Third Time’s A Charm

At 5:30am, when I was half-way through my shower, I got a call from American Airlines that my flight had been delayed. 15 minutes later I was knee-deep in anxiety trying to re-schedule my now cancelled flight. Having been excited for weeks knowing I would be making my third pilgrimage to Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Music conference, I was befuddled at the possibility of not going due to an airline failure.

It was bad enough that we’d already been bumped from the Sheraton due to a hotel overbooking mishap, but the very thought of staying home was unbearable. So, I did what any die-hard indie music festival lover would do -- woke up my roommate with faux-kidnapping flair and hightailed it to the airport.

We talked our way into bulkhead seats on the next flight and finally, at 8pm (5 hours later than our scheduled arrival) we’d made it to Austin.

We walked forthrightly into the convention center to pick up our badges, and were flanked by neon images of a pretty-boy band beaming from multiple TV screens broadcasting the concert going on in the room next door. “Who is that we asked?” and consulted the schedule to see that it was, of course, Hanson.

We’d just traveled 1500 miles to get to indie rock’s yearly keystone fiesta and this is what we get: Mmmbop.