It's Hip To Be Wac(k)o

Nov. 2 – Austin, TX

Austin was a happy accident. The hotel in Waco canceled our reservation, and with no other rooms available in town, our lodging was moved to the capital city. After work we made the hundred-mile drive, arriving in Austin by midnight and leaving a couple of hours to experience the scene there.

Our day, of course, had been spent in Waco (anagram for "a cow": coincidence?) and we had known in advance that it would be, yes, a little wacko. The Waco Hippodrome was far smaller than any venue we'd yet played—how they ever managed to fit equestrian sports in there I'll never know. We had prepared a version of the show with no moving pieces, and played it against the black rear wall of the theatre. Instruments, equipment and even some costumes were set up in the back alley, which you could step to almost directly from the stage. Wardrobe, offices, even our beloved coffee were located in the building next door.

Still, it was fun to perform there. It was the kind of house that made us feel we were playing the local Saturday night opry rather than some slick Broadway thing. (You could almost smell the horse shit in the air; maybe that's why it's called the Hippodrome.) Or perhaps we were an old Vaudeville act: in the close quarters of our dressing room I could easily imagine that crowd of 1920s chorus girls scurrying to dress for the next number. But maybe that's just an image that comes more readily to some of us than to others.

At any rate, in Austin that night we checked out Sixth Street, which stakes a credible claim as the live music capital of the world. Austin's a hip city, at least as hip as the opry or Vaudeville, and displays a greater number of young, hip people than we'd yet seen outside of captivity. There was only time to check out one place, so we chose an Irish pub with a blues quartet (talk about hip) where coeds and thirty-something singles alike were tearing up the dance floor (naturally with a lot of swinging of hips). It was a cool place to be, and that was refreshing.

Austinites have a slogan: "Keep Austin Weird." I hope that just being a great place to hang out in what's otherwise known as Texas is not what they have in mind as being weird. But if it is, I'll take it anyway. It ain't the Waco Hippodrome, but it's still pretty damn hip.

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