Today’s surprise highlights: The Saturday Knights. Find me another rap group that sings over “Where is my Mind” by the Pixies and I’ll probably like them too. They aren’t even playing the festival, they were just here for the day show. Quintron and Miss Pussycat – they’re badasses. Yelling “you’re awesome” at Wayne Coyne as I saw him walking down sixth street. I’m an obnoxious drunk.

I actually saw a surprisingly large number of shows today. Some were completely forgettable. Others were not. The girl from The Forecast rocks harder than any other girl I’ve ever seen live. If you wish Rainer Maria were more punk, they’re for you. Silversun Pickups show was dampered by the terrible sound, but they are still really good. And the lead singer is hilarious. They were good enough that I actually went to Spiro’s to see them. No foam machine running though, so I guess I didn’t really experience Spiro’s. I’ll save that for another time when I’ve had too much to drink.

Oh yeah, Day 2. It’s too much work to look up all the names of the bands that I saw, so I’ll stick with the stuff I remember off the top of my head:

Victory Grill is within walking distance of downtown. It’s not worth waiting 15 minutes for a $4 cab ride. The Vice Kills Texas day party was awesome. Particularly the part where they had free beer and free whiskey. The music was pretty good too. Tarantula AD shreds the cello. I’m not jello, but I thought they were good. Rahim were good, as expected.

From there back to Emo’s Annex to see Helmet. They are still one of the tightest bands I’ve ever seen. Got there just in time to catch the last few songs, including Milktoast. They’re still really loud.

Cabbed it up to ACL Studios to see the Silversun Pickups perform for live KEXP. Un-fucking-believable. They’re good. For real.

Cabbed it back downtown to catch Rahim again. They’re still good. As expected. I got their new cd, which is going on sale April 4th. I even had to manually put in the track names it’s so fucking new. I’m an insider.

Film School – saw them last year. They’re still good. Even better this year I think. At Club Deville I made my favorite mistaken statement of the night, “I’d like a glassful of head, please.” Definition 16 people, get your minds out of the gutter.

Passed on catching any 10pm shows because I had to make sure I saw The Gathering. Rock the goth music. They’re awesome, even if they are foreign.

The Sound Team and The Cloud Room – the best way to end my Thursday night.