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SXSW 30 emphasized 'discovery' acts, not big names

Though there were plenty of headliners – Drake, Iggy Pop, Michelle Obama – SXSW renewed its emphasis on new bands, about 2,100 in all and including Philly’s Sheer Mag, Chill Moody and other locals.

During the South by Southwest music festival, the Madrid garage-rock band Hinds, playing at the Austin Convention Center, were utterly charming.
During the South by Southwest music festival, the Madrid garage-rock band Hinds, playing at the Austin Convention Center, were utterly charming.Read moreCOLIN KERRIGAN / For the Inquirer

AUSTIN, Texas - At the Central Presbyterian Church on Saturday during the final night of the sprawling South by Southwest music festival, Teddy Thompson spoke for hundreds of other acts - and thousands of festivalgoers, to boot:

"This is our last show at SXSW," said the British songwriter, who had spent the week singing the sad, pretty country songs he has written with Kelly Jones on their forthcoming album, Little Windows. He paused for comic effect. "And, frankly, it's a relief."

Thompson was drily joking about the exhausting, forced-march nature of SXSW, where about 2,100 self-promoting acts performed in 103 official venues - both numbers ever-so-slightly down from last year, with the fest attempting to keep its overwhelmingness under control. Many of the performers, like impassioned Philadelphia rock foursome Beach Slang, lugged their gear to 10 shows or more.

At the Austin Convention Center on Friday, Carlotta Cosials, front woman of the utterly charming Spanish garage-rock band Hinds, quipped about the personal-hygiene challenge of playing multiple gigs on the same day: "Five shows," she said. "One shower." At a show earlier in the week, Thompson had evoked Rocky Balboa in Creed in proffering motivational tips for getting through the fest: "One step, one punch, one round at a time."

SXSW's 30th year was short on spotlight-hogging big names as it attempted to put the focus back on "music discovery," though Canadian rapper Drake did show up unannounced Saturday at the Fader Fort at a showcase for his label Ovo.

Impressive acts that leave the corporate-branded fest with a breakout buzz include magnetic California rapper-singer Anderson .Paak (due June 4 in Philadelphia for the Roots Picnic), Nashville hard-core country singer Margo Price, and ghostly Memphis singer-songwriter Julien Baker.

Legends like Iggy Pop and Loretta Lynn reasserted their relevance. Unexpected delights for this festivalgoer included English rapper Little Simz, and plugged-in Bangladeshi string band Chirkutt.

Linda Gail Lewis, Jerry Lee's 68-year-old piano-playing sister, tore it up Saturday afternoon at the Continental Club, across south Congress Avenue from where perennial punk-country SXSW hero Jon Langford was unveiling his bruising new band, Bad Luck Jonathan, and shouter AJ Haynes of the Shreveport, La., band Seratones was distinguishing herself as one of the fest's many attention-demanding female-fronted acts.

There was no shortage of Philadelphians in Austin, with rough-and-ready Philadelphia rock foursome Sheer Mag kicking up a storm, and rapper Chill Moody and indie twosome Vita and the Woolf standouts opening night at a RecPhilly showcase. Ribald 215 rockers Low Cut Connie and indie pop band Cold Fronts made strong impressions.

With no superstar acts - like Kanye West or Prince, who have played the fest in recent years - to draw huge crowds, probably the most in-demand show Saturday was the Roots. The Philadelphia hip-hop and Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon band soldiered on despite the death last week of Lee Andrews, the doo-wop-singing father of drummer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson. The Roots played to a packed house at the Bud Light Factory, joined by guests that included Talib Kweli, Ashanti, and Big Grams, the collaboration between indie duo Phantogram and OutKast rapper Big Boi. Hundreds were turned away at the door.

Save for a Texas-size thunderstorm that blew through Friday and canceled outdoor shows, the festival went off without a hitch. There was a frightening incident early Sunday morning, with gunshots fired on the dangerously overcrowded Sixth Street strip as fans rushed from one show to the next. Miraculously, no injuries were reported.

This year, SXSW strutted its stuff as a get-the-word-out social-media megaphone, drawing both President Obama to the Interactive technology portion of the gathering, and bringing in first lady Michelle Obama as music keynote speaker to promote her Let Girls Learn initiative and the "This Is for My Girls" single featuring Missy Elliott and Janelle Monae. In that sense, FLOTUS was just like every other act in town, in that she was effectively saying: "I came all the way to Austin: Now would you please listen to my new single?"

For more in-depth coverage of SXSW, go to Dan DeLuca's blog at philly.com/inthemix and follow him at Instagram.comdelucadan.

ddeluca@phillynews.com

215-854-5628@delucadan