One word has been keeping me going since last Thursday when I woke up in Dublin at 6am in the middle of the fever symptoms of a chest infection. This word got me through dry retching nausea from the antibiotics, hassle at US immigration, and having no food, drinks or cigarettes for two days. It also meant when I had to play a gig and not sing I got through it. That word is Austin, home of the brilliant South by Southwest Festival which myself and our band Delorentos will be playing in two days. Our trip to Oceania hasn’t been ideal so far, I’ve been sick as a dog the last four days (I’m feeling ok today thank you very much), we missed out playing at Canadian Music Week due to blizzards in Toronto and spent Saturday in the airport, and on Friday we had to play a gig in New York where, for the first time I didn’t sing at least half the songs. Luckily we are a two frontman band, so we could do a set of songs that Ro sang and we got through it.
Later tonight we’ll be doing our first proper gig, in the Neutral Bar in Toronto. My voice seems ok, and it looks like we can play the set we’ve practiced religiously for the three SXSW gigs we’ll play on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We’ve a flight at 7am, so we might decide to sleep, we might play through…
We were lucky enough to have played the festival last year as well, so knowing what’s in store we can’t wait to get down there and begin soaking up the atmosphere, beer and music.
Over the next five or so days I’ll be sending an update of our adventures, thoughts and witness statements that can be used to incriminate us later.
If you’d like to find out more about the band please check out our websites and have a listen, we’re good, and proper people with those massive headphones often say they listen to us to make themselves look cool. Who’s to argue with that?
Your SXSW correspondent,
Kieran
Delorentos
http://www.delorentos.net/
http://www.myspace.com/delorentos
