Dig Until You Hit the Floor

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Metallagher's salad shooter (by Jamie Laughlin)

Unlike South by Southwest and Austin City Limits, at Fun Fun Fun Fest it's easy to not have a plan and sort of wander from stage to stage. However, it also helps to have a pioneer-woman strategy, like some other folks we know. Some highlights (and lowlights)...

Saturday "Read the map upside down, you'll find the best way downtown."

Fucked Up: They put on a great show, even with singer Pink Eyes in the crowd for 90% of it. As one colleague put it, when members of the audience reached out to touch him, it looked like "someone petting a bear."

Neon Indian: "Is someone onstage or is this just a CD player?"

The Jesus Lizard: "This is gonna be really good," David Yow enthused before their set, and he kept his promise. How could it not? Home turf, original lineup with Mac McNeilly on drums, fantastic sound, Yow crowd surfing all the way to the back just to kiss his sister, closing with "Wheelchair Epidemic." Shut it down.

Sunday "It's hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain."

Metallagher: A Metallica cover band fronted by a Gallagher impersonator. Sure, these guys probably work at Guitar Center by day and this was probably a joke gone awry, but I'm sorry, it was funny. They did mainly "early" Metallica, and Gallagher maintained a pretty decent Hetfield. The funniest part was hearing him start a joke as Hetfield, then switching into his Gallagher voice to really drive home how cringe-worthy his humor was. Then there was the fruit smashed: The requisite watermelon, an eggplant, some sort of gourd, um, cottage cheese...

Broadcast: Of course it would have been a better show to experience at, say, Emo's, but something about the UK duo's haunted house electro was really nice paired with pouring rain.

Crystal Castles: Strobes and a fog machine don't hide the fact that you probably met working at Hot Topic.

Buraka Som Sistema: The strobes on this stage were less seizure-y than on Crystal Castles'. They were also the polar opposite sound-wise: Hi-NRG dance music from Portugal, lots of air horns, a live drummer, a dancer with blacklight lipstick.

Josh Fadem: This guy told jokes like someone with Asperger's, and I apologize if he has it. "Did you hear the one about Tito Jackson? Yeah, his brother died." Too soo- ah hell, I laughed.

Danzig: I looked him in the eyes, and I'm still here.