A half-kilometre line of people snaking around a dusty Austin scrap yard marked the beginning of the first day of SXSW’s music festival.
But technically this lineup wasn’t for SXSW. The thousands of Ray Ban-clad 20-somethings were spending their hours waiting for entry into the Fader Fort, which has become something of a formidable rival to the SXSW behemoth.
The youth marketing compound, adorned with corporate sponsorship paraphernalia while enticing its many visitors with a bottomless plastic cup of booze, not to mention a crop of some of the most hyped bands at Southby, is now really a festival of its own.
Conceivable, one could avoid the prohibitively expensive SXSW music badge and spend all four days in the Fort free of charge. Just make sure to check your No Logo morals at the door.
It’s a huge drain of bodies out of the downtown core and the nature of SXSW’s relationship with Fader Fort is not immediately clear. FF is not advertised or listed in the official SXSW program and a delegate badge has zero meaning at the Fort’s gates.
Nevertheless it’s become a premier destination during SXSW and bands know it, including Danish dance pop princess Oh Land (born Nanna Oland Fabricius), who is currently on tour with reanimated 80s group Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark.
Oh Land, with her runway model looks and exuberant stage energy, was flanked by two male Dane synth players as she led them through a set of Euro dance anthems. She probably would have won more of the crowd over, but it was still relatively early and perhaps not enough free tequila had been consumed at that point.
Up next was bratty rock pack Dom, whose shaggy lead singer looks to be giving Ariel Pink some competition in the disheveled hair department. Considering the band’s penchant for pranks and truculence during interviews, they appear rather tame in a live setting, playing a fuzzy guitar rock sound that falls somewhere between Girls and Wavves.
Despite later appearances by the Friendly Fires and Twin Shadow, it was time to escape the Fort’s corporate embrace. It’s weird how too much “free” can make your soul feel dirty.
Watch a couple songs from Dom here.
