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Mar 26, 2025 By Alex Lee Thomson Photography by Thomas Jackson / TyneSight Media Web Exclusive

There’s nowhere quite like Austin during SXSW. For a long week every March, the city turns into a full-blown cultural mosh pit – bands, films, tech bros, taco trucks, and people in lanyards all colliding in the unnerving Texan sunshine. As a Brit, it’s hard not to fall for it. It’s as far removed from the groggy Midlands digs of my adolescence as I could imagine. Austin has that rare mix of grit and groove though: proudly weird, warmly welcoming, and just the right side of unhinged.

SXSW’s music programme is a glorious free-for-all, with the real magic found in the unexpected: discovering your new favourite thing in a tiny dive bar or catching a future headliner playing in a car park. For anyone into music discovery, it’s a rare chance to see an awful lot of tomorrow’s big names in their rawest, beaten and sunburned form. Over the last few years, the music programme has successfully pulled back from the corporate headline fringe shows and focused on tastemaking – and in my opinion it’s all the better for it.

Ellur was an early standout and one of the sets to beat. Polished and effortlessly cool. Representing Yorkshire, fresh off the plane and running on 22 hours with no sleep, she delivered a full-power set with commanding stage presence, charm, humour and edge. The songs are fantastic, laying out her shop for a surefire big year ahead.

Antony Szmierek’s showmanship felt warm, self-aware, and sharply engaging - connecting directly with the audience while never losing momentum. His performances blended poetic wit, physical force, and heartfelt moments, with the crowd fully immersed. There’s a pulse somewhere between the more teary, comedown Mike Skinner-y songs and a classic Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack, in a sweet bleepy swirl. It’s all surprisingly emotional.

University brought sheer frenzy wrapped in precision – think Travis Barker’s Shellac with a drummer so captivating he could headline on his own. One masked member sat mid-stage holding signs to introduce songs, while the band tore through a jagged set full of mathy riffs, emo breakdowns and total unpredictability. Manic, hilarious, and seriously tight. Loud as hell too, if that’s your bag. It should be.

BLACKGOLD turned Austin into a full-throttle nu-metal spectacle – all balaclavas and bass drops. Their sets were a mash-up of industrial swagger, mosh fury and theatrical flair, landing somewhere between RATM, The Prodigy, and a very loud meme. They didn’t just play a show – they repeatedly staged a movement. I caught their ferocious set twice. Such is the never unappreciated allure of SXSW – anything you either love or miss, you can take another swing at, as most acts have a stacked week of performances lined up, taking you from first-time looky-loo to veteran fan in one trip.

Maruja were another first-time discovery, and securely added to the watch list for 2025. An easy contender to the Fat Dog wake, their sax wailed like an ambulance siren amid a borderline spiritual experience. Shamanic, in a thunderous way.

Among the other 40 or so gigs I caught over the week, Korda Korder delivered a beautifully hushed, slow-burning set that shimmered with subtle intensity. Cloth gave a moody, atmospheric, XX-esque and hypnotic pitstop at an outdoor Scotland takeover in one of the more sprawling bars. Wales’ own Fiends were a very late-night find somewhere along the way, channeling some proto Pixies, Pumpkins, and Placebo energy. Ireland’s Very Good Time hit us with some heavy metal psychedelic rockabilly for fans of Warmduscher, while fellow countrymen Gurriers tore through their set with feral edge, spilling out into the crowd from the Mohawk outdoor stage.

Jasmine.4.t’s set was a blend of intimate beauty and serrated-edge guitar work – tender, defiant, and quietly electrifying. VENUS GRRRLS brought a confident, goth-tinged riot power. And Australia’s Joan and the Giants landing hard with an uncannily brilliant cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie.”

Big Special were the enduring highlight of the week though, with multiple sightings bookending the 34-degree swelter of a festival. From a kitschy makeshift stage beside a falafel van in a car park, to a headline performance at the all-new British Music Embassy on 6th Street – their week here felt like a victory lap. First seeing them in town two years ago before their debut single was released, and now with a sold-out Kentish Town Forum show in their clutches, it’s been a hell of a ride backing the Frank Sinatra of Walsall and the Devil’s Alarm Clock. Each show delivered exactly what the soul needed in such heat, marked by ash falling from the sky at one show from a 4,000-acre wildfire a few miles away. A fitting punch of smoke and sermon. They’ve grown massively since their last appearance here as unknowns, and have easily become one of the most exciting, unmissable live bands in the UK right now armed with honorary national anthems.

Somewhere in between all that, we managed to find a sports bar screening the West Ham game with good ales, dug into stunning Mexican platters at Licha’s Cantina and Iron Cactus, and took a mini road trip out to the dusty old Bastrop to visit Ryan Holiday’s Painted Porch bookshop. We got a bit giddy over some Nori at Austin’s exceptional vegan Japanese spot, but for a meat-eater the culinary highlight as always is Stubb’s famous BBQ – where we also caught John Fogerty and his family band perform the best of Creedence Clearwater Revival, with Tom Morello guesting on closer “Proud Mary.”

There’s stuff that can only happen at SXSW, Austin. There’s a smell in the air that’s unmistakable and happily singed into my long-term memory. Among the entertainment industry meet-ups and conference side that exists in parallel, it remains for me a week of music revelation. It’s dive bar-hopping to find the best priced cans of Lone Star, bats chasing you under bridges at sunset, riding a Lime bike over the highway to go grab a burrito, and running into home turf chums you’ve been meaning to catch up with forever in wonky wood-clad whiskey dens. It’s pure magic.

With next year’s music passes on sale now, it’s an instant rebook – as a new London version of the event is also set to land in Blighty this summer.