SXSW review: Robots, driverless cars and rad bands (Lime Scooter not included)

This SXSW was the year of the Lime scooter for me. I also took a driverless Waymo and saw a robot bartender at Faregrounds on Congress Avenue. Kicking off SXSW this year, I was not optimistic about what the festival had become in its ever-quaking need to feed the techno-masses. I did not enjoy being waved at by a clanker. Nor did I love taking a driverless car. Seeing so many robots delivering food, taking people to and from, it was not for me. Big no. 

Walking down Congress Avenue and seeing the endless sprawl of marketing activations and people doing their best to hustle for their products was greasy as hell. But what I learned about this year’s SXSW was that while the marketers were doing their best to ensure you learned about their organic coconut water-cooled data servers, some folks were putting in the work to keep the flame of SXSW alive. 

I say it’s the year of the Lime for me, because with the convention center being down, a shortened schedule and new festival overlords,  events were everywhere concurrently, which meant parking sucked. And with the Orange Ghoul raging a pointless war, Ubers were even more expensive than their usual surge pricing tier. I never went on main roads and drove like an old man, but I grabbed a scooter to get from downtown to the east side multiple times. Did I look stupid? Probably. Don’t care. 

On the fringes of the festival, I caught a lot of random performances like rockabilly bands playing outside the Austin Body Works shop, or walking past Low Down and hearing some gnarly punk. This year, despite the muted programming week, the unofficial stuff was just raging shows everywhere, almost a nod to years past.

The SIMS Foundation + Play to The Plants and TCC’s Cosmic Plants Clash showcase at the 13th Floor was excellent due to Pink Fuzz blowing my mind. They delivered the riffs in a way that was like half Queens of the Stone Age but still with some Jack White. They were an excellent band to catch.

Speaking of, they’re on tour with Austin acts American Sharks and Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol through May 9. See upcoming dates here including Wednesday’s show at SLC’s Ace’s High Saloon.

My company, Manychat, threw a party that went viral, and credit where credit is due: the line stayed out front from the kickoff to the wind-down. Everyone wanted to get in, and that’s good work on the events team, especially for a prime Saturday afternoon with great weather.

I also wound up at a TikTok event, and I gotta say, while I didn’t love my food for the dine-in experience at Canje, I loved the appetizers they dropped at the TikTok All-In event. Yeah, it was marketing schmooze, but at least we scored a booth and ate well. 

As for the events, a big shout-out to Hotel Vegas for their annual week-long Spring Break Boogie. Honorable mentions go out to The White Horse, Mohawk, and Valhalla. Hotel Vegas held it down with a week’s worth of absolute bangers. Sean Barna was a pleasant surprise inside Volstead, offering a Bob Dylan kinda thing all while rocking a caftan. I also caught him riding a Lime.

Sun Atlas, in their cult robes, played crazy jazz-fusion-funk, which was a blast for someone who didn’t know it. Recover was always a treat, being one of the unsung heroes of the millennial emo era. I also enjoyed Tropa Magica, and of course, Tear Dungeon always brings it. Especially their new song with it’s Sesame Street friendly title, “Charlie Kirk’s Neckhole Fleshlight.”

(Tear Dungeon is available for children’s birthday parties.)

It was a treat to catch the almighty Didjits, who are underground punk rock royalty from my hometown of Chicago. As always, Rocket From The Crypt did their thing, and it was so fun to see a band I’ve loved for 30 years. I remember having a Scream, Dracula, Scream poster on my wall for years. And all these years later, getting to catch them again was a real treat. 

The best band I saw during this year’s SXSW was, without a doubt, Osees on the Hotel Vegas patio stage. I don’t know what I was doing, not catching them sooner, but the band absolutely blew me away. I’ll be thinking about their set for a long time. Some acts live to play live and give it 110% every set, and that was the Osees. Those guys brought it and didn’t bother with small talk or asking people to buy a shirt. Instead, they delivered an hour of absolute garage punk freakout mastery with their frantic songs, two maniacal drummers, and a need to bleed on that stage for the people losing their minds to their music. That performance made SXSW for me.

And that’s the thing about SXSW in the Penske Media era. You have to work for it. The magic isn’t handed to you through a branded lanyard or a QR code. It’s buried in the side streets, in the day parties, in the bands playing like they’re about to be the Next Big Thing. The corporate sprawl is louder than ever, but if you’re willing to move — scooter, on foot, whatever — there’s still something real in those day parties. I was ready to write this year off and blame our new Sx corporate masters. I’m glad I didn’t.

Featured photo of Osees by Troy Gonzales

Please follow and like us: