SXSW Day One: Hotel Vegas Springbreak Boogie 2025 Kickoff
Landing in Austin with that post-flight daze still clinging to our senses, we made the only rational decision: bypass hotel check-in formalities and beeline straight for Hotel Vegas' Spring Break Boogie showcase. Forget unpacking—the unofficial SXSW circuit waits for no one.
While one half of our team disappeared into the darkness of a cinema to absorb Dead Lover, directed, starring, and co-written by Toronto’s Grace Glowicki (complete with U.S Girls’ Meg Remy's sonic fingerprints for the score), the other half of the team was magnetized toward the patio stage where Los Angeles' Spike Hellis was set to lurk the stage. The industrial/EBM duo fought valiantly against an underpowered sound system that struggled to contain their massive synth architecture. The venue's fog machine worked overtime, creating an appropriately apocalyptic atmosphere as the pair powered through technical difficulties that would've sent lesser acts packing. Their tracks "Mouth" and "Feed" managed to transform the outdoor space into a writhing mass of bodies despite the sound limitations. Sometimes the struggle against technical inadequacy creates its own peculiar energy—Spike Hellis harnessed this tension masterfully.
Post-set rendezvous accomplished, we merged forces to witness the gloriously overpopulated stage presence of CDSM (Celebrity Death Slot Machine, for the acronym-averse). With no fewer than five humans crammed onto a stage clearly designed for three, the band demonstrated a remarkable economy of movement and purpose. What could have devolved into chaotic spatial competition instead revealed itself as choreographed precision. Saxophones punctuated their set with brassy exclamation points while their lyrics teetered perfectly on the knife-edge between cleverness and absurdity. CDSM have crafted something rare—a sound simultaneously intellectual and visceral, with the room responding accordingly.
The night's trajectory then curved toward Portrayal of Guilt—Austin natives commanding hometown advantage on the main stage. The assembled devotees wasted no time initiating circle pits that threatened to consume the uninitiated. POG's reinvention of black metal leans into the genre's essential desolation and despair, then recombes these elements into novel configurations. The result retains metal's emotional intensity while jettisoning its predictable structures.
Midnight found us at Volstead, where Montreal's Truck Violence had materialized behind a DIY banner proclaiming their nominal "VIOLENCE" in spray-painted capitals. Fresh from an 8-star Pitchfork coronation, the band confronted the inevitable midnight fatigue of festival-goers with relentless physicality. The crowd's initial reticence—understandable at witching hour—gradually dissolved as the band literally threw themselves into the audience. Such commitment demands reciprocity; by set's end, the exchange of energy between performers and audience had achieved perfect equilibrium.
Truck Violence's Alberta roots give them an outsider perspective on metal/hardcore conventions—perhaps explaining their ability to operate both within and beyond genre constraints. Their feature in the latest REVERIE Magazine print edition feels less like coverage than documentation of an emergent phenomenon. While countless bands attempt to distinguish themselves through superficial stylistic contortions, Truck Violence achieves differentiation through sheer authenticity and commitment to their craft.
The Spring Break Boogie showcase functions as perfect microcosm of SXSW itself: a convergence of disparate sounds unified only by their refusal to conform. From Spike Hellis' electronic brutalism to CDSM's saxophone-enhanced art-punk to Portrayal of Guilt's black metal to Truck Violence's hardcore catharsis—each act carved out its own distinct territory while contributing to the overall tapestry.
Hotel Vegas and Volstead themselves deserve recognition as more than mere venues—they function as architectural participants in the night's progression. The former's multi-stage layout creates natural migration patterns between performances, while the latter's intimate confines intensify the communal aspects of live music. Navigating between them provides necessary decompression—brief interludes of night air and conversation before submersion into the next sonic environment.
Stay vigilant for further dispatches as we continue navigating SXSW's labyrinthine offerings. The festival's true treasures rarely announce themselves with neon signage or sponsored activations—they reveal themselves to those willing to venture beyond officialdom into the glorious uncertainty of the unofficial circuit.
All photos by Jess Arcand