A mature festival like SXSW, running for the first time in London, has some serious expectations to meet. SXSW is unparalleled in size, using Austin’s big convention centre, numerous hotels, cinemas, and music venues, but with a remarkably compact footprint. You can overdose on music, films and interesting talks, without straying too far from the convention centre or hotel. Austin seems to have a density of music venues, probably unparalleled outside of Nashville.

London’s iteration announced that it was going to be based in Shoreditch. There are obvious synergies. The ‘New Media’ industries that based themselves in Shoreditch over the last 20 years, are always in attendance and Austin has clearly influenced Shoreditch over the last 20 years.

However, there are fundamental problems SXSW London needed to address and sadly, they go beyond there being no breakfast tacos. My first concern was simply that I’m not sure Shoreditch is capable of hosting a festival of SXSW Austin’s size. London as a whole is. It has the conference centres. It has more music venues than Austin. It has more cinema screens. But it is also a massive city compared to tiny Austin. Its conference centres are spread across the city. Its music venues sprout up in little creative hubs across the city and while say Leicester Square could handle the film festival, they would be too expensive and big for the festival to use and the smaller arthouse cinemas are spread across the city.

Another problem, unlike Austin, where it takes place over 10 days and Interactive finishes and music takes over, this festival was going take place over 6 days. The overlap between ‘interactive’ attendees and music has always been remarkably small, with the interactive attendees seemingly on company expenses, leaving at the start of music, so there’s no competition over venues. Clearly squashing everything into six days, across an unknown number of venues – with no conference centre in Shoreditch meant that the perceived value of conference badges was far less. You might therefore expect the badges to be cheaper. But they weren’t. The Platinum badge for London was more expensive than the last badge I bought in 2019. They even tried to pull a US trick that us in the UK aren’t used to. Quoting ticket prices excluding VAT.

Given all these unknowns. You would assume that SXSW London would try to cover them off to encourage ticket sales. With regular news about speakers, the venues they were using, featured films and artists playing the music festival, etc. Instead, it seemed their main approach was simply to offer discounts to previous SXSW attendees and to stay quiet about what we should expect for our money. There was no way I was purchasing a full badge for what was clearly going to be a second-class experience.

When they finally announced the list of artists. The lineup wasn’t what I was expecting. I was expecting it to be full of the best new indie talent from around the UK and Europe. Instead, there were slim pickings. I guess in an effort to reflect the more diverse music of London, there was much more R&B and rap. In fairness, this was the right thing to do, this diverse mix of music reflects London’s music scene. But to sell tickets, you need to provide something to entice the usual gig attendees. The lineup was so unappealing that none of my gig buddies bought tickets. These are the very people you would expect to jump at buying wristbands, people who gig across London most nights and attend festivals like the Great Escape. Their argument were that there was more than enough good stuff happening in London and with no clear draw, it was easier to do a normal gigging week.

I’m of the belief that London is crying out for a multi-day, multi-venue festival. Other UK cities have them. Many, like The Great Escape, seem to have modelled themselves on SXSW and I expected SXSW London to be in prime position to become the London multi-venue festival. However, after this first festival, they have a lot of work to do to make this happen.

A few weeks before the festival started, they finally announced venues and music wristbands. The wristbands were very reasonably priced. £100 for the six day music pass. The venues, were pretty much what I expected. XOYO, Village Underground, Old Blue Last, Rich Mix, Strong Room Bar, Jaguar Shoes, Colours. There were some surprises, such as Shoreditch Town Hall.

On the surface it didn’t look too bad. Not brilliant. But not bad. There seemed to be no late licenses. So venues would finish at 11pm meaning I could travel in each day and go home to my own bed.

However, in reality, there was a lot of walking for very slim pickings. At SXSW I can see 35 bands in a day jumping between venues on Reds and 6th Street. At SXSW London, I was seeing less than 10 bands a day. I see more at The Great Escape and I’ve spent years moaning about the venue density.

What surprised me most, was how little impact SXSW had on Shoreditch. On the first day, walking down from St Pancras, through Angel, down to Old Street, I didn’t see a single poster or sign. Even in Shoreditch, it wasn’t prominent. Most bars, shops, cafes and restaurants seemed oblivious to SXSW with no signs encouraging SXSW attendees into their establishments.

