Dallas Blog

Metallica
SXSW's Guitar Hero: Metallica Party
Stubb's BBQ in Austin, TX
Friday, March 20, 2009

Better than: anything else you could've seen at SXSW last night--and maybe all week. People might try to disagree on that. But don't buy into it. This was the show by which SXSW 2009 will be remembered.

Pete Freedman

James Hetfield strikes his best Guitar Hero pose at Stubb's.

It was the worst-kept secret in Austin. And, really, it wasn't a secret at all. Even the posters promoting this show read "featuring members of Metallica." Right. Like the people behind Guitar Hero and its upcoming spinoff, Guitar Hero: Metallica, would dare send Robert Trujillo to Austin without James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett in tow, ready to perform.

Are you kidding? There'd be riots.

Instead, as everyone knew what to expect, on this night, there were just lines of revelers paitently awaiting the chance to see the metal icons in as small a venue as the band is likely to have played at any point in the past 20 years.

Shearwater at Austin's The Parish (Noah W. Bailey)

Shearwater CD Release Party
The Parish in Austin
Thursday, May 29, 2008

Better Than: The last several Okkervil River shows I’ve seen.

Former Okkervil River side project Shearwater showed just how far it has come Thursday night at Austin’s Parish, unveiling its fifth LP (Rook) before an awestruck hometown crowd. Recorded at The Echo Lab outside Denton, Rook is a record of a rare beauty, and it took the addition of a harpist and full horn and string sections to do it justice live.