Back for its third year, The Aussie BBQ has become something of an institution at South By Southwest: a day party put together by Sounds Australia and featuring over 30 home-grown acts. This year it was held on one of the last days of the conference, and if the queue out the front was anything to go by, Australians had fared damn well in Austin.
Husky’s five shows were buzzed around the city, but the big one was on the Friday night, when the Melbourne band celebrated their February signing to the legendary Sub Pop Records stable by opening the label’s official showcase. “It felt like a bit of a historic occasion for us,” frontman Husky Gawenda told me later, of opening for acts like Blitzen Trapper, Shearwater and Spoek Mathambo. “It was pretty awesome to be on that showcase.”
DZ Deathrays killed it at their second South By, proving once more that you don’t need more than two bratty dudes if you want to make a heap of noise. Their first gig, a day show at the Convention Centre, saw the plug pulled on them three songs in – apparently “semi-acoustic” is not something the Brisbane boys are wont to do. Pond were another Aussie act whose hype swelled the more shows they played (most bands try to book in at least two gigs per day). Frontman Nick Allbrook’s Jagger swagger, stage dives and impromptu break-dancing embellished their phenomenal songs and psyched-out jams, and I couldn’t find anyone who left one of their shows nonchalant. Without bias, they were one of the best bands I saw in Austin.
Emma Louise was a hot tip too; with a well-timed announcement that she’d signed with New York tastemakers Frenchkiss Records, she mesmerised crowds at the label’s showcase a week later. Her songs and voice belie her age, and there’s something truly transfixing about her – during a day set outside Austin’s Whole Foods, the dark moodiness to her voice and the sweet sadness of her songs won the crowd over from the moment she opened her mouth.
It was a proud moment for a Sydney-sider to watch Lanie Lane at the huge showcase for Jack White’s Third Man Records. Alone on stage, dressed like a Wheels & Dollbaby pin-up, hair a-quiff and sporting a smile, she had the backyard crowd in the palm of her hand. (“I ended up getting inducted into The Black Belles as The White Witch, and later on I was hanging around with John C. Reilly – he was driving me around!” she gushed the next day.)
But according to most international media wrapping up the ten-day conference, no-one could beat Kimbra. One of the most buzzed Aussie-(ish) acts in Austin, she was handpicked by media bigshots and tastemakers alike to play their parties, including public radio station KCRW, Nylon magazine, MTV, Filter magazine and Sir Perez Hilton Himself. The gig that I saw was at Fader magazine’s Fader Fort – and holy wow. I can’t imagine her ever playing better than that, to a bigger or more welcoming crowd, with more energy, class, sass and vocal power, and I walked away with goosebumps.
BY STEPH HARMON
LOVED: That a music festival could make me love music festivals again.
HATED: The “put it on a taco!” mentality of Austin’s eateries.
DRANK: Margaritas. All day. Every day.
