SXSW. Day Three. Perry Farrell and the Perils of Festivals

One of the frustrating aspects of any musical hootenanny of this scope is that bands you want to see always all seem to be on simultaneously. Or at least within 15 minutes of each other. So wasting a lot of time in lines or suffering through technical difficulties is a stressful endeavor - "What am I missing??" - and Sound Effects tries to build line-time into the itinerary.

Last night in an effort to check out buzzed about Chicago hip-hop act the Cool Kids at Emo's, fifteen minutes was spent in line, twenty-five cooling our heels inside and ten more after a turntable malfunction slowed the group's ascension to the stage. Upshot? No Cool Kids for us. (We had She and Him to get to).

But if Sound Effects had left earlier we wouldn't have been in the spot where Perry Farrell entered the club, brushed by us, surveyed the stage, realized the Cool Kids were not yet on- even though it was twenty minutes past their scheduled start time- and raised his eyebrows in our direction as if to ask "hey, what's up, why aren't the Cool Kids on yet?" To which Sound Effects silently replied with a shoulder shrug meant to convey "I have no idea Perry, but hey good job with that whole Lollapalooza thing." A silent-yet-deep moment of communication we have no doubt that he is also telling the whole world about on his blog today.