After our encounter with Quiet Company, the Soundcheck staff bumped into a familiar face. Several familiar faces, actually: 17 Hippies, the German band who played on Soundcheck when we visited Berlin last fall (listen to their performance and interview here).
The 15-member group is playing SXSW for the first time in 10 years. It’s tough enough for an American trio to afford the pilgrimage to Austin every year. The group’s Christopher Blenkinsop (pictured, center, kneeling) told us 17 Hippies travels with 15 people: “It’s a long way away from Berlin, ” he said, then added a clarification, since we were in Austin, which has a rich German-American heritage: “The Berlin is actually in Germany and Europe. There are at least three Berlins in Texas, as we found out, and there are at least nine Hamburgs and 12 Cologne’s … everything’s bigger here anyway.”
Bumping into people you know is what SXSW is all about. I’m sure Christopher and 17 Hippies are just the start of a lot of warm reunions here in Austin.
