Commentary:One fan's pilgrimage becomes fortunate musical discovery

By Ingrid Norbergs     3/20/08 7:00pm

I've been through a lot to see my favorite band, Two Gallants, play live. I've narrowly escaped police brutality (Google their October 13, 2006 show at Walter's on Washington if you're curious) and braved hordes of studded belt-wearing and self-consciously-smoking scenester teens when 2Gs opened for the emo-punk band Against Me. But I have never before driven six hours round-trip to see them, or any band, play. Zombie driving through the wee hours may not compare in shock value to witnessing a crazed cop with a Taser, but it was probably at least as dangerous.I had hatched this plan months ago after I found out 2Gs were playing in Austin, a location well within reasonable driving distance. The fact that they were playing during the annual South by Southwest music festival and conference was, at the onset, entirely secondary. I had always been interested in attending SXSW, as it is called, especially after my stellar first experience with Austin's other major music festival, Austin City Limits, but conference passes cost ungodly amounts of money and the confusing Web site provided little information on any other way to experience it. I gladly resigned myself to seeing only Two Gallants and didn't think much more about it.

As the concert approached, I began trying to recruit company for my voyage. Since no one in my acquaintance is as irrational about 2Gs as I am, I hoped to rely on my friends' love for me to convince them to come along. Before I had to resort to begging, though, I discovered that the drummer of the band Ponytail, slated to play in Austin later that same day, was friends with my friend Erin, who needed a ride to go see him. I thought the stars had aligned for this fortuitous coincidence to occur, but even after that surprising stroke of luck, my shock soon grew exponentially.

As show times drew closer, information was plentiful about the free or nearly free shows playing around the more expensive conference showcases. The SXSW website was now, unlike months before, very helpful and thorough. As we did more research on the bands playing, we found out that the current it-band Yeasayer, local band Indian Jewelry, and the newly signed group Le Loup, featuring Rice alum Christian Ervin (Will Rice '06), were also scheduled to play that day. Not only that, but they were playing at non-conflicting times, and with the exception of 2Gs, they were all playing at the same venue.

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I did not actually believe our luck until I had seen Le Loup go on at 9 p.m., Ponytail play at 11, Indian Jewelry start at midnight, and Yeasayer finish their set at around 2:15 a.m. Band members who had already finished or were waiting to play loitered around the bar, watching the other musicians. Erin and I talked not only with her drummer friend, but also with the guitarist from Yeasayer and with the lead singer from Le Loup.

At first the serendipitous lineup and the accessible musicians seemed like strange and amazing occurrences, but after spending nine hours at SXSW, I realized that they are what this festival is all about. Walking around Austin's downtown, I saw the streets clotted with hipsters and other fringe elements - honestly more than I'd ever seen in one place before. Music from one bar doesn't even fade before you catch the sound of another band playing from underneath a tent erected on a side street. At every other street corner sits a bearded banjo player or similar troubadour. The bands played shows that were all in their own ways remarkable, in every sense of the word.

After Two Gallants played valiantly (and well, as always) through a shorting sound system and a repeatedly tipped-over drum, only to have their set cut short to set up for later gigs, leader singer Adam Stephens said, "We're getting kinda screwed here, but hey, it's South by Southwest." They received a cut-neck gesture from the crew, but the guitar and drum duo managed to slide in one last song: after a short, whispered conference, the pair belted out an impromptu, beautifully remixed version of the song "Las Cruces Jail." Even though we were in a stuffy, packed bar and the band only played four songs, it would have been worth the whole trip just to see that set, because I was standing right at the front of the tiny stage, no more than two yards away, hearing them blow seamlessly past technical setbacks to play some amazing music.

Le Loup, with their palpable energy and strong, creative songs, was the other highlight. Their often experimental-sounding melodies were nevertheless bright and danceable, and, even though they played relatively early, the rapt crowd was thicker than for any other band save the New York Times-reviewed Yeasayer. Indian Jewelry played well, but their "dark psychedelia" genre of music, as Ponytail's drummer described it, didn't seem to fit in at the clean, airy lounge as well as it does at the moody, darkly lit Backroom of the Mink or the dirty dive-ness of Walter's.

Lastly, Yeasayer appeared on stage and filled the room. They put on an intriguing show: for some reason, perhaps out of fear of being seen as poppy after their newfound fame, they changed the mood of their songs entirely from their album and how they had performed them a month earlier at Walter's. Where before the music had been upbeat and danceable, here it had a slower tempo and a more ambient, intellectual mood. Even though I had looked forward to ending my night with some dancing, it was interesting to hear how they had reworked their songs, which, while recognizable, sounded utterly different.

We left Austin at around 2:30 a.m., but the three-hour trip home and each of its grueling, pitch-black miles were negligible bothers in comparison to the few whirlwind hours of music we had just experienced.

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