The second day, I got off at London Bridge as I wanted to visit WEX on Commercial Road. Walking up Brick Lane to the main conference hub at the Truman Brewery, you wouldn’t know anything was happening. Basically the first SXSW sign I saw was at the Brewery. This isn’t a SXSW I’m used to. You can’t move in Austin for SXSW branding. Austin breathes SXSW.

Despite some backing from Sadiq Khan, the festival was almost invisible. This isn’t unusual for London. Even big football matches can have little impact on the city. But you expect the local area to embrace the event. Shoreditch seemed oblivious the event was happening. This has to change for the festival to be successful. London needs to do better. Sadly, with some venues seeing really low footfall, they might have a problem convincing existing venues to participate next year.

During the week, the lack of venues proved problematic. Some had dual use. During the day they were conference venues, in the evening music venues. At times there were only half a dozen venues in use and given the diversity of music, it meant at times there wasn’t much to listen to. That isn’t to say I didn’t try other music genres, but none of it really excited me. At one point on Friday afternoon, there were only three venues with music on. That’s just not good enough.

One advantage of the low key first year was that despite there being few venues, most of the time it was easy to get into venues. This was a real positive. If I’m dragging myself 20 minutes across Shoreditch, I need to know I’m getting in. Other than one event, even the Village Underground was easy to get into – and with none of their usual security search shenanigans.

Hopefully, they can grow the venue density over the next year by enticing some of the pubs to host gigs while increasing the audience. If they just increase the audience, then there simply isn’t enough venues and everyone will be queuing.

One massive positive was that the British Music Embassy put in a short but welcome appearance. The BME is sponsored by industry and the DTI to promote the British music industry in the USA. So you wouldn’t expect them to be hosting a venue in the UK. I think there was a realisation that maybe SXSW London needed a bit of a helping hand and they spun this up at the last minute. Anyone who’s been to Austin knows that the British Embassy team are one of the best. Taking over Devonshire Square for two days, featuring some of the hottest bands who played their Austin venue, such as Gurriers, they provided a real showcase venue. Hopefully, they will be more involved next year.

Sadly, SXSW London hadn’t enticed any of the national groups who put on SXSW events in Austin. The Aussies are still taking their music to The Great Escape. SXSW London seemed to have missed a great opportunity to encourage the European music industry to bring their country’s artists over.

Not everything was within the control of SXSW. Unfortunately, like Austin last year, SXSW London experienced some controversy. Several artists signed up to SXSW without researching what SXSW is. Pulling out when they realised that the main conference featured talks from politicians and companies with connection to activities they didn’t agree with. Then the usual peer pressure caused artists to drop out at the last minute when they decided Tony Blair speaking at the conference, didn’t fit with their morals.

I don’t have an issue with artists pulling out of events when they are caught off guard or protesting when they don’t agree with something. Many argued SXSW Music told them that there wouldn’t be anyone controversial giving keynotes. There seemed to be a feeling that the different SXSW stands were keeping each other in the dark and that SXSW Music were unaware Blair was speaking. Personally, I don’t buy this. I don’t think SXSW perceived Blair as an issue and they are hardly going to tell bands that their big surprise was that they had arranged for ex-Prime Ministers to talk. It’s also hardly surprising that there might be individuals on panels who might have connections to things artists don’t like. I always feel artists should play and make it known that they disagree. But they shouldn’t don’t pull out due to peer pressure. In this case, many just look like idiots who had not bothered to research what SXSW does.

Rant over.

But it was annoying.

Some lineups were devastated, with massive gaps in the running order. When many of the stages had hand curated their lineups, trying to encourage representation. Artists pulling out denied opportunities to other who may have benefitted from the exposure. From my perspective, at times it meant very little music. Given most stages tried to be diverse, alongside numerous lineups that defaulted to diversity, such as two stages of South Asian music and several LGBTQ+ stages. There were points in each day when there were zero indie artists. Best way to illustrate the issue was Scottish music brought no indie artists. Probably fulfilling their arts funding, they brought a diverse selection of artists. But when everyone else was doing the same, it meant the lineup didn’t appeal to the average ‘6 Music’ gig goer.

