I've been really forlorn about missing my friends in San Francisco lately, and I was especially feeling it on Saturday since one of my best friends had to cancel a trip she'd planned to come visit me. So on Sunday afternoon, I called up my friend and neighbor Elise here in Austin and asked her to go see Dale Watson with me at Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon. I wanted to celebrate living in Austin by doing something that was truly unique to the city. It was a 4pm show and it's right near our neighborhood, so Elise couldn't really resist.
Austin's been pretty dead lately, especially in the area by the University of Texas campus where we live. It's between semesters and it seems everyone's gone to visit relatives outside the city. But Ginny's was hopping to the point where the crowd was spilling out into the parking lot, and we had to hunt for parking across the street.
Ginny's is a hole in the wall joint, but it was packed from front to back for a free show by Dale Watson and for a highly anticipated round of chicken shit bingo. Instead of catching the bingo spectacle, Elise and I staked a claim in the crowd near the bar, up by the band, eventually scoring two barstools. Here's what the scene looked like (that's Elise waving hello at the end):
We had some Shiners and caught up, enjoying the music and watching people dance. Dale Watson was particularly entertaining and I was delighted his band had a pedal steel player in it. In between songs, Dale promoted the free hot dogs and chicken shit bingo and even sang a rousing song about Eduardo when he showed up with the tamales he was selling. Yes, San Francisco, Austin has its own version of The Tamale Lady, only he's named Eduardo and he has a theme song.
I tried to shoot some footage of Dale Watson and his band but I ended up mainly documenting the dancing of one of the couples on the miniscule "dance floor". Elise managed to get a bit of a crane shot effect by grabbing the camera and standing on her barstool, so you can see a bit of Dale toward the end:
Dale and his band play great Texas honky tonk music, and his rich voice is a classic that makes me swoon. If the dance floor at Ginny's were any bigger, I would have wanted to two-step with someone. As it was, only Elise got asked to dance, and right after she took the silver-haired gentleman out for a spin we figured it was time to move on.
- Buy Dale Watson's new album From the Cradle to the Grave
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