Although I’ve been praying that my last semester would be nothing but fun, I’ve been having to still hit the books pretty hard so I can graduate in May! Since I didn’t settle on a major until my junior year, it’s been rough avoiding hard classes. I’m currently taking three computer science classes and one business class, so it’s safe to say this still isn’t a blow off semester.
But, back to the fun stuff! Along with the spring semester comes spring break, and I love spending my break going to SXSW in ATX!! It’s literally the best time of the year for me, even better than Halloween and Christmas.
From all the music this year to food to fashion, I outlined my week for y’all in this post!!
This year had SO MANY PEOPLE!! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I could barely move around on sixth street because of the crowds. I began attending SXSW in 2014, but I didn’t get really involved until 2015 (after I learned a bit of my way around Austin) and I can’t believe how large it’s gotten. I love seeing new people come and experience this great event, but I have to say that I don’t think Austin as a city can handle that many people at one time. The lines to everything were absolutely ridiculous and I couldn’t get into many events unfortunately this year, due to full capacities.
Even with the amount of people, it didn’t stop me from attending SXSW! I began my week on Tuesday and wrapped it up on Friday. I was amazed at myself for lasting so long for four days straight. When you spend 12+ hours on your feet, jumping all around the city, it gets so exhausting, but it’s definitely worth it! I’ll go ahead and tell you about my week day by day.
TuesdayI started off by heading down to the Mazda Studio at Empire, which is a completely free/no badge required event. We planned to see Lil Yachty (lil boat!!), but as soon as we got there, the line was all the way down the street and there was no way we’d get inside in time. Instead, we decided to just walk around and see what was going on. We started by heading over to Sixth Street, which is a major common hub during the week. Everyone usually ends up on sixth some part of the day whether it’s for the cheap/free drinks, free shows, or free promotional items. We were handed a lot of flyers, koozies, drawstring backpacks, you name it. It’s really fun to collect all of the items and see everything you got when you get home. As we were walking, we noticed a pop up shop that looked pretty cool with $2.50 wells, so we decided to pop in. It actually was a pretty cool clothing company, Ethik Clothing Co., and after some research I found they’re from NY. We were greeted by a pretty chill guy who was decked out in their clothing and happened to be from the Bay Area (and it was completely obvious). I had barely spent any money during spring break, so I went ahead and bought a t-shirt that had “Lost in the Sauce” on it. I almost died laughing when I saw it because I thought it referred to the infamous tweet Johnny Manziel tweeted earlier this year.
After the pop up shop, and a few drinks later, we walked from Sixth to Fourth and Lavaca until we realized we were getting hungry and we should get closer to the next venue we were going to. We decided to go to Koriente, which is this amazing Asian restaurant tucked in between Sixth and Seventh. I’ve been here once before and loved the food, so I was really excited to go back! I usually stick to the same dish every time at restaurants and I thought I had gotten the Miso Honey Glazed Mahi-Mahi the last time I went, but when my food came out, I immediately realized it was different this time! Now looking at their website, I actually got the Terryaki Chicken the last time I went. The Miso Honey Glazed Mahi-Mahi was really good, but I think I’m more of a Terryaki Chicken kind of girl. I unfortunately didn’t take an photos here because I was starving and didn’t have time to take a photo before (sorry!).
After we ate here, we headed over to Pandora since T.I., aka one of my childhood crushes, was performing. We got to the venue and noticed that the line was super short and we were an hour and a half early. We asked a volunteer who worked there where we should go to get our wristband for the show and she pointed to this even shorter line. We were still hungry and the venue was right across the street from Easy Tiger, one of my favorite places in Austin for beer and drink appetizers, so we decided to stop in for a second. It took awhile to find a table, I assume because TuneIn was also there hosting something for SXSW. Once we did I already knew I wanted to order the Brooklyn Lager and a pretzel with their housemade beer cheese, which is amazing btw. If you ever go here for the cheese, just know they give you a lot of cheese and not as much bread or pretzel, so I suggesting sharing with someone if you can. It didn’t take me long to eat and I didn’t finish my beer, so we were in and out in about thirty minutes.
By the time we walked outside, the whole line was wrapped around and down the street. It was crazy from what we just saw! The line, however, the lady pointed to us before was still really short. We walked over there knowing something was off, and that’s when a guy asked if the line was for VIP and the others in line nodded yes. We walked over to the long GA line. We waited there for no more than five minutes when the same clueless volunteer from earlier came over and told us there was no way we’d get inside without an official SXSW badge. It made no sense because Pandora has always been a free event and our RSVPs said otherwise. Frustrated and tired, we ended up just leaving and getting a Fasten home. In case you’re unfamiliar with Fasten, it’s an alternative to Lyft or Uber since we unfortunately don’t have the luxury of having those in Austin.
