Austin City, no limits: In its 20th year, SXSW is bursting at the seams

AUSTIN, Texas — This city hosts the biggest, wildest, longest rock party in America, and every year it gets bigger.

It's South by Southwest, or SXSW, a four-day massing of musicians and those who support them, from fans to business people.

The business part takes place mostly in the Austin Convention Center where SXSW registrants — more than 10,000 this year, a new high — hear from industry professionals at panels and workshops on every topic affecting music, from iPods to indie labels, from publicity to publishing, from management to legal matters. There's a trade show, mentor programs and listening sessions. Rock stars give talks or are interviewed. It's a crash course in the music business.

How big is too big?

In its 20th anniversary year, there was much talk about how big SXSW has become. There was a lot of griping about the difficulty of getting into some events. It was impossible to get into shows by the Beastie Boys, Morrissey, the Pretenders or this year's buzz band, the Arctic Monkeys, without getting into line hours ahead of time.

Some shows were booked in clubs too small for the demand, like one for Seattle's own underage punk popsters, Smoosh, Thursday night at The Parish. About 100 people packed the place, but there were three times that many outside hoping to get in, a chaotic bunch that spilled out into Sixth Street, where there is a concentration of some 40 nightclubs.

Fortunately, five blocks of Sixth were closed to traffic each night of the festival, from Wednesday to Saturday. They weren't scheduled to close Wednesday and Thursday, but had to because of the huge turnout, numbering in the tens of thousands each night.

Seattle in the house

Twenty-two Seattle bands played in a dozen venues on Thursday night alone, with six to 10 more on the other nights. Seattle station KEXP-FM broadcast live from the festival.

The reason SXSW has gotten so big is because it has shifted from a business convention to a gathering of musicians. It was started by the Austin Chronicle, an alternative weekly, as a way to introduce musicians, mostly from the Texas and Oklahoma areas, to booking agents and record labels, but quickly grew to encompass the whole industry.

Major labels used to be a big part and gave the biggest parties. The few remaining major labels are still represented, but it's much more of an indie festival now. It's a great way for small labels to promote their acts, at much less cost than making a video or subsidizing a tour.

More than 1,400 bands played at official SXSW venues over the four days, with several hundred more at unofficial venues, so many that some clubs opened at noon. Walking down Sixth from then until 2 a.m., you could sample hundreds of bands in clubs large and small, most of them all-ages.

That music, coming from everywhere, is the heart and soul of SXSW. Seeing all those mostly young bands full of intensity and passion, giving their all for supportive audiences, is inspiring. SXSW reinforces rock's ability to constantly renew itself, with endless supplies of young blood.

In addition to the frustration of not getting into the big shows is the feeling that, while you're enjoying one group, maybe the next great band is playing at a club down the street. Among past SXSW buzz bands who went on to make it big were The Strokes, The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Franz Ferdinand and even Norah Jones.

Feeling the force

This year, for me, the ultimate SXSW experience came from a band that might not make it big but were playing their hearts out for a jam-packed audience in a tiny club called Chuggin' Monkey, so hot the front windows were open, and the music was making people dance in the street.

The band was called Family Force 5, from Oklahoma City, made up of talented, highly animated young guys obviously steeped in the whole history of rock, right up to the present.

The hip-hop influence was apparent from the lyrics to the inclusions of a DJ, but the guitar solos were classic rock. When the lead guitarist jumped up on the bar and wailed, the place went nuts. They epitomized the passion of young musicians, playing for nothing more than the fun of it, because they love it. The look in their eyes was like ecstasy, in the old, spiritual sense of the word.

Musicians have taken over SXSW, and that's a positive sign. The organizers are going to have to find ways to handle the growth, because it's just going to get bigger, as more musicians discover this haven for rock and the fans who love it.

Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312 or pmacdonald@seattletimes.com