Goodbye South by Southwest 2013, you were equal parts exhilarating and exhausting, even (especially?) for those who followed the on-goings of the festival via Twitter and Vine. By now, the thousands of bands and tens of thousands of attendees have departed Austin, so not only was it impossible to find an open outlet at the airport these past two days, but it’s also time to look back at SXSW 2013, in all its glory and disgracefulness.
I’m breaking this down number-by-number, otherwise I’d probably just talk about Prince for 2,500 words.
0: times Major Lazer and Amber Coffman’s “Get Free” had been performed live before SXSW.
1: song until Japandroids asked the security at Viceland to leave because they were sapping the show’s energy.
2: new songs played by Vampire Weekend, “Diane Young” and “Ya Hey.”
3: members in the new wave/folk band that supposedly “won” SXSW 2013, Haim.
6: encores during Prince’s soul-heavy, festival-closing set.
10: tweets fired by Diiv’s Zachary Cole Smith, who criticized SXSW for being a “giant corporate clusterf*ck.”
11: tracks on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which the Flaming Lips played front-to-back for the first time.
14: times Internet meme favorites Dawes played SXSW this year.
19: age of Odd Future’s Earl Sweatshirt, who performed at a number of much-hyped showcases.
27: combined weeks on the Billboard Hot-100 chart for Bauuer and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, who shook and thrift shopped in Austin.
30: people in charge of cleaning up Austin now that the festival’s over with.
38: times Dave Grohl said “f*ck” during his keynote address speech.
45: approximate number of times the post-punks in Savages were called the “next big thing.”
58: conversations that began with, “Wait, those Zombies are playing SXSW?”
175: days between Billie Joe Armstrong’s meltdown and Green Day’s first concert since, on Friday night.
297: impossible to Google bands that played the festival, including “ME” and “BOY.”
478: heads that exploded during White Lung’s melodic hardcore sets.
763: times Third Eye Blind were commanded by the audience to play “Semi-Charmed Life,” which they never did. They did, however, perform “Jumper.”
1,100: the building number where Autre Ne Veut got people pregnant with his voice.
2,500: bands that played South by Southwest in 2013.
4,567: Instagram photos taken of Daniel Johnston’s “Hi, How Are You” mural.
4,568: Instagram photos taken of the Game of Thrones pedicab.
1,890,000: Google results for “daft punk paul mccartney sxsw 2013,” a persistent rumor that never materialized.
Infinite: think pieces on what South by Southwest really means.
Infinite: no one caring about think pieces on what South by Southwest really means.
