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" Welcome to Esquire&amp;#039;s coverage of the annual South by Southwest music festival in Austin, an experience that truly needs to be seen to be understood. (Hence, the photos.) Over the following four pages, we present a look back at the bands, food, and general craziness that comes when hundreds of bands play shows within the same square mile of turf. Enjoy. Day Four: Saturday, March 16, 2008 Bands Covered: --&amp;amp;gt; Day Three: Friday, March 15, 2008 Bands Covered: --&amp;amp;gt; Day Two: Thursday, March 14, 2008 Bands Covered: --&amp;amp;gt; Day One: Wednesday, March 13, 2008 Bands Covered: --&amp;amp;gt; SXSW, Day Four: Saturday, March 15, 2008  One member of Chromeo is Israeli. The other is Palestinian. And they both come from Canada. This cross-cultural love can be felt in their music, a keyboard-and-drum machine fueled funk that feels like Prince circa 1984. Live, they&amp;#039;re nothing but energy and enthusiasm -- especially the covers medley that includes Journey&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t Stop Believing&amp;quot; and The Outfield&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Your Love.&amp;quot;   The old joke goes: &amp;quot;What has 50 arms, 50 legs, and three teeth?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The front row of a Willie Nelson concert.&amp;quot; The front row of a Chromeo gig is an equally special place, home to socially unacceptable haircuts. We&amp;#039;re looking at you, mullet guy who looks like he&amp;#039;s about to put on the foil.  In 18 years, this kid is going to grow up to be the coolest person on Earth. Just remember, you saw her here first.  All kinds of entities sponsor parties at SXSW -- car companies, nightclubs, trade groups, you name it -- but Rachael Ray?! Even more insane is the fact that the headliner at her show is a band called Holy Fuck. Really? Whoever approved this lineup is going to be double extra fired on Monday.  This sign lets you know that Rachael Ray&amp;#039;s corporate enterprise will use footage from this show across her plethora of media entities. Should be interesting to see how she mentions Holy Fuck without offending a wide swath covering the middle of this country. Maybe someone told her they&amp;#039;re a Christian group.  Outside of the inexplicable headliner, Rachael Ray&amp;#039;s party also featured ... rap music! (It was provided by The Knux.) Double. Extra. Fired.   British singer-songwriter Kate Nash played the back half of her set in her little blue socks, creating an image so cute, it made The Care Bears throw up on the My Little Ponies.  Though Oliver Future&amp;#039;s SXSW started with a slew of superlative performances, it ended at the utterly pedestrian sports bar Champions, thanks to the band&amp;#039;s lack of credentials, which -- depending on which member of the band you believe -- may have been sold to pay for the gas on their return trip to L.A. Will someone sign them, already?  Best graffiti of the weekend, as seen in the men&amp;#039;s room of a completely empty sushi restaurant.  One of the unwritten rules of SXSW is that you never see the same band twice. But Chromeo&amp;#039;s daytime set was so good, we couldn&amp;#039;t resist the chance to see them again.  Looks like we weren&amp;#039;t the only ones.  N.E.R.D. was the &amp;quot;surprise guest&amp;quot; at Perez Hilton&amp;#039;s party. We didn&amp;#039;t see the man himself there -- but the next day at the airport, he waited in line for Tex-Mex, incognito under a gray hoodie, until a feisty girl recognized him and started snapping photos, leaving him visibly annoyed. Irony: 1, Perez Hilton: 0.  6th Street in downtown Austin. 10 p.m.  --&amp;amp;gt; SXSW, Day Three: Friday, March 14, 2008  The Whigs are hands-down the best band playing at SXSW this year. They bring it hard. They bring it fast. They bring it in the middle of the day when you least expect a band to bring it. They&amp;#039;re the reason why SXSW exists. Go buy their record. Go see them live.  The usually solid Sharin Foo, lead singer of The Raveonettes, wondering what she ate for lunch yesterday while in the midst of playing a less-than-inspired outdoor set at Stubb&amp;#039;s BBQ.   This man is &amp;quot;Beatle Bob,&amp;quot; best known for traveling from show-to-show and dancing like the bastard love child of Austin Powers and one of Barker&amp;#039;s Beauties. (Only not so beauteous.)  