Next year they need to tweak the formula. Increase the number of venues to get more of the normal traditional indie fare on the bill. They shouldn’t reduce the ratio of artists from the diverse musical and social backgrounds by increasing the indie representation by adding new venues. They need to keep the number of venues with none indie music as I think this could be SXSW’s key unique selling point compared to all the UK indie festivals. Maybe they need to encourage some of the notable indie venues around London and the UK to bring local lineups, so the traditional indie audience will buy tickets. Personally, I think it would also be good to get London-based Loud Women involved who seem to strike a good balance pushing inclusivity.

Musically, it could have been stronger. If this is the standard next year, The Great Escape will feel relieved. Many of the artists I saw, I had seen before. New artists that stood out were Bethia Beadman, August Charles, Cosmonaut, Uncle Junior, Karma Sheen, HMS Morris. But there were slim pickings. A weekender at the Windmill would have a stronger lineup.

There are some things the festival can’t fix, the main one being the weather. It wasn’t fun trekking between venues in the pouring rain. Maybe next year there needs to be SXSW branded umbrellas? It was most definitely not the Austin experience.

What was most disappointing, by the time Saturday came round I think the corporates were heading home. With heavy rain that day, I think people headed home and footfall was atrocious and by the end, Benefits, the last band of the day had maybe a dozen people watching them in an empty 93 East. With such poor turnout at these venues, SXSW may have a job convincing them to take part next year.

SXSW is definitely a ‘work in progress’. It felt like it was a pencil sketch of a potentially good idea. Apparently SXSW London operates as a franchise and has a multi-year contract. The talk at the festival was that there is a Berlin addition planned. If that’s the case, London needs to quickly turn its pencil sketch into a more realised version. Berlin sounds more attractive to me. My feeling after this year is that it has a long way to go to convince the UK that this is the default place to find new music. It may end up having to drop live music from the festival and accept it is simply an ideas festival.

Artists seen

Amelia Coburn, Anaiis, August Charles, Ava Joe, Baby Said, Benefits, Catrin Finch and Aoife Ni Bhrian, Beauty Sleep, Bethia Beadman, Charlie Austin, Christopher Clarke, Clara Serra Lopez, Cosmonaut, Cucamaras, Eden J Howells, Ella Jinks, Ellor, Enjoyable Listens, Florence Road, Gia Ford, GIFT, Girlband!, Gurriers, HMS Morris, Hollows, Hornet, Jay Chakravorty, Joviale, Kaoti, Karma Sheen, Kay Greyson, Korda Korder, Levitation Orchestra, L’Objectif, Lucky Iris, Orchards, MONO, Mystery Time, Nikitar, PRITT, Robinson’s Village, Samuel Sharp, Salvana, Sm*sher, Sol Paradise, Stay In Nothing, SUDS, Sunflower Thieves, Taliable, Tatyana, The White Gates Band, Thistle, Trisha Tan, Uncle Junior, Vegas Water Taxi, Vulva Voce, Wave Machine, Wildes, Yasmin Umay

The music had a local feel to it. Lots of friends playing and singing together which meant I wasn’t really sure who was playing when. But there was some good voices amongst the various singers. The highlight was the girl in the picture below. She had a cracking voice

Another cracking voice..

With so many bands around, it’s now possible to catch gigs from the first day as some of the corporate parties have bands play and this was the case this time, with the White Denim playing on the first evening. But even before SXSW started it was possible to catch some of the great local Austin music by simply walking into any of the dive bars on 6th street.

2016 was a bit of an odd year. Yes, there were hundreds of great bands around but despite the fact that it was SXSW’s 30th anniversary, there wasn’t the buzz of previous years. There weren’t any massive bands playing secret shows and during the day and there seemed to be less parties. I think part of this is due to Austin trying to reduce the crowds turning up for the free parties. But I’m not sure this really is working, the crowds were still massive and they seemed to be mainly walking around on the streets. It didn’t help that Austin police had decided to introduce some crowd control measures that made it very difficult to move between venues.

One of the reasons why I loved SXSW was that it was so easy to move between dozens of venues and catch bands. If you didn’t like the band, you could then move across the road and see another one. So it’s been a great place to hear lots of different types of music and discover new bands.

