I did my first South by Southwest show in 1993. Guitarist Kevin Salem and I came down from Hoboken to play at the … the … oh, I just can’t remember where. It was a tent with a stage and a sand floor adjoining a bar on Sixth Street. I had an album out called Can You Fly that was getting some press, but I hadn’t really done many gigs outside of New York yet. It was all very new and exciting to me.
I thought we might be at the wrong place when we arrived for our midnight show. We were scheduled to go on in about 15 minutes, but the only people in the place were a couple of guys with laminates and their noses in the schedule book, plus a tired-looking bartender stacking up plastic cups and a hassled rental company sound man trying to figure out which end of the mic cable went where. It didn’t look promising.
“Some turnout, huh Kev?”
He said not to worry, this is how it always goes; the place will fill up.
We climbed the stage and started setting up our gear. I’d just bought an Epiphone solid body guitar and an old tweed Fender Champ at One World Music in Pflugerville – a green musician with my first vintage instrument. By the time I turned around, the place was half-full. “Whoa,” I thought, “these people travel in packs.” By the time we finished our line check, it was a full house.
I believe we kicked the gig off with “Caroline,” trying to rock as hard as two guys with guitars can. We had adequate monitor level by the third song and were given the “one more song” sign after the fourth. I was just getting warmed up by the end of the fifth number, and the set was over.
After packing up, I turned around to see a nearly empty tent again. Plastic cups in the sand; bartender leaning on the bar, smoking and staring off; the next band already coming onstage and setting up. The town of Austin has changed completely since then, but the SXSW gig remains the same. Thank goodness for that.
Tonight’s SXSW showcase 10pm, Momo’s
This article appears in March 19 • 2010.