Friday night we went to Gruene Hall to hear Hank Williams III, mostly because our friend Alex Marcus has joined his touring band on fiddle. Hank III has got the look and sound of Hank Sr. down pat, although he cranks both the volume and the depression up to 11. Where Hank Sr. sang about cheatin' hearts and honky tonkin', Hank III sings about going straight to hell and Momma's crack pipe.
The crowd at Gruene Hall included both kinds of blue hair, which allayed my concerns that I might feel out of place in a straight country setting. I must say it was a pleasure to see so many multiply pierced young people wearing native Texan dress without any obeisance to Nashville. (I feel inspired to get me my own straw hat and run over it a few times in my car, although I see one place will sell me a pre-beat up model. If I do it'll be the first cowboy hat I've owned since I was six years old.)
Wayne "the Train" Hancock made a guest appearance for a few songs, sounding even more like Hank Sr. than Hank III does, which I think was pretty gracious of both Hank III and the Train; one might have expected them to be concerned about whether the venue was big enough for two Hank Williams imitators.
The only downside to the evening was the volume, which pretty well drowned out Alex's fiddling. After a long country set, Hank came back onstage in a heavy metal persona that I confess I don't quite understand. He very politely asked members of the audience who don't care for metal to leave, and then cranked the volume up further to around 666 or so. He also traded his twang in for the obligatory bad Tuvan throat singing from hell, and his hat for a long-tailed Mohawk (at least it wasn't a mullet). I'd have stayed for a taste of the metal show but my eardrums were already bleeding. We asked Alex if he could explain the fascination with metal, and he pointed out that for males under 25 country and metal pretty much share the same demographic these days. Fair enough.
Then on Saturday night we risked musical whiplash by taking the girls to hear the anti-Hank III: the Eggmen, Austin's outstanding Beatles tribute band, at Malini's elementary school. The Eggmen play Beatles tunes note for note like the originals, which is remarkable given that the Beatles themselves never played most of that stuff live. They successfully affect British accents, Beatlesque clothes and even have a Hofner and a Rickenbacker for their left-handed bass player. Like Hank III, they change clothes and styles between sets -- the first is mod and the second is psychedelic. The Eggmen's musical guests included a sixth grader on guitar and bowed bass and an amazing third grader on cello. Kids of all ages enjoyed the show, where the most dangerous substances ingested were from the bake sale in the hall and the doors closed promptly at 9:00 PM. Actual good live rock & roll at an elementary school dance! Another "only in Austin" experience.