Rock Sound At SXSW Day Four

Another day, another SXSW blog entry!

Posted Monday, 23 March 2009 by Amy Freeborn in

Blog

It was a pretty spritely start to the day considering collectively we’re on about four or five hours sleep a night for the past four nights.

This blogger’s first mission was a visit to Gabriella Cilmi’s hotel for a chat with the ‘Sweet About Me’ starlet.

Then us Xtasterians headed to the other side of town to pick up our VIP passes for tonight’s ‘secret’ Metallica gig. But as we’ve previously reported, it wasn’t so secret, and before midday there were already some pretty long lines of fans waiting at Stubbs for the chance to see the metal legends later in the night.

With our passes safely around our necks, this blogger headed for a chat with Casiokids, before partaking in the legendary SXSW Aussie barbeque in Brush Square, where Gabriella Cilmi was just about to perform.

It was a great set, filled mainly with cover tracks. She started out with ‘Mercedes Benz’, then hit us with ‘Sweet About Me’ before going on to ‘Cry Me A River’ and ‘Whole Lotta Love’. Highly enjoyable indeed.

Another great Aussie act to take to the barbeque stage was The Grates. Some of you Xtaster members may remember we worked with the band a few years ago during their UK stint. Today they were as energetic and crazy as ever. Front woman Patience making every effort to include the crowd in the performance, in between her manic pogo-ing all over the stage.

Another Australian band, The Drones, were next up on the interview list.

After a little more relaxing in the Aussie barbeque sun, it was time to head back to the hotel to refresh in preparation for Metallica!

Due to the obvious demand of people wanting to attend the show, even us VIPs had to adhere to strict rules in order to get into the venue. That meant arriving at 6.30pm ahead of the band’s scheduled 10pm concert.

But during that time we were treated to the amazing beats and sounds of DJ Bassnectar, followed by Silversun Pickups.

Then it was the turn of three lucky Guitar Hero fans to take to the stage and prove their gaming and Metallica chops by playing a round of the game in front of the 3000-strong crowd, and the members of Metallica.

And then, the moment we’d all been waiting for – Metallica took to the stage at SXSW!

They played a tight and amazing 90-minute set that included a bunch of the classics as well as tracks from the band’s latest album ‘Death Magnetic’.

The cheers from the crowd managed to bring the band back for two encores, and they closed with the classic ‘Seek and Destroy’, getting the crowd to shout the title words back to them on every occasion.

By the end of play it was close to midnight, and, as previously mentioned, our little Xtasterian bodies were beginning to feel the pain and strain of the SXSW partying and sleep deprivation. So while the two fairer of us called it a night straight after the Metallica gig, the other two weren’t far behind.

Stay tuned for all the action and loads more interviews from our performing artists.