Archive - Mar 2009

BOT favorites Widespread Panic and the Allman Brothers Band have announced a slew of tour dates together in late summer which will find them traveling throughout the East and Midwest. The tour, which takes a month off in September, will finish up on October 17th here at Houston's (The Woodlands) Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. It should be a great pairing of Southern rock titans that should find both groups collaborating throughout the two month tour.

Check out the full list of dates after the jump

Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

Our SXSW continued on Friday with performances by Human Highway, Woods, Wavves, King Khan & the Shrines, Department of Eagles, Metallica, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears and Okkervil River. We took a ton of pictures throughout the day – check them out after the jump.

Our second full day of the South by Southwest music conference and festival featured a nice array of shows all throughout Austin, including a stop by the 'secret' Metallica performance at Stubb's.

Read all about Friday, March 20th at SXSW after the jump

For those who have never attended New Orleans' Voodoo Experience, you've been missing out on one of the South's best kept secrets. Rehage Entertainment, the promoters behind Voodoo, have always pulled in an array of talent to play at their annual event held in City Park. I've been fortunate enough to catch everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Man Man, Rage Against the Machine to Wyclef Jean, Wilco to Lil Wayne and The Flaming Lips to Duran Duran at the fall event. Thanks to the genius of Twitter, our friends at Voodoo Experience have been keeping us informed of what is going on with this year's edition of the festival. A few weeks ago, we learned that The Black Keys were the first confirmed band, but just a few hours ago they sent out a tweet announcing that ultimate Halloween band KISS will take top billing on October 31st. While I can't say I'm the biggest KISS fan, it would still be a treat to catch them live, especially on Halloween night at Voodoo. Knowing the reputation of past Voodoo Experiences, the rest of the bands taking the stages come October will be quite strong, enough to support such an odd-but-great choice for festival headliner.

We'll keep you informed of who will be playing the 11th annual Voodoo Experience in the coming weeks, but if you want to get up-to-the-minute updates for yourself, feel free to follow them on Twitter.

A couple days ago we received a tweet from the All Points West festival telling us to keep our eyes open on Monday, March 30th. Well, this morning around 7am, I received another tweet from APW telling me Tool, Coldplay and The Beastie Boys would be headlining the 2009 event, with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Echo & the Bunnymen, My Bloody Valentine and MGMT set to fill the undercard. I went to the website and discovered a strong list of indie, dance, hip-hop and comedy acts that was unlike any other festival going today.

Check out the All Points West 2009 initial line-up after the jump

The Westheimer Block Party took place on Saturday, and (mostly) went off without a hitch. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the daytime portion of the festival, but the expanded line-up during the night time more than made up for it. I made it to Montrose just in time for the last few bands to finish up the free part of the day. Our good friends Buxton were scheduled to take the stage behind the Austin Layne Hotel around 8, so I headed over there to catch their set. The stages were running a bit late, so Listen Listen were just finishing up, but I knew Buxton had a few tricks up their sleeves for the after-dark performance, so I stuck around. Before their set, Buxton and their fans passed out several hundred sparklers to the growing crowd, which were to be lit when the band gave a cue during their song "Feathers." The cue came, the sparklers were lit, and the rest is history...

We'll be posting more from the Block Party soon, including photos and video from St. Vincent, Devin the Dude, Valient Thorr, The Eastern Sea, The Riff Tiffs, Sideshow Tramps, I am Mesmer, B L A C K I E, Cop Warmth, as well as more from Buxton.

Bacon, his wife, and their pal Blair P took a trip to Hampton, VA to catch Phish perform the second and third night of their highly anticipated comeback run at the beginning of March. He sent over this report and pictures from his experience at the shows last week, and the read was quite enjoyable, so we thought we'd share it with you all.

See how his Hampton Phish experience went after the jump

It's once again time for the biannual, closest-thing-Houston-has-to-a-legit-festival known as the Westheimer Block Party to take over the Montrose intersection of Taft and Westheimer. Houston's music scene will be strongly represented during the all day event, which will see over a hundred bands playing on ten different stages in six different venues. We are extremely excited for the free events during the day which will feature a ton of our favorite local acts like Buxton, The Wild Moccasins, Sideshow Tramps and Plump, but what makes this year's Block Party unique is the addition of several larger regional acts to the night time portion of the festival. Dallas singer/songwriter St. Vincent will be headlining the event, while North Carolina's experimental thrashers Valient Thorr, Austin rapper Devin the Dude and L.A. noise rockers HEALTH will also perform.

Check out the full stage schedule, and videos from some of our favorites playing the festival after the jump

Take a gander at the rest of our photos from Thursday, March 19th at the South By Southwest music conference and festival in Austin, TX after the jump.

Thursday, March 19th found the BOT crew of Eggs and Cereal in Austin for their first official day of the 2009 South By Southwest music conference and festival. We went into the day without much of a plan, but as soon as we stepped on to Sixth Street, we knew there would be plenty of options to choose from.

Read about our experiences during Thursday of SXSW 2009 after the jump