Friday, March 18th, 2005
Thursday night started off with two fun bands, The Like Young and Hockey Night. The Like Young has the Mates of State thing going on… a guy and a girl that are seemingly in love, on stage, making music. They were a bit more “standard rock” than Mates, though. Hockey Night put on a great show and called the crowd “dudes,” as in “Thanks dudes” after a song.
After Hockey Night, we booked it over to Elysium to see the whole reason for buying SXSW wristbands in the first place (or at least my main motivating factor): Ratatat. The line was blocks long. My brother made it in to the venue over two hours before, and from the looks of it, there was absolutely no way many more people were getting in. This set me off; I was utterly pissed. Nothing could cheer me up.
So, we figured the best thing to do would be to head over to La Zona Rosa to catch The Futureheads who started in an hour, and Hot Hot Heat and Doves following. And when we got there, I was crushed. Twice the line of Elysium, and no concievable way that we were getting in before the night was over.
Despondent at this point, I really was not capable of making any more decisions for the evening. Not that decision making was really my strong suit last night anyway. So we stood in line. Cold. Dark. Etc.
After about an hour of being in line, we can hear The Future heads going on inside. Damnit! About that time, we start up a conversation with the guys in front of us. They are in a band called Melee from California (playing tonight, midnight at Redrum). Super nice guys, and fun to chat with.
A cop walks by us around 11:15 with one of those disposable Gladware containers. Robin says, “Aw, he’s got snacks…”, and a conversation is started from there. The APD officers tells us that if we make it inside, he’ll give us some of his snacks (which were cauliflower and celery… hey, anything would be okay at this point, huh?). 30 or 40 minutes later, he walks out with two pieces of cauliflower left… one for me and one for Robin. What a nice guy! We laughed and ate some fresh vegetables as he put his Gladware back in his cruiser.
On his way back into the venue, he asks Robin and I how many are in our party… two, we say… and then he says, “Come with me.” !!!. This was right at midnight. We walk behind him, straight into the venue, skipping hundreds of people still in line, and get stage-center right as Hot Hot Heat starts playing.
What a night. We found our friends inside shortly thereafter, and HHH and The Doves put on amazing shows. Hooray for the Austin Police Department. They saved SXSW for at least two of us. Thank you again to the officer that let us in, wherever you are. You made our evening 
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