Everything is big in Texas, but it came as a huge surprise that we were big in Texas. With its “go big or go home attitude,” our eyes had been stuffed full of mega-churches and BBQ outfitters, giant shiny oil-money skyscrapers and clean wide highways. The flags, of course, were numerous and giant, giving every car dealership and truck stop an air of grandeur and terror – depending on what “neck of the woods” you’re from. Even the sun felt bigger in the (second) biggest state of the American Union, its full-tilt 116 degree weather making the quest for shadows and air-conditioning a top priority. Large warnings cautioned all passersby about the perils of “going outside.” The heat is too hot. High alert. The exclamation points at least two storeys tall. The regional drought made the usually dusty green plains and fields bleached to un-colour and construction vehicles seemed abandoned mid-chore. Despite the time of day, Texas was having a siesta. Hats off. Boots up. Just restin a lil. Slightly passed the mid-day sun’s most brutal output, it was nice to roll into Austin and find it feeling a little peppier. Austin has taken on the responsibility of “keeping Texas weird” and it lives up to its reputation. The state’s capital feels like the New York City of the South, a nexus point for many wide-eyed artsy migrants in search of “bigger” dreams. It has a flare of eccentricity that can only be found in centers that found their unity on their differences. In other words: I love Austin. Austin famously touts itself as America’s music capital and it would be hard to dispute that claim. For us, even the attendance at our in-store performance at Waterloo Records was higher than we’d anticipated. As we shopped for vinyl with fans and perusers after our mini-set, a Mexican metalhead shared our enthusiasm for Sepultura and two outta-towners made us sign an LCD Soundsystem record. It was a mixed-bag of folks – my favourite kind of crowd. I say this now earnestly, with my shaken heart: Austin, nothing could have prepared us for the show you shared with us at Mohawk. We felt lucky when the staff was sweet and efficient and funny and gruff and darkly humourous but buoyantly hard-working and we felt lucky when the promoter continuously referred to all the bouncers and sound techs as his former lovers (grabbing asses along the way) and we felt lucky when a line started to form down the sidewalk hours before the show! I mean we felt lucky. We felt extremely lucky. But nothing could have prepared us for the show itself. Hundreds and hundreds of you turned out. For us! You draped yourselves over balconies and crammed yourself into the sweaty courtyard. There were so so many of you. Dan and I kept gaping in disbelief: BIG IN TEXAS? WHO KNEW??? And when you danced and hollered your mix-bag of catcalls and applause after our very first song, we knew you were giving us everything you had. You blew us away. You were the most energetic and ferociously beautiful crowd we could have imagined. You were tireless. You were relentlessly full of joy and spirit. You gave me so much love, I felt my heart bursting. You braved the heat and you made it hotter. And every drop of sweat I gave, I know you rivaled with its return. Austin, I am utterly amazed. I am still in shock from you. Seriously. How’d you get so goddamn sexy? Austin, you are so awesome. Afterwards, we hugged as many of you as possible before we cooled ourselves off with Coca-colas at a 24hour diner and spoke endlessly of our disbelief and good luck. We ended our night with corn-fritters, jabbering away about our unexpected pleasure. And so we were made even more humble when so many of you arrived – from Tulsa, from Houston, from hours and hours away – to our show in Dallas. We knew immediately that we were in good hands when the feather-earringed and symmetrically hair-braided, JT, described his own band to us as fucked up and partly electronic too. (His band name Ishi takes its title from the utterances of a lost-tribe Native American man who was found working in a slaughter house repeating just that word over and over again. It translates only as: Man. Heavy and poetic.) He pumped the drum machine generously into the hall of Club Dada and took our low-budget laser into his own care, excited to stream it across the heads of the predicted crowd. And you came, you did! again! For the second night in a row we were astounded by you. By your verve, by your energy. You made us realize that we need to visit you more often. We had no idea how cool you were.
Texas, you have shown us your southern hospitality in spades. You gave us free fried pies and postcards with energetic cattle and political satires of Indians and Cowboys. You gave us enormous billboards and cheap tacos. You gave us heat hotter than hell. You gave us open plains and sun-scorched earth. You gave us hand-painted murals and music in the streets. You gave us pulled pork and gas-station Elvis impersonators butchering Van Morrisson songs.
But mostly you gave us yourselves. In all your weirdness and awesome beauty. I could never, in my life, have been more surprised by how lovely you are. Strange and frantic and warm and good-looking. Big in Texas…. where size matters. Thank you and mucho gusto and gracias por todo.