Brothers of the Castle in La Zona Rosa

We opted for the Austin Del Castillo show instead of San Antonio (Helotes). The Austin show was a "Help Clifford (Antone) Help Kids" benefit, which started early with a dinner, silent auction, and schmooze session. The cost of that was $250 per ticket (yikes! Too rich for me, and not a cheap date, either). La Zona Rosa was duded up to the best of its ability. It will never be truly posh, which suits me fine. The regular riff-raff fans got to go to the show for $20, music only, so we lined up waiting for our time to go in.

Someone kept snapping pictures of the little black car across the street, LOTS of pictures (wtf???), and it turned out to be the car of John Paul DeJoria, owner of Paul Mitchell . Think salons, shampoo, white bottles, PETA-approved, rides motorcycles with Peter Fonda when he’s in town… that guy. He finally came out and left in it. The car door raised up in the air to open, and the engine made a wonderful purring sound going down the street. A lot of the high-rollers left before the show.

While I was at the bar, I was standing near Susan Antone when she was introducing Michael Ward to someone. Today I find out that Michael Ward was in the Wallflowers, and I believe is now with Ben Harper, and is good friends with Lance Armstrong. I didn’t know who he was last night.

That’s it for sightings, it’s all about Del Castillo for me. The place was still filled up with big round tables and tablecloths, kind of like a wedding reception. A little smaller crowd than you’d normally see for DC because of the benefit, and people either not knowing about the music tickets or thinking they wouldn’t get in. The front filled up with us DC-nuts. Alex was talking about the back of the room at the schmooze tables, saying there must be glue on the seats. You'd have to tie me down to keep me from dancing to DC. I dance like Snoopy, but... heh heh...

The sound at La Zona Rosa is not designed for being stage-side, I think I’ve ranted on this before. Thursday it was not terrible, but a different mix than I’ve heard coming from the guys before, as in the brothers’ voices were actually drowning out Alex! Yes, that’s right, and probably just from where we were standing. I’m hoping that I will soak up enough lyrics to just automatically learn Spanish, but that has been going at the rate of about 10 words a year, so not great progress. Lots of smiles from the stage, absolutely wonderful to see. They did Song For Jordan and Don Nicholas which are older favorites and great to hear. Rick was even more on than usual, just an absolutely wild man on the guitar, not to discount Mark, he was awesome! Everyone in the band gives 100% percent, always, it’s very electrifying. Clifford called them Austin’s Secret or something like that, and that’s basically true right now but the more they get out there the more they will be discovered by people so it’s just a matter of time I think. Great show!! Love the new stuff. (New CD in April!!!)

I didn’t hang around afterwards. La Zona Rosa frowns on that, OK they do more than frown, they strongly encourage you to please leave. Now. That’s OK, there was a nice meet-greet in San Marcos earlier in the month. Not sure when the next DC show will be for me.
EDIT: What does La Zona Rosa mean anyway? I thought it was "The Red Zone" or "the Rose Zone", and if it's that, is it Rose the flower or a color? Also, Alex mentioned a new video shot in Santa Fe. That's very cool, a part of me will always be in Santa Fe because my mother is buried there. I know she would have loved their music.

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