We arrived in time to catch the end of The Subways’ set. They are a trio of youngsters from London who rocked with more energy than seemed right for that early in the day.  David Cross was the emcee for the event, which was a pleasant surprise…until later.  Dashboard Confessional took the stage after KT Tunstall, and before Cary Brothers.  Brothers commented that the line up “makes perfect sense since I’ve sold so many more CDs than Dashboard!” Needless to say, the large crowd for Dashboard’s set dissipated quite a bit by the time Brothers took the stage.

During the switch over between Dashboard and Brothers, Cross filled the time by announcing the winners of a few mp3 players provided by one of the sponsors.  Before he called out the names, Cross editorialized about the fact that one of the prizes (Creative Zen Vision) was much better than the other “crap” prize (Dell DJ Ditty).  It was all very funny until he called Kathy’s name whom then had to walk to the front of the stage, all while being filmed, to accept the prize.  A bit in shock, and wanting to be out of camera shot as soon as possible, Kathy tried to hurry the acceptance process.  But not without being admonished by Cross saying, “You could say ‘Thank you’!”  Kathy walked back into the crowd to find Kendra giggling and saying, “All I could do is laugh and mock you!”  Apparently, Kendra has a theory that Kathy is on some kind of crazy winning streak…whatever.  After Brothers’s rocking set, ending with the wonderfully soaring ‘California Bound,’ Kathy had the band sign the Ditty (in order to increase the potential eBay value).

We said our good-byes and hauled ass across town to catch the Barsuk label party in the “party barn” of Pokey Joe’s BBQ restaurant.  We arrived in time to hear Jason Collett (member of Broken Social Scene) who is really talented, but a little too country for our tastes.  Soon after, we found ourselves huddled in a mass of the coolest indie kids at SXSW to enjoy the music of John Vanderslice, one of the most polite rock stars you’ll ever meet.  Vanderslice and his drummer managed to shake the rafters of the party barn for a short, but satisfying set.

Following the Barsuk party, we continued our Canada night at SXSW at Momo’s to hear a longer set by Jason Collett (Toronto) and The Sam Roberts Band (Montreal).  We enjoyed the pleasantly warm Austin evening by lounging in Momo’s great outdoor deck surrounded by scores of Canuck rock stars that neither of us recognized, but it sure was fun.  We managed to stay through half of The Sam Roberts Band’s set (highly enjoyable sound) before hurrying across town, again, to see Luke Doucet (Toronto).

First hearing Doucet as a solo opener for Josh Rouse earlier this year, we didn’t want to miss his showcase.  Doucet was playing on the 18th floor of some swanky hotel for a pretty intimate crowd of less than 30 people.  This time, Doucet was performing with a full band, including his fiancée, Melissa McClelland on guitar and vocals.  Singing a few of his newest songs that are mostly bitter break-up songs about his ex-girlfriend, Doucet acknowledged how awkward the situation was for McClelland.  But, he promised that his next CD would be filled with songs about how happy he is now…and then quickly apologized, in advance, for how bad they would be, as happy songs tend to suck.