Once we got back to my car, we decided to drive around Austin for a little bit, just to see if there were any events we missed. Surprisingly, a lot of things were pretty low key or at capacity this year, so there weren’t many spontaneous things to do. One of my other friends asked if we wanted to go eat out or get drinks, so as tired as we were, we still wanted to go. We all decided to go to Irene’s since both of my friends had never been there. I know I’ve talked about Irene’s before in my previous post. but it’s so good so I had to go again. This time, I switched it up and got a Waterloo Sunset, which is basically a margarita on the rocks, and bacon toast. Again, don’t ever question the toast, it’s so amazing and I’m not sure why, it just is. The bacon toast was really good with bacon, an egg, and cheese on it. The cheese was definitely my favorite part, they packed it on and it was so good. My favorite toast there is still the avocado toast, but I’ll hopefully try all of their toasts one day. As for the drink, I originally had ordered the Sweet Jane. It sounded really good, but did not taste good to me. Our waiter said you had to have an “acquired taste” to like that one, and he was right. After we ate, we took a photo under the Irene’s neon sign and called it a day.
Wednesday
Wednesday was probably my favorite day of SXSW by far. The night before, I found out that I was surprisingly invited to Fader Fort this year. Fader Fort is literally the king of SXSW, and a lot of people would agree with me on that. Last year I was able to see Yung Jake, Metro Boomin, Rae Sremmurd, Lil Uzi Vert, Desiigner, Yo Gotta, and Drake there, just to name a few. They had downsized their location this year, and with that they downsized the guest list as well. Fader Fort is an invite only event, meaning you literally have to stake out at your inbox basically the whole month prior. I literally would wake up in the middle of the night (and morning because y’all know how late I sleep…) to check my inbox for the invite. Last year, I was able to actually able to manipulate the URL from a past Fader invite list to put my name on the current year’s, but this year they wised up and used EventBrite, so I couldn’t do that.
Anyway, Wednesday started off by getting our wristbands at the Fair Market, which was surprisingly an easy process. I also decided to drive and park down there and I somehow found a parking spot literally next to Fader Fort so #blessed. We walked in and there was immediately a dark room with a projector going on a wall, which was pretty cool since you could take pictures with the projection on you. There was then another room that had Jack Daniels everything (one of Fader Fort’s sponsors) and with my favorite part, an open bar. I got my jack and coke and headed outside. There was a bunch of things for Toyota (another sponsor) including a photo booth and a place where you could customize a little travel bag and a pin. We waited in line to get them and while we were waiting for our customizations to print, I noticed that Playboi Carticame out. I watched his performance from afar when he brought out A$AP Rocky. I immediately freaked out, as being such a huge A$AP fan, and tried to work my way up in the crowd. When Playboi Carti left the stage, a lot of people began leaving to go get drinks and whatnot, so we actually worked our way to the very front. I don’t remember ever being so close at a show to where I touched the barrier since I saw G-Eazy, so this was exciting. DJ Esco soon came out, playing all of his hits done with Future. I also saw him last year, so it was cool to see him again and share his 56 nights story, which is pretty interesting if you get the chance to read it. After Esco, PNB Rock performed, and I’m really into his song “Selfish”, so I enjoyed seeing him. Finally, after waiting for a couple hours, Lil Yachty came out. This was my fourth attempt ever to see Lil Boat himself because every time I planned to see him, I’d either be too late or the venue would be at capacity. This was so up close and personal though, it was amazing. He started spraying water on everyone as soon as he walked out and a giant splash of it landed right in my eye, so I knew the night would only get crazier. I literally was attacked by other people to take my place and a mosh pit started, so I had to battle and push people away to stay in the front. I literally still have bruises all over my legs and arms from this, but I bruise easily. Some guy even started pulling my hair. At first, I thought it was just getting caught on things and in between people, but I turned my head to the side and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this guy actually pull strands of my hair. I was so mad to say the least and pulled my hair to the front. Some guy ended up trying to fight this guy later, so it was nice to see him get what he deserved. Seeing Lil Yachty was amazing thought and I even got to touch him. He performed one of my favorite songs, “Like Wassup”, so I was happy. He then got up in the crowd and he took a sip of Dasani and then poured the rest of the bottle right on my head. It was exhilarating being noticed by Lil Yachty, but at what cost. After the show, I was exhausted to say the least and had to pass on going out with my friends to Sixth.
