SXSW’s Packed Sessions Leave Some Fans in a Jam

A stylishly dressed man, cellular phone in hand, stands outside the popular Liberty Lunch nightclub just before midnight, frantically trying to wave down one of the few cabs passing by. A group of about two dozen ragged-looking young music fans loitering around the downtown club enjoys a vengeful laugh at his plight.

The fans didn’t get into the club to see Liz Phair play Friday night, but the man--an out-of-towner--did.

It’s the same story for many Austinites, who for 10 years have watched the annual South by Southwest Conference, or SXSW, grow from a showcase for local bands into the music industry’s biggest display of talent--and, many say, pomp.

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In all, this year’s four-day affair, which ended Sunday, featured more than 600 acts on 40 stages around town, and that’s not counting the dozens of offshoot showcases and musicians that resorted to playing street corners in hopes of being discovered by the hordes of record company executives and talent scouts drawn by SXSW.

In addition to critics’ darling Phair, performers ranged from red-hot Joan Osborne to veterans Iggy Pop, Randy Newman and George Clinton to such pop-rock newcomers as Son Volt and Ruby and Austin regulars Lucinda Williams and Junior Brown.

By last Thursday afternoon, the 12,000 conference wristbands--each priced at $50 and good for admission to most of the musical events--had all been sold. That’s up 2,000 from last year.

The number of industry types at the conference also increased a tad. Nearly 5,500 people paid the $300-$400 registration fee, which not only gave them first chance at all the music shows but also admitted them to dozens of panels on topics such as “Management and the Art of Allocation” and “Were the Grateful Dead Really Any Good?”

“These people probably only go out and see music at clubs once a year,” Austin music fan Jeanne Arndt, 19, said of the visiting SXSW registrants. “It’s kind of like we’re here to keep the clubs in business year-round so they can come here once a year and see all the really good shows.”

Clubs aren’t the only Austin resource tapped by the conference. Cabdrivers were constantly on the go, most major flights in and out of the city’s small airport were full, restaurants had extra-long lines and most hotels were booked solid.

Funk legend Clinton and his large entourage, for instance, had to stay in San Marcos, 30 miles south of here, during the conference. And they may have been lucky, because guests at the downtown Radisson Hotel had to wait sometimes as long as 30 minutes to get through on the phone lines, which were apparently tied up by portable faxes and computers.

“We’ve never had anything like this happen before,” said hotel manager Joe Walsh.

Even the conference organizers wonder if it hasn’t become too big.

“Austin’s such an intimate place and this thing isn’t intimate anymore,” said Louis Black, one of the conference’s directors. “But you know, we can’t tell people not to come.”

Black, who is editor of the weekly Austin Chronicle, said he and the other organizers never envisioned the conference being the biggest in the country when they created it in 1986 as a smaller version of New York’s annual New Music Seminar. When that conference folded two years ago, Austin was left as the spotlight event in the nation.

“We sell Austin. That’s why people come to the conference,” he said. “The weather here this time of the year is perfect, the club scene is the best in the country and we have so many great restaurants. It’s more a vacation than a business meeting for these people.”

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But it’s the music they come for, mainly. This year they got it a night early, too, as Lou Reed played a non-SXSW show at the Austin Music Hall on Wednesday, the day many of the visitors arrived.

On Thursday, Iggy Pop writhed and bounced in front of thousands downtown, while the Texas Tornadoes carried the tradition started by Johnny Cash and reintroduced themselves at a tiny punk-rock bar, the Hole in the Wall. Later that night, all-star sideman band Golden Smog, who played last year’s most cherished set at the small Electric Lounge, also made a heralded return, this time in front of 3,000 fans.

Phair’s set on Friday was probably the letdown of the conference, as the stage-shy singer played a solo show that lasted only half an hour and was plagued by sound problems and the singer’s nervousness. Her Matador Records labelmates Guided by Voices followed her with a chaotic set that gave fans little to complain about. Backstage, Phair was visited by Osborne, whose outdoor show earlier that night was the conference’s biggest event.

The surprise hit of the conference was the Saturday night performance by New Jersey hip-hop trio the Fugees, one of the few rap acts at the event. Other lesser-known acts that made a splash were New York’s electro-punks Girls Against Boys, ex-Mekons singer Jon Langford and his new band, Slapstick Costa Mesa trio Supernova, and veteran singer-songwriters Joe Henry and Syd Straw.