Aussie sets tone for music festival

Courtney Barnett performs at the Spin magazine day party. Photo / AP

A less urgent South by Southwest feels like a corporate after-party where sponsors swoop in to mop up dollars.

Some come to South by Southwest seeking glory. Others come to roll their eyes at it.

A master of the enlightened shrug long before her combat boots touched down in Texas, Australian rock singer Courtney Barnett chose her side in the form of a song: Put me on a pedestal and I'll only disappoint you.

As one of the most-hyped artists at the 29th annual hype-fermenting music festival, Barnett's hesitancy seemed to capture the mood of the entire shebang. This was a less urgent, less electric South by Southwest. And it was mostly by design.

Attendance at the festival - which is commonly abbreviated as SXSW - has exploded in recent years, mutating the spirit of the event and testing the infrastructure of the city of Austin.

In 2014, a car accident killed four festivalgoers waiting outside a nightclub, and this year organisers responded by making safety paramount. That meant fewer performers, a thicker police presence and longer lines for half-empty clubs that didn't want to get near their capacity. Add two days of heavy rain, and the clouds that hung over Austin began to feel like big, soggy metaphors.

Mood-killing precipitation aside, was all of this inevitable? South by Southwest began in 1987 as a high-spirited music festival with magnificent intentions. Now it's preceded by a week of "interactive" events that cater to moneyed tech entrepreneurs and adults who wear Google Glass without shame. Music used to be the big draw, but these four nights of high-decibel human expression now feel like an after-party where corporate sponsors swoop in to mop stray dollars off the sidewalk.

And while the branding bonanza that's become synonymous with SXSW appears to generate much more contempt than goodwill, it hasn't really let up. This year, America's most iconic fast-food chain decided to host a few concerts and fittingly went home looking like clowns.

But SXSW's bizarre orgy of music and advertising felt like the ideal staging ground for the artists associated with PC Music, a London dance label that made the splashiest splash down here.

The label's founder, A.G. Cook, and its affiliated star, Sophie, each gave DJ sets that felt like a cheeky critique and an affectionate celebration of 21st century digital hyper-stimulation. And they did it by grafting chintzy ring-tone melodies to spurts of bass that could be felt in your bone marrow. Music this loud rarely sounds this sweet. It never sounds this hygienic.

PC Music is also the home of QT, a vocalist who performed at the label's showcase by prancing across the stage, pantomiming business calls, spritzing herself with perfume, doling out cans of an energy drink bearing her name and chirping along to her ecstatic theme song, Hey QT. When the chorus came bursting from the subwoofers, fans threw their hands toward the ceiling, as if crowd-surfing the ghost of Andy Warhol.

Less brain-squeegeeing, but equally encouraging, was the fact that SXSW has become a necessary stop for today's rising rap stars. This year, many of them trekked to Austin from the hip-hop capital of Atlanta. Among them: an aloof Young Thug, a poised Migos and an unhinged Travis Scott.

But there were even fresher Atlanta faces coming up from behind. O.G. Maco gave a performance that felt as bracing and fleeting as a temper tantrum. Rome Fortune's rhymes were as stylish as his outfit (Kool-Aid blue beard, Kool-Aid red boots). And Father, the leader of the emerging oddball label, Awful Records, delivered his chit-chat raps with surprising charisma, but ended his set with an unceremonious spat with the sound man. These youngsters are still learning how to master the fritzy nature of SXSW - something that the scrappier rock bands have had down pat for years.

The best of them could be heard at Beerland, a cinder-block bunker on Red River Street that consistently serves as the heart, soul and liver of SXSW. Inside, Seattle's Chastity Belt made their casual punk songs jangle and bounce, while Austin's own Flesh Lights went for the jugular, thanks to drummer Elissa Ussery, who thwacked away with all of her being.

This year's tamped-down festival gave other Austin acts some breathing room to assert themselves, too. Local quintet Whiskey Shivers turned some heads with its brand of apocalyptic Americana - a rhythm-heavy sound that felt like bluegrass-beyond-Thunderdome. This was not the cutesy hollering you might hear at a Mumford & Sons concert. There was sweat and menace.

And while even the slightest droplets of perspiration can help an act break free from the pack at SXSW, they aren't necessary. Sometimes, neither is enthusiasm.

Proving it on Friday night, the slouching Philadelphia indie troubadour Alex G sang his sloppy, sentimental, frequently wonderful rock songs to the floor in a way that felt pouty, then transportational.

Instead of simply wishing he was somewhere else, he was trying to take us there with him.