The media industry has officially anointed Vampire Weekend the &amp;quot;it&amp;quot; band of SXSW, following in the now-vanished footsteps of Peter, Bjorn, and John (2007), Polyphonic Spree (2006), The Bravery (2005), and Nellie McKay (2004). But what happens when a band doesn&amp;#039;t seem to want the adulation? You get an utterly phoned-in, by-the-numbers set that leaves an audience shrugging, wondering what the hell the big deal is. Perhaps it was the ninety-degree heat, or the outdoor setting, or the fact the audience was equally unimpressed, standing there, arms crossed, as if to say, &amp;quot;Prove it.&amp;quot;  Augustana&amp;#039;s barely-there not-rock&amp;#039;s made to be accidentally overheard at Starbucks. Unfortunately, their barely there short-shorts are made to be worn never.  There are guys who wear the T-shirt of the band they&amp;#039;re going to see to the show and guys who make a T-shirt specially for the show they&amp;#039;re going to see. Don&amp;#039;t be either of those guys.  Once again, the Levi&amp;#039;s/Fader &amp;quot;fort&amp;quot; was a giant sprawling corporate sponsored mess with some decent bands attached. You can walk in and go shopping, or wander through a maze of theme rooms that celebrate a genre of music through Levi&amp;#039;s-colored glasses. This blue-rhinestone encrusted ensemble celebrates hip-hop. Because when you think rap music, you wonder what Liberace would have worn to the Source Awards.  Little-known fact about the Levi Strauss corporation: in each of their stores there is a small room where two women stitch together all of their pants, like the Keebler Elves of denim.  England&amp;#039;s psych-rocky Working for a Nuclear Free City not only have a phenomenal name, but they spent their Austin-time enjoying the luxury of a down-dollar, a strong Euro, cheap tacos, and a great band name. Lucky guys.  Sometimes, you have to get there early to sit through a band you don&amp;#039;t want to see to guarantee a place for the band you&amp;#039;ve heard so much about. Somewhere in this photo is The Stills.   We have no idea who this drum tech is, but we&amp;#039;re certain he&amp;#039;s from Austin. He exhibits all of the proper qualifications, notably: a haircut that looks like it was done using a butter knife, maintaining those stretched earlobes, and a terrible lip piercing into middle age, an unironic metal T-shirt, and a scathing allergy to soap.  For 45 minutes, a restless crowd waited for Duffy to perform, hoping the rumors that the British soul singer could do what so many of her peers could not: get through an entire set without incident. They set the bar low, giving her just five songs to wow the crowd.   So, how did Duffy do? We&amp;#039;ll answer this question with a question. What would happen if Amy Winehouse was as well behaved as a Nickelodeon tween star? She&amp;#039;d be Duffy. And she&amp;#039;d be boring.  Toughest ticket in Austin this week? It wasn&amp;#039;t R.E.M. -- it was stand-up comedy. Lines stretched around the corner to watch Human Giant, Janeane Garofalo, and Eugene Mirman tell jokes. Embittered locals patiently waited for the chance to pay good money to watch them too, only to see that opportunity go away when some out-of-town jerk with a SXSW pass waltzed right in. And people wonder why Austin locals have been wearing T-shirts with Willie Nelson&amp;#039;s face and the words &amp;quot;Get Out of My Town.&amp;quot;  Metalheads on display in their natural habitat on 6th Street in Austin. Please do not feed the heshers.  &amp;quot;ANARCHY! RIOT! FUCK THE WORLD! GET OUT OF AUSTIN YOU YUPPIE ASSH -- oh wait, guys. Can you hold on? I gotta hit this ATM right quick.&amp;quot;  Remember The Vines&amp;#039; Nirvana-esque &amp;quot;Get Free?&amp;quot; Remember how fun it was to scream along to? So do we. So that&amp;#039;s why we welcomed the return of the band after a four-year U.S. hiatus; they played an energy-packed gig at the hoity-toity club Pangea to a mixed crowd more frat-boyish than music-weaselish. No matter: the band still roars.  Lead singer Craig Nicholls has Asperger&amp;#039;s Syndrome, a form of autism that pretty much destroyed the &amp;quot;grunge era&amp;quot; incarnation of The Vines. (He&amp;#039;s a little touched in the head.) And we&amp;#039;ll be shocked if The Vines survives touring the U.S. in support of their greatest hits album and upcoming new record. At the end of the set, Nicholls lit a cigarette, chugged his drink, and made out with the busty blonde in the front row. After a deep internal struggle over whether or not to mash his guitar into the floor of the club, sanity shockingly prevailed and he gently placed it down and walked off.  