Day 25: Austin, TX
Welcome
Yesterday we performed at the Historic Scoot Inn Since 1871.
Our long, straight, shiny, and now faulty banana had begun overheating at some point overnight. The fan clutch had failed and Deano had done some challenging maintenance work in the dark to jury-rig the fan to stay on, keeping air passing through the radiator.
I woke while we were still an hour out of Austin and beginning to hit some heavy freeway traffic. Deano was very apologetic about the delay, but we all knew he had done an incredible job to get us here at all. He really missed his purple bus, though.
We pulled up outside the Historic Scoot Inn Since 1871 and after dropping our bags went out for a breakfast walk. The place we arrived at was a taco trailer called Granny’s Tacos of Austin Texas. I found the menu to be a challenge thanks to the incredible range of specialty tacos I wanted to try. The two that made their way into this blog were the Campechano, with steak, chorizo, pico, and avocado, and the Rico, with chicken, mole sauce, and Mexican rice.
This was our second visit to the Historic Scoot Inn Since 1871, having played a showcase there during the 2019 South by Southwest festival. It was nice to be back, and it was especially nice to be performing outdoors. In the past week we had left Winter behind, transited through Spring, and now in Texas we had seemingly arrived at Summer.
One thing that Texas venues seem to do well is having nice dirt for people to stand on. It shows that they have a strong historical identity and also great confidence in their weather. This surface which I’m sure offers easy clean up for spilled drinks, also offers excellent performance for cricket; we found it had consistent bounce and was good to run on.
After soundcheck I went for a jog. I headed south to get to the Colorado River and then followed it west, enjoying the Anne and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail that winds along right next to the water’s edge. It was well into a handsome sunset by the time I reached the Congress Avenue Bridge and there were already large crowds gathering for the imminent event. A collection of sight-seeing boats were assembled on the river and scattered between them were kayaks and smaller craft. Right after I arrived, red spotlights began to illuminate the underside of the bridge and a few minutes later hundreds of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats began to emerge from the eaves and other nooks and crannies, heading east on their nightly flight to feed. There are an estimated 750,000 to 1.5 million bats that reside here during the summer months. I was too early in the year to witness this but at peak times the sky is reportedly blackened by the bats emerging at this time of evening.
Please enjoy this low quality video I took of the event happening.
I continued my journey, crossing the Congress Avenue Bridge and heading back down the river to the east, bats skimming closely overhead as I ran along. On the south bank of the river there is a boardwalk section of the Anne and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail and it was beautifully lit up after sunset. I followed this for a while and eventually reached Ladybird Lake and its guardian the Longhorn Dam, which keeps the river and lake at a consistent and pleasant height for recreational activities.
Back at Historic Scoot Inn Since 1871 the venue had transformed. Festoon lights strung over the yard were now alight and 900 people were packed into the area around the stage. The oldest continuously running beer joint in Texas was continuing to fulfill its mandate and giant cans of beer were to be seen in the hands of many.
The only sacrifice we paid for enjoying this magnificent outdoor atmosphere was the decibel limit imposed on us due to the proximity to residential buildings. Gabe had a challenging time making us sound quiet enough and in the end Tristan had to resort to a couple of old tricks including duct tape on the cymbals and a thick, woollen sock (clean) inside the hihats. To be honest I think we could have gotten away with turning it up louder. In the last song I looked out over the fence and saw a man across the road in front of a nearby apartment building. He gave us all a huge salute and punched the air as he watched the gig come to a close.
After the show we introduce Sidney Gish to the game of cricket, and as you can see she is a quick learner.