SXSW Music Festival: Austin, TX
The city is bursting at the seams with hipsters seemingly posing as conventioneers. Conspicuously absent are the embroidered-logo short-sleeve knit shirts tucked into frumpy, old guy jeans held up (just a little too high) by a belt which also holds a cell phone holster. Instead, you can’t walk a block in any part of town without seeing a gaggle of young, hip-looking people with asymmetrical haircuts, Chuck Taylors, tight jeans, vintage park-and-rec t-shirts and hoodies, sporting badges around their necks.
The streets are also alive with exhibitionists of often-undetermined stripes, evangelists screaming through microphones and handing out t-shirts, a girl in an orange bodysuit dancing for a video camera as if her arms and legs were propellers, random indie-band photo ops in parking lots, gypsy bands set up on the sidewalks or wherever else they can catch peoples’ ears, a muscle-bound guy in an Army Ranger t-shirt barbecuing on his porch to the strains of Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty.”
There are shows in tiny indie record stores, barbershops, art galleries, restaurants, back porches, yards, museums, radio stations, coffeehouses, even at the Urban Outfitters. Walking down Sixth Street, Austin’s tourist mecca and the home to most of its bars and clubs, the sounds of the bands blend together so as to be indistinguishable. San Francisco seems to be fairly well represented judging from some of the familiar faces I’ve seen, fixtures in the Bay Area music scene.
You learn some quick lessons at festivals like this. The venues are almost always behind schedule, guest lists usually go unheeded, supporting bands seem to have a curious and irksome habit of not introducing themselves to audiences who rarely know the name of every act. Emo’s always has a line. Many of the day shows offer free drinks — usually keg beer — but one might also spot music fans drinking Rob Roys in Birds Barbershop while watching their friends get free mohawks.
The food options are myriad. So far, the standouts were a greasy and flavorful taco-truck crawl on South First St., incredible battered french fries and chicken and waffles at Tony’s Southern Comfort Restaurant and extremely well-cooked brisket and a euphoric banana pudding at Ben’s Longbranch BBQ (which also hosts bands down the hill from its porch on a cement patio).