Apparently, drinking enough whiskey does lead to hair growth in unlikely places!  Every night, there&amp;#039;s a debate about where the best after-hours is; though the bars close at two, companies like Vice and Blender keep semi-legit warehouses in business with bands and booze. But knock on the right door, and you&amp;#039;ll end up at a party like this one: in a suite, with a view, and a host who, apparently, doesn&amp;#039;t actually exist.  WHEN ALCOHOL ATTACKS! 2 Girls, 1 Cougar.  --&amp;amp;gt; SXSW, Day Two: Thursday, March 13, 2008  You&amp;#039;re a hot blonde. You play a mean tambourine. You&amp;#039;re in Castledoor, a really upbeat band that sounds vaguely like The Polyphonic Spree. So why do you look like someone handed you divorce papers eight seconds before the show?  Like boy bands and reality TV stars, Robyn is one of those pop phenomena that never seems to disappear completely. If you&amp;#039;re Swedish, you know her as the precocious 13-year-old talent who wrote the theme song for Lilla Sportsspegeln. If you&amp;#039;re an American fan of forgettable dance tracks from the late 1990s, then you know her for the song &amp;quot;Show Me Love&amp;quot; off of Robyn Is Here. And if you&amp;#039;re willing to believe that all great artists deserve a third act, then you&amp;#039;ll be excited to know she&amp;#039;s reinvented herself as a Perez Hilton-approved Gwen Stefani-esque popster.  By far, The Henry Clay People were the most intoxicated band in Austin at 2 p.m. The usually amazing band (they sound exactly like Pavement) was made even more amazing by the fact they could barely stand up. At one point, the guitarist fell down while singing and was unable to get up, partially because his brother, the lead singer, was straddling him and knocking down another microphone in the process. After rolling around the stage for a while and tangling themselves various cords, the set eventually lurched to a halt. Thank you, Dewars! Good night!  Seriously, Matt Pinfield is still employed? And he looks exactly the same. Clearly, something sinister is at play here. It&amp;#039;s almost as if 1992 Matt Pinfield had a time machine and has hidden the shriveled, much-older 2008 Matt Pinfield in a closet someplace so his career can live on until the sun explodes. It&amp;#039;s a viable theory, anyway.  In Austin, haute cuisine consists of taking a massive lump of shredded pig, three fistfuls of cheddar cheese, and laying it over a bed of Frito-Lay corn chips. Let&amp;#039;s see David Chang pull off Frito Pie at Momofuko.  The Islands front man, clad in white face paint, sings to an appreciable (and quite large) audience. Somewhere a mime feels hurt and betrayed.  Also notable about The Islands: They have two violin players, including this man, who was so pumped up he made Pete Townshend look like Yo Yo Ma. Nerd rage! NERD RAGE!  The best part of SXSW is randomly discovering your new favorite band. Ours was Madrid&amp;#039;s Right Ons, a bawdy, roaring novelty rock extravaganza so Spanish, their drummer stands atop his kit, smashing his tambourine with one hand and sipping merlot with the other. Soon after, the lead singer jumped out of the window to bang a tambourine against random people in the street. Salud!  The stereotypical rapper takes to the stage with a metric ton of bling and enough many hype-men and hangers-on to fill half of Giants Stadium. Clearly, Pigeon John is not a stereotypical rapper, taking to the stage with a single DJ and wearing his SXSW badge while performing, as if he was just some random audience member who came onstage to rock the mic.  At the swelteringly hot, jam-packed Playboy party, the good-on-record The Heavy played a fairly mediocre set including a cover that was so atrocious we cannot even remember what song they desecrated. It might have been a Kinks song.  That said, the Playboy bunnies seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. And in the end, that&amp;#039;s the only thing that matters. Happy bunnies.  Aspiring plastic guitarists everywhere, take note: even when real bands are playing, you&amp;#039;ll always have an audience if you can nail &amp;quot;Wanted Dead or Alive&amp;quot; on &amp;quot;Expert.