Three days of nonstop live music. Free. The streets of Austin are awash with weirdos and hipsters and geeks and demigods. Oh mighty and awesome SXSW, we bow before thee. Asobi Seksu. The Dodos. The Dears. Yuck. Surfer Blood. The Strokes. Bright Eyes. I missed Noah and the Whale, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, DeVotchKa, The Twilight Sad, Great Northern, The Naked and Famous, and Matt and Kim – and a whole bunch more – for the simple reason that there’s only so much awesomeness an individual can handle at one time. Highlights: Owen Pallett’s cover of Joanna Newsom’s Peach, Plum, Pear; seeing Okkervil River – twice. Lowlights: Conor Oberst ranting about the US “bombing children in Libya,” and just about “any country with a -stan“; The Dodos not playing Park Song. But no need to lose sight of what really happened. The past three days have been enough to restore my faith in humanity.

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