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Sonny Ortiz back on his old stomping grounds
It’s been a long time since Domingo (“Sonny”) Ortiz opened for Christopher Cross at Steamboat on Sixth Street and this ain’t no Aquafest. Ortiz plays percussion for Widespread Panic, one of the top concert draws in the country, and Saturday’s co-headliner (with Oasis).
“This is a special show for us,” said Ortiz, who moved to Austin from his native Waco in 1975 and played in various local outfits until moving to Athens, Ga., in 1986. “We’ve heard good things about the festival and when there was some question about whether the hurricane would hit Austin, we were really concerned that we might miss the opportunity.”
Later he played for surely his largest-ever Austin crowd, an estimated 28,000.
Ortiz spent his last three years in Austin living at the New Manor, the infamous “clothing optional” apartment complex on Manor Road. “I got in a lot of trouble there,” he said, with a laugh. “My buddy had just opened a club in Georgia and he said, ‘you should check out the scene.’ ” Ortiz met the other members of Panic, as all their fans call them, when they played Athens’ Uptown Lounge every Monday. He was soon sitting in and eventually became an official member.
Asked which Austin restaurant he most misses, Ortiz said “Tamale House No. 2. You have to understand that I was a starving musician. Back then, that was the most food for the least money in town.”
Some things haven’t changed, Sonny.
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