Once again, I’m in Austin for SXSW Interactive; the forth time I’ve attended an event I find easy to disparage. Yet this is the first stop on a trip that will take in several hundred miles of Interstate highway between here and San Francisco; two points of familiarity on an itinerary that promises to be anything but predictable.
For the final leg of my North American tour I transcended the West Coast on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight. Getting to San Francisco wouldn’t be much fun, boarding a coach in Vancouver at a ridiculous hour in the morning and dealing with an offensive US border guard before arriving at a closed King Street station in Seattle sounding its fire alarm.
Today was largely taken up by a flight back to London from San Francisco, where I spent the last ten days.
Last Wednesday night I had the good fortune to see Travis at one of only two live gigs they played in America, after their appearance at the Coachella music festival near LA.
The Warfield in San Francisco, and seats on the front row of the upper level, perfect for watching the Kaisers.