Hearts of Palm played at least one show per day at this year’s SXSW music festival. Pictured here performing at the Dizzy Rooster — with frontman Nathan S. McGarvey in the white T-shirt — the band made many new friends and fans via their trip to Austin. Photo by Reverb contributor Laurie Scavo.
The Denver Post asked various people throughout Colorado’s music scene to write about their experiences at the South by Southwest music festival.
Nathan S. McGarvey is best-known as the frontman for the Denver-based indie rock outfit , formerly known as Nathan & Stephen. This was Hearts of Palm’s first SXSW — but it won’t likely be their last. McGarvey is also often recognized as “That bartender at the Hi-Dive.”
By Nathan S. McGarvey
SXSW is like a taffy puller for the ego. It stretches it wide, then presses it to a fraction of its previous size within moments, and continues to do so over and over again.
The night before we loaded up the van and trekked down to our southern-most state, I was brimming with pride. Well-wishers who had made the journey in the past imparted nuggets of advice while others expressed admiration and hopes for safe travels. I felt special, chosen to venture south to represent our city.
Twenty hazy hours and three states later, all nine of us that had shared the benches of the van poured out onto 6th Street, the main stretch of land that the festival claims for the week. Within seconds I felt incredibly small. As far as the eye could see there, roamed musicians. Successful musicians, as far as I knew.
On that sidewalk, I was not elite. I was in a very big pond surrounded by very large and brightly colored fish. I puffed up my gills as best I could and began loading gear into our first venue.
The first place that we played was the purevolume ranch, located a few blocks off the main drag. We had two shows scheduled there in the week, and it eventually felt like home as much as any place can in such a short time. The moment we stepped in the door my trepidation began to melt a bit as our friend and ally Dan Rutherford came up to greet us.
Dan was one of the key people running the purevolume party all week, and he took very good care of us the entire time that we were there.
As I walked deeper into the venue, a very strange thing happened. I began to recognize faces. More and more Denver friends started to appear. It felt like a family reunion, even though it had only been days since I had seen many of them last. By the time we took the stage at 1 a.m., it felt like we were playing to a familiar crowd. The pride that I had felt at the beginning of the trip had shifted dramatically.
Now what had me beaming was that fact that our band was a part of something that had a national stage. Denver was there to represent itself as validly as any other city. Denver is a part of what is going on in American music. I probably could have told you that before we went to Texas, but I never really felt it until that night.
It felt really good.
After being stretched and compressed a few times that first night, I found myself in the morning able to take SXSW for what it was. It was a blast. We played at least once every day that we were down there to anywhere between five people and a few hundred. The rest of the time, we spent wandering the streets, which is where the money is.
Itap not that we didn’t enjoy playing. As a matter of fact, we had a great time playing, but you can play anywhere. What you can’t do anywhere is walk down the street and hear bands playing in every bar, shop and gallery that you walk by. The streets were packed with stuff to do. There was free beer, bad pizza and great barbeque everywhere. And festival schwag, free stuff at every corner. Some of it was actually worth taking too.
The weather was too good to wear a jacket or anything else with ample pockets, which meant that my limited pant pocket space filled quickly every day with whatever I found worthwhile that people were handing out to passerbys. There are still trinkets lingering at the bottom of my suitcase from my nightly pocket purging.
The problem with SXSW is that no matter how much you walk around and take it all in, it is impossible to see everything. For every good show that I saw, I heard reports of two that I missed. Itap a great problem to have.
By the time the week was over, we were all a little tired and a little sunburnt, but none of us were ready to leave. I, for one, could have handled another week of wandering from show to show and drinking free beer, but real life had to start again eventually. We piled into the van a few hours after our last show and began the trip back up north.
A quick note; a 15 passenger van does not actually fit 15 people. It fits 9 people pretty well, but after a full day of cramped travel, our original plan to carry ourselves and all of our gear in the van seemed unfathomable. Thanks to the Photo Atlas letting us borrow their trailer, we were never forced to murder each other Lord of the Flies style.
By the end of the drive we were grumpy but glad to be reunited with wives and our own beds. This was our first real jaunt out of the state, but it was enough to make us want more. It is my hope that we can hit the road more often this year, and I’m sure that next summer we’ll find ourselves surrounded by free beer and good barbeque once again.
