Surprise High Five: March 2013

Well SXSW is finally over, and let me tell you,

it was epic.

We started off the weekend by heading down to Auditorium Shores on Friday night to see The Flaming Lips.

Remus and I had been looking forward to this concert since we heard that they were coming to SXSW.

For one, The Flaming Lips are a pretty nifty band.

And secondly, the show was FREE!

We love free things.

Like, a lot.

Also!

Friday just happened to be our anniversary!

6 years!!!!

photo from the concert

I don't know how we've managed not to kill each other.

It must be the side burns.

Anyhoo, back to the concert.

If you haven't been to Auditorium Shores its a park that runs along the lake (even though it looks more like a river). It serves as a dog/regular park in the day but is often used for big events like this one.

Much like Lindley Park for my Bozeman friends.

And another thing....

It's gorgeous.

Watching the sunset on the city sky line felt pretty special for our anniversary.

Though we only had this view because we needed to use the porta-potties.

Still....it was nice.

The night really couldn't have been nicer.

As for the actual Flaming Lips concert....

It was EPIC!

There were lights and strange costumes(of course),

a person in a hamster ball crowd surfing (I had been told to maybe expect this),

and then the baby doll that was cradled throughout the entire concert and kissed repeatedly (apparently it had been found on the ground before the show, they kept mentioning it an attempt to find the real owner).

Oh! There was also some hair pulling. On stage. Not done to me.

Needless to say I have never seem a show quite like it.

It was awesome.

On Saturday we hit up Fader Fort.

We got there early because Saturday was the last day and we knew it was gonna get pretty busy.

Plus surprise artists had been showing up in the evening and we knew it had to be someone huge that night. I mean, Usher was the night before. How do you top that??!

Now let me just say, Fader Fort is THE place to be during SXSW.

This place was freaking amazing!

The place it literally set up like an adult wonderland. There were little lounges all over the place with different things to offer.

There was free cotton candy, free mohawks (no, I didn't get one),

tire swings and SO MUCH MORE!!

There were about 3 live bands playing in different places all around and also,

FREE DRINKS!!

And they were good drinks too.

Now of course it was a hot summer day. And alcohol and heat can really catch up to you if you're not careful.
Good thing Fader had FREE Vitamin and Smart Water.
BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE.

Seriously. This place was fantastic.

Now when I say it was a hot summer day I am not joking. It was around the upper 80's that day.
Once we ~~drank our faces off~~ had been there for a couple hours we decided we had better find some shade if we wanted to make it until dark to see who the special guest was.
So we ended up making friends with some people at a picnic table doing the same thing and spent the next few hours chatting in between bathroom and drink runs.

After a few hours it finally came time for us to head to the main stage to wait for the special guest.
It was crazy packed. By about one hour before the special guest you couldn't even leave to go to the bathroom or you wouldn't make it back.

And when it finally came time to the special guest to come out....
It was Diddy!!

Now, I'm not exactly a Diddy fan. That is to say, I don't actually own any of his music.
But I was still very excited.
I mean, this guy is like, super famous! And he was right in front of me!!
Crazy pants guys. Crazy pants.
I tried to get photos to prove of my Diddy-ness, but they all turned out something like this:

I'm pretty sure he's not even in this picture. But this is the best one I have.
Poor lighting and day drinking will do that.

The show itself was awesome. The energy in that place was like nothing else.
People. Were. AMPED.

When the show ended our new friends said goodbye and we hung around the stage for a little longer, hoping for an encore that never came.

The show ended on such a high note that there was even a break out of song/rap in the porta-potties (damn you free Smart Water) post Diddy.
There's nothing quite as funny as hearing a ton of people sing
"Party at the potties, yeah, party at the potties."

All in all, we had a great first SXSW experience.

But I'm also glad it's all over.
Drinking and staying out late for a week straight is hard work.

Holy smokes. This weekend has a been a whirlwind.
As many of you know this weekend marked the beginning of South By Southwest 2013.

(For those of you who don't know, SXSW is an annual music, film, and tech. conference in Austin.)

It's super cool.

Now this is my first SXSW adventure and although my weekend started off slow ~~because I'm an old lady who gets tired and overwhelmed easily~~ I think it actually turned out pretty awesome!

Remus and I kicked things off with the Startup Crawl on Thursday night and hung out with some of his co-workers on Friday.

On Saturday we wandered downtown looking for something fun (free drinks) and didn't have much luck.

But then came Sunday.

Sunday is where the fun really started.

In the afternoon we headed down to Auditorium Shores and participated in The mp3 Project by Improv Everywhere.

It was so much fun!

We were told to come down to the park at a specific time, download this mp3 and not listen to it, and dress is a certain color shirt. Once we were there and the clock hit 3 we all started playing the track which gave us all directions for what we were supposed to do next.

It was so much fun!

We were directed to do things like follow non participants around and play freeze tag.

My favorite part was when we all formed a giant bulls-eye in the middle of the park.

I can only imagine what all the passerby's thought.

The next thing on our agenda for Sunday was the Foursquare party at Hype Machine's Hype Hotel.