks for coming to the show! We love Austin Texas!”

Other dude: “This isn’t Austin.”

First dude: “Huh?”

Other dude: (cracking up) “This is Bee Cave. We are outside of Austin.”

The Shins started out playing with Cibo Mato and American Analog Set, which I did not know when I first heard of them, when the Garden State Soundtrack came out, which I admit that I got to hear “Such Great Heights”. On their own, they never really ‘broke out’, scoring at #80-something on Billboard. Everyone thinks this is their big CD. It was great. They put on an exciting to watch show, even if they play mellow music. Sounded to me a lot like Sunny Day Real Estate, whatever you put behind a unique voice like that is going to sound good. After all the hits, new and old, they wrapped up with a little Pink Floyd tribute that sounded exactly like Pink Floyd, and played their Garden State song and first popular one. I suck and do not recall all the names, but hey this is my blog, not Rolling Stone. Deal with it.

The concert rocked. That is all. It was worth the walk, the company was great, and even though we almost lost the car, we made it home and lived to talk about it.

🙂

Friday was fairly unproductive. I got going early to run errands and had a 0% success rate. Getting home to learn that the husband had a rough work day, we called up some friends and went out to Mulligans for some snacks and a couple games. I inexplicably managed to lose at the bowling-esque machine game and shuffleboard, where I had been reigning champ. 😦

We had a good time, and were home and in bed early so I could get up Saturday at 7 and make it to the gym. Unfortunately, we got up at 6. This reminded me of a story I left out of our NZ vacation.

“The first night we were in Queenstown, we went out to eat and had a bunch of wine and stayed up too late watching movies. We finally settled down knowing we had a huge day ahead of us. Our hotel building fire alarm went off at 3am, and we were outside in the cold wrapped in towels for quite some time. There was, of course, no fire.”

Well, that is what happened Friday night. At our apartment building, at 6am. In case you were wondering, we have a fire department maybe 2 miles away. It took them maybe 20 minutes. They started at the far side of the building. Really, by the time they got to our place, they were searching for remains, had their been a fire. Good to know, I won’t make it in the event of a real emergency. Hmmm.

Needless to say I was fairly grouchy at the gym, but made it through Body Pump and Body Combat and was in a great mood by the end. I’ve reached whole new levels in weights and ability and attitude, and it’s really rewarding. We journeyed over to Starbucks, where I’m limiting myself to ice tea to not negate the workouts, then met some other friends for a healthy 3 hour lunch. Catching up was great. We spent the night seeing a movie, which reminds me I’ve seen a dozen worth mentioning in some other post some time.

And then there was the Kite Festival…