This year, the venue density was lower. Last time I was here, quite a few showcases had shifted to Rainey street but there was still a good core set of venues on 6th and Red River. This time, some venues had shifted out east of I35. These tended to be sponsored venues with the bigger bands and I think part of the reason is to encourage people to stick to the venue. If you’ve queued to get into a venue that’s out of the way, you’re going to stay. Unfortunately, the venues that were left on 6th had changed. At my last visits, The Parish and Maggie Mae’s offered five stages that you could loop around in 10 minutes and catch a lot of music. The Parish was now a single venue and Maggie Mae’s split their stages into separate venues so you had to leave one venue to go back in. Maggie Mae’s also seemed to have switched to programming electronic and rap music and this unfortunately was also the case for several other venues.

In all honesty, rap is the biggest problem facing SXSW. The increase in rap programming seemed to encourage massive crowds who were seeking free gigs hoping that big name rappers were going to turn up. This also encouraged ‘rappers’ turning up often with massive crews trying to push their rap albums on the crowds on 6th street. I’m not sure if rap had led to issues at previous SXSW’s but it seemed like they’d concentrated rap programming into single venues often with heavy security. But this mean that whole venues disappeared off my ‘bounce circuit’. At times 6th street was literally at a standstill.

Unfortunately, the thing I really loved about SXSW was the ability to bounce around venues. I go to SXSW to discover new music. I tend to plan lightly with just a few bands I’d like to see and then just bounce up and down 6th and Red. With the increased crowds I just wasn’t getting to see the same level of bands I’d expect to see each day. Don’t get me wrong, during the music part of SXSW, I was still seeing 20-30 bands a day but it took a lot of effort to catch this number and it took a few days to optimise my route to maximise the amount of bands I caught.

It sounds like I didn’t enjoy myself this time. This is far from the truth. I had a brilliant time watching some great bands in venues ranging from churches to dive bars.

There were the usual programming surprises, where you stumble upon a band you hadn’t realised were playing SXSW. For example going to a venue to watch the excellent Ezra Furman and realising that Mercury Rev were on afterwards. So getting the opportunity to see a great band in a relatively tiny venue.

Them there was the opportunity to see music that I’d never otherwise catch, such as the South Korean band Jambinai who mix traditional Korean instruments to create some really good ambient rock music.

It was also an opportunity to catch many British bands that I hadn’t managed to catch at home. Often they were playing the frankly excellently organised and managed British Music Embassy. YAK, a band I’d been unable to catch in London, I caught playing an excellent set at the British Music Embassy.

In total I managed to catch over 130 bands. This isn’t the complete list as I didn’t catch the name of every band but as you can see it’s a pretty diverse range of bands

[Alexandros], Abjects, Amber Arcades, Autobahn, Avec Sans, Baby Shakes, Basia Bulat, Big Thief, Big Ups, Black Fast, Blaenavon, The Blind Suns, Bombino, Boy Toy, Burn Out, CallMeKat, Capsula, Castillo, Caveman, Chad Valley, Chocolat, Ciaran Lowery, Clean Cut Kid, The Crookes, Demob Happy, DEXSTRINGs, Diet Cig, Dilly Dally, The Do Aways, Dude York, Elanor Friedberger, Enemies, Ezra Furman, Faith Healer, Fear of Men, FEWS, Fior, Fizzy Blood, Get Inuit, Gold Class, Golden Boys, The Gooch Palms, Guerrilla Toss, Gwenno, GYMNSHORTS, Haelos, Harts, Heaters, The Heavy, Hinds, Hooton Tennis Club, Houndstooth, Jack Garrett, Jane Weaver, Judah and the Lion, Juiceboxxx, Kat Dehlia, Keeps, Khruangbin, Laura Carbone, Lazyeyes, Lushes, Lusts, The Parrots, Petite Noir, PMS and the Mood Swings, Jambinai, Julia Jacklin, Luke Sweeney, Magic Is Real, Mainland, Mercury Rev, _Methyl Ethyl, Modern Sons, MONEY, Mothers, Moustache Prawn, Mr Lewis and the Funeral, Nancy Pants, New Berlin, Night Moves, Obn IIIs, Oh Pep!, The Outfit, TX, PARTYBABY, PHASES, PINS, Phebe Starr, Poliça, Power Trip, Protomartyr, Pure Bathing Culture, Queen Suitcase, Ritual Howls, Rozi Plain, Rubblebucket, Runaway Saints, The San Juan Project, Sara [], September Girls, Seratones, Sister Fuzz, Slingshot Dakota, Sorority Noise, Spooklyland, Sons of an Illustrious Father, Spook School, Stealing Sheep, Sunflower Bean, Sweet Talk, Sweet Spirit, Sugarmen, Tacocat, TEEN, Tele Novella, Tiger Town, Thelma and the Sleaze, Trash, Trevor Sensor, Twin Limb, VACATION, Violet Skies, Warprty, Waxahatchee, The Weather Station, Welshly Arms, White Denim, White Lung, The Whistles and the Bells, Wild Belle, Yak, Yonatan Gat

