After a 13-hour drive straight south from KC on I-35, Shannon and I and our brother in arms, Concert Chris, united with our partner Jimmy Winter of RockDex, slammed some 5-Hour Energy and headed to the Silicon Prairie Party hosted by Big Omaha at the Lanai Rooftop Lounge.

The party was packed with attendees of SXSW Interactive, which has been going on since Friday and wraps up tomorrow night. The music festival begins Wednesday, and you know we’re staying for that, so expect lots of madness here later in the week as we get our rock on.

The truly gorgeous open-air lounge was full of folks from startups, ad agencies, indie filmmakers from the Austin community and a guy from Google who made the mistake of telling me he works on Buzz.

Sorry for the earful there, Joshua.

Just before 11, talk began circulating that Gary Vaynerchuk was going to drop by and host one of his famous wine parties. We’re big fans of the man behind Wine Library TV and Vaynermedia — his book, Crush It, is practically our Bible at Locker Partner — so we thoroughly geeked out when he showed up with about two carloads of wine and began setting up a table. Soon, I was accepting accepting a glass of fine cab from the man himself. Cheers, Gary!

Check out more pics from the party at the RockDex blog. And stay tuned for more updates. We’re going to see so much awesome rock this week our eyes may die.