Thursday
Thursday was the most interesting day of the week. It’s that day of SXSW where you have too many shows that you want to go to at conflicting times, so you have to plan accordingly. Our top priority was to see Paul Wall, Slim Thug, Mike Jones, and the whole Swishahouse lineup. If you don’t know, Swishahouse is a label of Houston legends, and you can check out one of their hits here. Before that though, we decided to stop at Fader Fort again for a little bit. We didn’t know any of the acts that day, so we just took advantage of the open bar and scored some free stuff, including a cool Fader cap (featured in my photos below). After we chilled for a bit, we decided we needed to begin waiting in line for Swishahouse and we headed over to Sixth. The Swishahouse show was hosted by Revolt House and was at Vulcan Gas Company, which I’ve heard of but have never been. As soon as we got near the venue, we saw a giant crowd with a ton of barriers and a line headed all the way down the street. At first, I couldn’t believe that the line was so long, I didn’t realize people still appreciated old school Texas music that much, especially in Austin. We walked all the way to the next block where the line ended and began waiting. At first, the line actually moved pretty well, I figured it was just taking awhile to check IDs and RSVPs. Within minutes of waiting, I looked over at this group of guys who were talking and were pretty hyped up. I kept looking when I thought I recognized one of them. Once I was almost certain, I walked up to him and said “Excuse me, are you Mod Sun?” He turned to me seeming pretty excited and said “Yes I am doll!” and went in for a hug. Mod Sun is a rapper and I discovered him a couple years ago in this amazing song when I was really into G-Eazy. I was so surprised about how sweet and welcoming he was, he even invited me to come to his performance, which I would have taken him up on if I wasn’t waiting in line. I asked him for a photo where he did a crazy pose, I thanked him, and walked back to the line. We waited probably for over an hour when we started to get hungry. Roppolo’s pizza was literally two feet away from us, so I stepped out and grabbed us a couple slices. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Roppolo’s and all of its greasy-ness, but it definitely tastes a lot better after a few drinks. While I ordered, I started talking to the guy at the window and he was telling me that the line started before the doors even opened for the show and how tiny the venue was. After hearing that, I got worried if we’d even make inside. Not only that, I wondered how we were even going to fit in there. I walked back to the line and we waited for another thirty minutes or so when we noticed that only one person would go in when one person left. I went over to talk to one of the bouncers to confirm this and when he did, we decided to leave. I immediately went to one of my fave bars on Sixth and ordered a whiskey sour. We had no idea what to do because it was too late at that point to catch any shows that weren’t at capacity. We had been wanting to check out an A$AP Mob pop up shop that was a block over, so we walked. As soon as we got there, we saw how small it was and a sweatshirt was $250, so it was a no go. The Westin on 5th was across the street and has a great rooftop pool where we thought we could chill out, so we headed over there. There was actually a party up there hosted by Chive TV, so there was actually no spots to sit. It was really pretty up there per usual, but there was no point in us staying. Instead, we decided to just head over to Rainey Street and see if we could catch a free show in the bars. We went to Container Bar, which had a party hosted by Dr. Marten’s. Container Bar is usually my go to place on Rainey because I love their Pain Killer cocktail. It’s so good because it’s almost like a Pina Colada but with a little cinnamon spice to it. We stayed there for a little bit but then we started to really realize how tired we were and decided to call it a night.
Friday
The last day I attended SXSW was on Friday. I had a hard time getting going just because I was so tired from the past few days. I had trouble sleeping during spring break and I wasn’t sure why, so I was constantly tired. I slowly got up and got ready and we planned on just sticking to Fader that day since we were striking out on the free, GA shows. We actually planned on first attending the Saint Laurent pool party on Soco, but we couldn’t find a parking spot to save our lives, and then just headed over to Fader Fort. I also had a hard time finding parking this time by Fader Fort, which was surprising since it’s held in east Austin, where it isn’t as crazy as DT. I found a spot by Huston Tillotston University, and we walked over. The main act of the day that I wanted to see was Kyle!, who I also discovered during my G-Eazy days. He recently came out with a hit called iSpy with Lil Yachty, so he’s been pretty up and coming. When we reached Fader, the line was wrapped around the building. We were so tired of waiting in line and doubted we’d even make it inside again since Fader was at capacity. Instead, we called it quits with SXSW 2017 and got our nails done instead.
SXSW was fun, as always, and is one of my favorite times of the year! I hope I didn’t rant on too much with my experience of it this year, and you got something out of my story. Until SXSW 2018!
xx,
Rachelle
