Thursdays blitz into Denton and Fridays absence of constant stimulation and surplus of bad news prepared us well enough for the highs and lows of Saturday. Rain materialized once we hit the road and didn't let up for more than an occasional drizzle the entire evening. The 'Chain seemed to making an appearance in spirit, if not body, by forcing everyone to wear ponchos, the closest thing the western world still has to a hair shirt. Higher forms of assholes brought umbrellas, the best thing to block a stage with, compounding the collective misery.
We set through half of Devin the Dudes set. We may of felt more inclined to stick around if it was a sunny day and we had a 'rillo a piece, but the dude didn't have the energy to shake off the rain and cold, despite his perma-baked affability. We ran into a local friend and reconvened at The Love Shack for food, booze, and shelter.
We walked back into the wet while Best Coast signed off from one of the main stages. That we missed her by seconds seemed to signal a positive change in our luck. With higher expectations and cholesterol levels courtesy of ribs and hotdogs we waited for the serious half of the late UGK to take stage. Bun B was exactly what we expected. Dude walked up to the edge of the stage and let it be known that he did not give a fuck about the rain. He played the hits, all of them, and finished in an hour. Maybe in twenty more years he'll have a two hour show of choice verses if he's not running a record label off a moon base or doing whatever the fuck else the trillest does on retirement in 2032. The only problem with an hour of bars is that songs with other rappers get chopped in half or a third, even with Pimp's lines ghosted by his surviving partner. The whole presentation had a sawed-off staccato feel kept afloat by the sheer weight of Bun's charisma and word play.
We made a vain attempt to balance out the day with a few rock shows at JJ's Pizza, but the show was at capacity only minutes after the headlining acts had finished. We booked it to Hailey's, knowing that any chance of seeing Main Attrakionz would take the brute force of speed and press passes to get ahead of the poor kids lined around the block with wristbands. We jumped the line, dropped a few dollars at the bar, and settled into some seats while water evaporated off our clothing and we waited through a couple of promising local rap crews(-topic, Brain Gang). The two kids from Cali we'd been expecting hit the stage with their entourage and quickly started sucking most of Denton's fairer sex onto stage. By the end of the set they had countless girls with black square frames and nautical themed ink busting it wide open to some of the finer hip hop to come out this year. The kids dissolved the boundary of the stage and turned Hailey's into a youthful clusterfuck of energy, all while giving banter no play where a banger would suffice, making the set a total inverse of Bun's more statesman like approach.
Main Attrakionz departed off the stage and a well placed hand shake with Jack's right hand and a HD camera in his left were enough for us to score our first interview. We set up in the green room where Squadda Bambino, Mondre Man, and the rest of their clique held court. We talked briefly, surprised by their mutual appreciation for Salem and Cash Money and certain of their confidence and drive. That interview and a video of their set will be coming out soon.
We walked back into the rain mildly euphoric and headed to a home away from home that some close friends had provided for us in Dallas. We informed them of our decision to cut our coverage a day short, scorned by a line-up that looked piss poor without the Reid brothers at the helm. We slept late and made our way back to Austin, equally elated and jaded.
