SXSW Friday seemed to drag on forever. Myself and Phil had one main goal, see the N.E.R.D show at 1am at Stubb’s BBQ but that was no easy task and required some careful planning and some trickery to make sure we got in and got some solid placement. We hit up Hickory Street again for breakfast and it took forever……..they need to step up the cook staff at that place or something, at least for SXSW week. The day was a blur waiting for the sun to set and the Stubb’s show to kick off at 9pm.
We started the day back at Emo’s where Fuze did some activation for the day concerts and we enjoyed some great bands for a while before we head over to Townlake Stage.
This bus sat on 6th street all week and I assumed it was something important until I saw a cop writing a ticket for it being on the road after they closed it on Friday. Hmmm, worth the advertising I guess?
Pulling into the parking deck at Townlake Stage we found a sign that said “Out of Service” which doesn’t seem to strange until you see what it was on. An old Ford van? I hope this wasn’t a taxi or something people dared to use.
So it was crunch time and definitly time to get to Stubb’s BBQ to get to our 1am concert about 8pm. We swung into a pizza spot called Ropollos that had a vibe very similar to my favorite south beach spot called Pizza Rustica but it was subpar on quality by far but did have a walk up window!
So Phil and myself walked into hear N.E.R.D around 9:30pm just to make sure we got in and we sure did. Not to long after that they stopped letting people in we found out and were ecstatic to be holding a spot. So many horrible bands played before them that I couldn’t even count and while standing in the crowd rumors started flying that Britney Spears was going to play with them? Even MTV reported later that Spears was a no show and I don’t think a single person in that whole crowd cared one bit MTV.com on Stubbs Event and no Spears. It took N.E.R.D about 45 minutes to get set up which seemed like an eternity!
We secured a standing room third row spot or so for the venue as it’s in the back of a BBQ restertaunt so we lacked pleasures like stadium seating or seating at all. That wasn’t on my list of concerns either and all the sudden Pharrell and possie came out and started to rip and this place went CRAZY.
They opened with a new song off the album Seeing Sounds then played the classic song Brain. Skipping along they ended up smashing out three hits in a row with Backseat Love, Maybe, and Rockstar. During Rockstar N.E.R.D let a crowd of people come on the stage so they could jam out.
Randomly the guy just off my camera to the left took off his shirt in the middle of the concert and then wouldn’t leave once everyone else got off stage. He was standing in the middle of the stage holding up a 93.3 t-shirt (because we all care about his bad hip hop station) that he had to take off his body to show us? None of this makes sense I know but finally Pharrell politely told him to remove himself because he had a show to do and the guy finally left or got pulled off by a bouncer. The concert then picked up once again with a new song I just loved and then the old hit Lapdance.
They went past their curfew and were told to leave but kept playing as everyone was still going crazy after 10 songs. After their finale song She Wants to Move the band busted out into some Queen - Another One Bites the Dust and finally closed up shop.
Nobody moved once the band walked off stage and everyone chanted “One More Song” and Pharrell came back and apologized saying they couldn’t be given any more time and walked off to an insane ovation. What a night! Cannot wait for the new album in June. Sadly we couldn’t hang out for Saturday too long so this is a wrap on my South by Southwest week. See everyone next year.
