Wednesday 18/03/09 South By Southwest @ Various Venues, Austin, Texas

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It’s that time of year again where the music world turns to Austin, Texas for sun, loads of free alcohol, BBQ and most importantly, good music.  Almost like spring break for indie rockers, the 4 days of chaos bring over 1,000 bands at your fingertips from around the world to bring you basically the best time you’ll have all year.

Landing in Austin’s airport is almost like a life size game of Hipster BINGO.  To your direct right, a boy in tight jeans and a flannel shirt; a little to your left sits a hipster girl in oversized sunglasses and an American Apparel dress; directly behind you *insert buzz band here* is gathering their gear and heading for the taxi line that wraps around the block on the first day of the festival. Go a little further down the line with typical indie rock clichés and you are one step closer to yelling BINGO!

Wasting no time, the luggage is thrown into the downtown hotel room I will be calling home sweet home for the next 4 days and ready to head down to the Convention Center to obtain my badge and the massive show list. Waiting in line and listening for my name to pick up my huge white laminated badge after taking a photo with the “I have just traveled and really don’t want to be doing this” look, I gear up for the next task, picking up the massive tote bag with everything I need to know gig wise for the next few days.

“What am I going to do at this time?” is the question you ask yourself approximately every hour as you pick your must-go-to shows for the week. Now that the show list is in my hand as well as a highlighter and some other odds and ends, I have all the tools for a semi formulated festival plan (which you never stick to but you try your hardest to). 

First step, free parties!  The FADER fort has been known for years as THE day party to hit up. Free liquor, good bands and a huge space where you can catch pretty much every good band that’s playing the festival without the long lines and frustrating badge bullshit.  Didn’t see much but ended up hearing loud and clear on a megaphone that Black Cherry would be playing at night courtesy of their singer, Megane.  It’s quite an interesting way to announce your shows at SXSW, innit?

Running around like a maniac already, I rush to catch Nico Vega’s day set at the Spaceland/MySpace party at Maggie Mae’s. Two words for you…HOLY SHIT!  I’ve caught their set before but this was just incredible.  ‘Beast’ blew my mind and so did the multiple sips of margaritas I was already in full swing with.

The whole point of SXSW is to discover new music, and that is exactly what I did on Wednesday night.  Hitting up Pangea to check out Oh Land, a Danish singer that sort of reminded me of a cross between Bjork and Fever Ray.  Complete with a massive pink bow on top of her head, Nanna Øland Fabricius proceeded to soulfully serenade the audience with her two sidekicks en tow wearing neon disco lights on top of their heads.     

Next up, I was off to see Australian buzz band The Temper Trap and they did not disappoint.  The audience was packed up like sardines as every single industry executive jammed in there to see the next big thing.  Playing a short 45 minute set, most people walked out of there sweaty and grinning, totally hooked on these guys.

Heading over to Buffalo Billiards to catch School of Seven Bells and Ida Maria, I was finally able to stay in one place for more than an hour!  The sound guy was pretty horrible but School of Seven Bells sort of had no excuse for being a bit shit live.  Good record, but even their good looks couldn’t save them this time. At least there was Ida Maria up next…or not. Some strange singer came on that was clearly not Ida and announced that she would be taking her place. That’s my cue to leave…