I’ve highlighted bands who stood out. I thought Yak and Yonatan Gat stood put in the best performances of SXSW. But bands such as Sunflower Bean, Ezra Furman and Mercury Rev put in really strong performances. Then there were some great unusual situations that enhanced performances, such as thunderstorms forcing the Barracuda to move their outside stage inside their venue with the bands being playing in a circle in the centre of the room surrounded by the audience. GYMNSHORTS’s performance really was enhanced by this and I’m not sure I would have been as impressed if they’d played outside on a stage.

My only disappointment was missing the Kills. They were playing two venues that according to Twitter, always seemed to have queues so I couldn’t be bothered spending time queuing to see a band I’ve seen numerous times and that I’ll catch again in the UK.

From a photography point of view. Getting a good shot wasn’t a priority. So although I had my Sony A7s with me, as soon as music officially started, I left it in my hotel and just carried a pocket camera and if there wasn’t an opportunity to get to the front, just grabbed a shot simply to document out who I’d seen. I also decided towards the end of SXSW to try and capture some of the atmosphere of SXSW and captured lots of short 20 second clips of video.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcuA-R0pCTw]

Joy Formidable

My plan for the rest of SXSW Music was to get in as many days parties as possible (hopefully with free beer) and to bounce around venues to catch as many bands as possible. I have a one song rule. I give a band one song to convince me to stay for more. Each day I had a short list of bands to see. These were usually bands I’ve been trying to see or bands I’ve already seen and are good. But I don’t let the list dictate my night. So if there was a queue outside a venue, it was on to the next.

Overall, the plan worked well. With the close proximity of so many venues around 6th Street, it was easy to bounce between venues and I managed to catch some really good bands. But the week didn’t start well, On Tuesday I decided to try and catch the Japandroids at Viceland. This was a temporary venue setup in a parking lot on Caesar Chavez street, over the road from the conference centre. The entrance was through a warehouse. The queue looked short. But we soon found that this was only the queue to get into the warehouse. An hour later, I was still waiting. The venue was at capacity and everyone was staying for Japandroids. It’s not fun listening to the band from inside a warehouse. Eventually I was luck to get into the venue just as they decided to close the queue and kick everyone out. But I’m not sure it was worth it. Japandroids are an excellent band who I’ve seen before. But the venue was far too crowded with most attendees without a SXSW badge. Made worse by a poor sound system. For the rest of the week, I went back to plan A. Sticking in the main to the venues around 6th street.

Last time I was at SXSW, the Foo Fighters played the Interactive closing party and I missed it. So although I’m not the biggest Foo fan, it was still a major disappointment to miss the Foo’s play a small venue like Stubbs. This year Dave Grohl was giving SXSW’s keynote and his documentary, Sound City was playing in the film festival. So there was an expectation that that Sound City Players would be playing and true to form it was announced that there would be a lottery for tickets to see the Sound City Players playing at Stubbs.

Dave Grohl giving a highly enjoyable keynote

Luckily I managed to get a ticket for the gig. I did debate whether it was worth wasting an entire evening watching one band. But there were rumours flying around that Paul McCartney was going to attend. 99% of me didn’t believe this. But the 1% that did, didn’t want a ‘Foo Fighters’ moment where I missed something I would regret.

The Sound City Players lineup is pretty amazing. With the Foo Fighters as the backing band, the lineup changes between each venue. Tonight the ‘Players’ consisted of Alain Johannes (QOSTA & Them Crooked Vultures), Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield, Chris Goss (Masters of Reality), Brad Wilk (Rage Against the Machine), Lee Ving (Feer), Nirvana band mates Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear, Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick) and finally John Fogerty (Creedance).

