If you’re hungover from First Thursday, take heart: Saturday down on South Congress you’ll find a whole street full of hair of the dog. Yes, Saturday from noon to 9 is the South Austin Celebration. Can you believe it? Somehow those happy hedonist trust-a-billies in South Austin have found another reason to drink beer and listen to live music. Take that, Pflugerville! In your face, Tarrytown! Clearly the rest of the plex is way behind the eight ball when it comes to stopping and smelling the roses, so to speak. In South Austin, all you need to do to start a party is open your window and turn up your John Prine CD. Soon enough one of your barefooted, shirtless neighbors will drop by with a beat-up guitar and a six-pack of tallboys. Good times. Yes, Saturday’s South Austin Celebration still involves the bare feet, beer, and live music, but it also comes with extra amenities like a petting zoo, an electric train, pony rides (what kind of sick, demented freak doesn’t want to ride a pony?), arts and crafts booths, a Ferris wheel, and other assorted carnival rides. The only thing missing is NASCAR, but there’s plenty of that at rush hour now that school’s back in session. Otherwise, it’s a pretty safe bet you’re going to see some face painting – maybe even sport some yourself – and very likely one of your dining options will involve some class of meat on a stick (think of it as a utensil that’s baked right in; how sterile is that?). So you might have to lean over the plate gastronomically speaking – as in, taking a pitch for the team – but your sacrifice will be rewarded amply with some of the finest music South Austin has to offer: honky-tonk ham Cornell Hurd; über chick band Sis Deville (featuring, at times, Shelley King, Floramay Holliday, Carolyn Wonderland, Anne Marie Harrop, and Angela Webster); outdoor stage vets Vallejo, and Latin lady killers Del Castillo. Any one of these bands alone is reason enough to throw a party, but this one is free and at the same time, amazingly, benefits Sertoma, Texas School for the Deaf, and the Save South Congress Association. That’s quite a trifecta, but in South Austin anything’s possible.
This article appears in September 3 • 2004.