&amp;quot;   Note to chart-climbing rock bands everywhere: at an industry-heavy show, it may help to actually play your single. MGMT -- whose song &amp;quot;Time to Pretend&amp;quot; is shaping up to be this year&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Young Folks&amp;quot; -- apparently didn&amp;#039;t get the memo. Instead of actually playing the song, they played the video for the song before their set.  When the DJ comes on, that&amp;#039;s usually the cue to refill some beverages and find a toilet. But when Moby hit the decks, the Playboy party actually got kinda crazy, with enraptured masses dancing so furiously a fog of sweat and alcohol quickly consumed the room. Moby rocked the house? Look, we&amp;#039;re just as surprised as you are.   Vegans are lame. DJs are lame. And so, it should follow that vegan DJs are exceedingly lame. But as we&amp;#039;ve mentioned earlier, Moby sure knows how to party. Here he is, sucking down a Miller Lite after inviting the entire audience to come up onstage to dance behind him.  The Justice set was an unmitigated train wreck -- but not because the French DJ duo was bad. Most of the once-packed room (which had included such major stars as Cisco Adler, Carson Daly, and Elijah Wood) had left, because a rumor had swept that the cops were about to shut it down. Also not helping: the fact that security was virtually nonexistent. As a result, fans stormed the stage and turned off the music when they accidentally knocked out the power cord for Justice&amp;#039;s equipment. Twice.  Justice didn&amp;#039;t appreciate losing power much -- at one point they appeared to yell at each other. But in the end, it didn&amp;#039;t matter.  Whoever was still there at four in the morning had a fucking blast.  --&amp;amp;gt; SXSW, Day One: Wednesday, March 12, 2008  Ah, South by Southwest, the annual music conference that brings thousands of music fans, industry douche bags, and obscure indie acts to Austin, Texas, for four days of drinking too much and waiting in lines like this.  That lead to more lines, such as this one.  And this one.  This one.  And finally, this one, which you need to be in to pick up your shiny SXSW badge that you&amp;#039;ll need to enjoy all the free BBQ and random bands you&amp;#039;ll see and struggle to remember the next day. (Or the next hour.)  Bands like this one. Who are these people? Did they escape from a high school marching band? No one listening to them seemed to have a clue who they were. They were listed as &amp;quot;TBA&amp;quot; on the schedule. A MySpace search proved fruitless. Regardless, they were a fine musical act. Random band we&amp;#039;ll never see again: We salute you!  These guys are called Monte Negro and they&amp;#039;re from Los Angeles. They sing in Spanish. And their lead singer looks exactly like Rufus Wainwright. What does it all mean? Uncertain. But they were good in a reggae rock, pseudo-Clash kinda way.  Shirtlessness. It&amp;#039;s not for everyone. And certainly not for this fellow. His band, Street Light Suzie, sounded like Nirvana meets Nirvana on speed. Only worse than that. Put a shirt on, buddy!   In Austin, when musicians aren&amp;#039;t playing official gigs, they&amp;#039;re in the streets playing for passersby. They&amp;#039;re not even begging for change. They&amp;#039;re begging for a record deal. And judging from the look on this guy&amp;#039;s face, it&amp;#039;s almost as if no one told him he&amp;#039;d be better off begging for change, judging from the record industry&amp;#039;s financial performance as of late.  This is Dave. He&amp;#039;s in a really popular band called Tokyo Police Club. Lots of people are buzzing about them. Well, except for the only other dude in the room, who suddenly decided right then would be a good time to check his email.  A friendly hello from Jack Passion, the 2007 and 2008 world beard champion in the &amp;quot;natural full beard&amp;quot; category. Don&amp;#039;t believe us? Check out WorldBeardChampionships.com. Hi, Jack!  And the award for best lie goes to the electro-rock band The Afrobots, who claimed they were dropped by their major label while in the middle of their set. What they hoped to gain from this is baffling. Maybe they hate their A&amp;amp;amp;R guy.  WHEN ALCOHOL ATTACKS!  First cover of the day came from Los Angelinos Weather Underground, who did a rather serviceable job on The Beatles&amp;#039; &amp;quot;Dear Prudence.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a4398/sxsw-2008/>