With such a varied line-up, the evening was up and down. Rick Springfield was a bit too ‘cheesy rock’ for me and Stevie Nicks’ voice isn’t what it used to be. But that’s not to detract from the evening. There were some real highlights and it was a chance to see some really influential musicians enjoy themselves playing loose with Dave and his band and it was clear that every one of them was thrilled to be part of the project. But the biggest highlight for me was John Fogerty’s Creedance set as they played ‘Born on a Bayoo’, and the fantastic ‘Bad Moon Rising’. So after nearly 3 hours, I wasn’t left disappointed.

For the rest of the week it was back to venue bouncing catching as many bands as possible. It was interesting seeing bands I know well playing their first US gigs and seeing the reaction of the crowds. Some were really well received such as the Savages, others bemusing the audience (and me) such as Paloma Faith. Then there were bands I probably wouldn’t pay to see in the UK such as Reverend and Makers, playing excellent ‘festival’ sessions that buoyed up the small US crowd. There was also the interesting experience of seeing Billy Bragg playing to a US audience in Texas (and getting out alive). Even when a band wasn’t very good, it wasn’t a disappointment, just an opportunity to try a different venue. I really love this music festival. There’s just so much to listen to, that there’s really no excuse for seeing a bad band.

The list below are the bands I have a record of seeing. Overall I recorded  that I saw nearly 100 bands, but in reality the list is probably much longer. These are only the bands that I wrote down. A number of these bands I’ll be trying to catch up with over the next few months.

The Majority Says, Skinny Lister, Joy Formidable, St Lucia, Divine Fits, Kiven, Elijah Ford & The Bloom, Y Niwl, Lucy Rose, Tall Ships, Jess Williamson, The Carper Family, You Me & Us, Girl Names, California X, Audacity, The Coathangers, Kassidy, Kodaline, Kid Karate, Squarehead, Mirror Travel, Let’s Buy Happiness, Story Books, Icky Blossoms, North Mississippi Allstars, Japandroids, Deniro Farrar, Anuhea, Josephine, John McCauley & Friends, Buddy Miller & Jim Lauderdale, Black Violin, Islet, Catlin Rose, The Savages, Charan Po Rantan, Paper Lions, The Revivalists, Wildlife Control, Boy + Kite, Max Gomez, Walk Off The Earth, Cinnamon Chasers, Toy, Peace, The Bears, Okapi Sun, Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds, Holy Balm, Hiatus Kaiyote, The Life Electric, Heavy Rock In Gibson, Iron Tom, Phlos, Wet Nuns, The Trews, Atomic Tom, The Blue Van, Royal Teeth, Tango in the Attic, Great Hip Hop Hoax, Young Fathers, Black Lips, Billy Bragg, Amanda Palmer, Andy Clockwise, The Falls, Summer Flake, Metz, Christopher Smith, The Staves, Paloma Faith, Suburban Living, Fort Lean, Against Grace, Wampire,. White Lung, Teen, Ex Cops, Thermals, Thurston Moore, Reverend and the Maker, Against Grace, Sound City Players, Eagles of Death Metal, Civil Twilight, San Cisco, Rah Rah, Hey Marseilles, Tyler & The Shakedown, Imaginary Cities, Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers, Funeral Suits, Emma Louise, Blitz Kids, D.A.Calf, Rites Wild, Mary Epworth, Jonathan Boulet, El Vez

Flickr Photos

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The Alabama Shakes are not trying to do anything new. In fact their only aim appears to be to do things the way they used to be done, and to do it very well. They’re a five piece from Athens, Alabama playing blues, rock and soul music the way it used to be in the 60s and 70s.

In the lead singer Brittany Howard they have a lady with one hell of a good set of pipes. Think Janis Joplin, full-on gravelly soulful voice. This woman is the real deal. Voices like this don’t come along every day. Off course, without a good band around her, the voice wouldn’t work. Luckily, the band are good, bloody good. They’re as tight as tight can be.

These guys deserve to be big. Unfortunately, I think their sound is too retro, so I suspect they won’t be. But they now have one very big fan in me. Brilliant new band.