CityLife

Shaun Curran at SXSW: Day One

Shaun wonders where the giant plectrum went

A BIG hello to everyone from Austin, Texas - home to South by Southwest Festival, the world’s premier new music showcase and one hell of a party.

Over the next five days I’ll be here on behalf of CityLife reporting back on everything that’s hip and happening with the sights, sounds and smells of the festival and everything around it, finding some exciting new bands to watch and gigantic multi-coloured guitars to straddle.  

SXSW is essentially where Tony Wilson got the idea for In the City (although not even Mr. Wilson could bring the glorious weather to Manchester), with over 50 bars down one strip in Austin playing host to five or six bands a night.  

In among the unsigned and yet-to-be-discovered bands there’s a great mix of the old (The Sonics, PJ Harvey, Echo and the Bunnymen) the new (Glasvegas, Passion Pit, Little Boots) and the downright awful (Razorlight), plus keynote speakers – Jarvis Cocker! – and a whole lot more besides.              

Surreal freak show

We’ve been here since Monday evening local time and had a day to kill, so decided to take in some traditional Texan ‘entertainment’ by going to the local Rodeo.

This was complete with dodgy fairground, pig racing and the most surreal freak show I’ve ever witnessed (prime example: Tyrone the Giant Rat, who, for reasons I couldn’t quite fathom, had a can of Miller with him).              

Although the film and interactive arms of the festival have been running for a week or so, the music festival officially gets going today, so come back tomorrow to find out about how the first day of SXSW proper went off. See you then!