So the Wall of Sound Festival is finally gonna happen; in roughly 18 hours, the doors to Fort Worth's Ridglea Theatre will open to throngs of people hungry for local music greatness. Dallas Observer staffers and contributors will be there in droves (no name tags, sorry, but you can find me hacking up my lungs with a terrible cough, at least), and we'll report on the results in next week's issue.
I began composing a recommended schedule, a list of groups you should definitely see, but this fest isn't like SXSW, where you have to plot out a schedule for the sake of walking--you can see at least 70 of the 88 bands if you hang out all day. So instead, I've come up with something a lot more useful--a list of recommended times to take breaks. I don't mean to single any bands out, but people can't sit inside of the Ridglea Theatre a full 13 hours--it's inhumane.
Saturday: If you need to sleep in or run errands, then take your time and arrive around 2:30 p.m., when Austin's Zookeeper plays a soft set of singer-songwritery goodness. The dinnertime break will be tough--from Chao's performance at 5:45 on, there's something great to see all the way until the night's end--so if you must, make a break for it around 4 p.m. after Pink Nasty (and the Danes, featuring Earlies singer Brandon Carr) are done and take an hour, hour-and-a-half long break. You'll miss the Southern Sea and Doug Burr if you do this, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made.