AUSTIN, Texas — The annual South by Southwest music festival is like Disney World for grown-up music lovers.
This year's festival, which ended Sunday, offered roughly 1,000 bands at 40 or so venues over five days. In addition to the official showcases each night, record labels, clubs, bands and bars hosted daytime parties with more music, and some bands put on unsanctioned showcases.
It would be impossible for even the most dedicated fan to get to even a tenth of the shows, but here are some highlights from several days and nights wandering the live music capital of the world with several thousand other music writers, publicists, musicians, label honchos and just plain fans.
Look closely at Tift Merritt's forehead and you might just see a star, for hers is surely rising. Walking down South Congress Avenue after a brunch, my friend — to whom I've been talking up Tift big-time — and I stop, transfixed by the glorious country singing coming from a parking-lot stage. "That's her," I scream.
We stop and listen, along with a slowly growing crowd.
Billie Joe Shaver, a Texas music icon, leans over and asks if I know the singer's name. "She's got it," he says with a broad smile after I tell him. "She has definitely got it."
Greg Trooper's showcase at the Hideout on Saturday night was one of the sleeper sets of the festival. Trooper previewed his excellent new Eminent Records album, "Straight Down Rain," which comes out in April. Trooper's band was smoking, propelling his country-rock-goes-to-Brooklyn songs to dizzying heights. Nashville guitarist Will Kimbrough, whose name belongs in the first rank of guitarslingers anywhere, ranged from lyrical and lovely to down and dirty.
Kimbrough also lit up the Austin Music Hall on Thursday night with Kim Richey's band. "Can you believe they wouldn't give him his own showcase?" Richey asked after the set. Nope.
Heather Eatman, who followed Trooper Saturday night, used Nashville's wonderful rock trio Joe, Marc's Brother as her band. Eatman showed her heart is in the right place by letting the band do one of their own songs while she accompanied them. Eatman and band closed with a menacing, bad-to-the-bone cover of Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" that left brain pans rattling.
Rounder/Zoe artist Sarah Harmer has gone from playing in front of a handful of people to packing clubs in a short time on the strength of "You Were Here" and its addictive single, "Basement Apartment." At the Rounder showcase Saturday night, the crowd was shoulder to shoulder, streaming out the door and down the stairs to hear Harmer's folk-rock sound, engaging lyrics and crystalline voice.
Some of those in line were trying to get in early for the Blake Babies reunion show. "Thank you for coming," a Rounder staffer says as I walk down the stairs. "Thank you for leaving," a woman about 12th in line adds.
Web site: www.sxsw.com