SXSW Music Festival

Every year in March Austin is transformed into a city filled with over a thousand ambitious and wide-eyed musicians looking to make their mark and cause a ripple in what feels like a giant ocean -- the complex world of today’s music industry. The streets are littered with music-lovers looking to experience that magical performance from either their favorite well-known act or rather one that has seemed to slip between the cracks.

Whether you are a band “officially” apart of SXSW or one of the many whom go it alone, there is much to be excited about when this highly anticipated week of opportunity arrives. For meridianwest it was the route of going it alone. There was no invite to SXSW this year, but with the hustle and bustle of festival rules, guidelines and regulations, it seemed to be a blessing that we were able to produce our own showcases. We ended up playing a total of 5 shows, which started on Tuesday night at Gruv and ended on Saturday afternoon at Moonshine. These were no half hour slots filled with our 4 or 5 best songs, but rather ones that were no less than an hour each. To say the least, at the end of the week we were exhausted.

But through all of the loading and unloading night after night it was very much worth it after each show to see that when the smoke cleared we were left with new fans that seemed to embrace us warmly after experiencing our performances. All week it seemed like wherever we played everyone had yet to truly be fulfilled by “live” music even though it was all around them. It’s a beautiful thing when the crowd that stands in front of you is like a sponge waiting to soak up your creativity. This made us feel worthy of giving our audiences everything we had no matter how tired we seemed to be.

I think we have learned that this week wasn’t just about that “chance” encounter with a record executive or just about how much networking wecould do before and after a show, but it was about the people who stoodbefore us listening to our music. The ones that filled the streets inhopes of finding a new artist that moved them. The ones that are thedriving force behind so many successful bands. It is the people who thirst for that connection with ours and so many others’ music that we should not forget about. We want to thank everyone who supported us this week and let them know that we played for them and no-one else.