The first year I came, in 2006, I didn’t know anything about
the festival. I came for work,
which meant I was doing product demonstrations in the Convention Center from
8am – 5pm. At night we’d go to
showcases. It was an exhausting
and exhilarating 11 days.
At Emo’s I saw Eugene Hutz jump into the crowd during a
frenetic Gogol Bordello show. I
watched a tall blonde girl sing along to every word at MF Doom. My company sponsored a small party that
Sleater-Kinney played and we shyly met them after their set.
I had a flip phone that allowed rudimentary texting – you
had to hit a button multiple times to select a new letter – but a co-worker
sent me a text to show up to Stubb’s for a surprise show. Pre-Twitter and iPhone and mobile
internet access it really was a surprise.
People filed in and we watched the Beastie Boys play “Intergalactic” and
“No Sleep Till Brooklyn.” I heard
people talking about another secret show in a fenced off parking lot near what
was once a Spaghetti Warehouse.
Underneath the white tent top the Flaming Lips covered “Bohemian
Rhapsody” and the crowd sang loudly and bounced beach balls. It felt amazing to be in this space
with all these people experiencing this.
It didn’t feel like we were attendees at a distance, it felt like we
were active participants.
That first South By became sort of a pivotal moment. It helped change the way I wanted to
experience music. I wanted it to
be up close and personal, I wanted to be right next to it.
Gogol Bordello at Emo's (2006) |
In the years that followed, South By became my annual
pilgrimage. I’d fly from San
Francisco or Oakland or San Jose, wherever I could get a flight from. One year I fell down a flight of stairs
on my way to the airport. I
tripped over the strap on my suitcase and toppled onto the concrete outside my
apartment. A man driving by jumped
out of his car to see if I was okay, leaving his car running in the middle of
the street. I thanked him and
said, “I have to get to the airport.”
I slid myself into my car seat with a throbbing huge bruise on my right
hip. Another year all the San
Francisco flights were cancelled so we sped to San Jose and pleaded with them
to let us out. I was a woman obsessed. I didn't know too many people in Austin, but I knew I wanted to be there.
Two years in a row I stayed at the Town Lake Holiday
Inn. The second time was an
accident – another hotel lost my reservation, but I got in a cab and the driver
said he’d take me around until I found a place to stay. The Holiday Inn had one room left. Rainey Street had yet to be developed,
so if I wanted coffee the closest place I’d really stumbled on was the Hideout,
near Sixth and Congress. (Little
did I know what that spot would come to mean to me in the years that would
follow.)
I started writing more about music, covering shows for 7x7,
SPIN, and Ground Control. South By
was my chance to commune with other music writers and talk about who we loved
and who we wanted to see.
Vampire Weekend at Stubb's (2008) |
Surfer Blood at La Zona Rosa (2011) |
At the Parish we saw one of She & Him’s first
shows. At La Zona Rosa we saw
Editors and Secret Machines and Cold War Kids. Band of Horses played Central Presbyterian Church and it was
the closest thing to a revival I’ve experienced. One year I ended up dancing at the Mohawk until 4am to a guy
remixing 8-bit Nintendo sounds. I
saw Deer Tick completely channel Nirvana in an all-cover set that ended with
them smashing their instruments.
In the last couple of years though, I’ve noticed more bands
that seem to be exhausted from playing so many shows in a short span of time and
fans that are anxious to move on to the next thing. There’s always a better party and a better band and
something you absolutely shouldn’t be missing somewhere else. (With the proliferation of free daytime
parties sometimes the nighttime showcases can seem a little shortchanged. On a couple of occasions I’ve noticed
that a band might pack a free daytime party, but not have a huge audience at a
nighttime show.)
My worry is that folks may now be driven less by the want to
see a certain band or to discover something new than by the fear of missing out on seeing something. Not that this fear didn’t exist before,
but it feels more tangible now. Maybe
part of what made those early years so magical for me was that I wasn’t really aware
of what I missed out on. I just
knew that in that moment I was with a dozen other people watching the Black
Lips start a mosh pit at Beerland.
So, enjoy the moment – before you know it, 10 years will go by.
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