Austin - Living Up To Its Moniker Of "Live Music Capital Of The World"

Austin, Texas has a vibrant live music scene, and boasts more music venues per capita than any other city in the United States. Austin's music scene revolves mainly around the many nightclub venues on 6th Street, but the pinnacle is arguably the annual music, film and multimedia festival called South By Southwest (SXSW).

SXSW officially began in 1987, originating as the Austin Battle of the Bands and is centered around the downtown Austin Convention Center. It has become one of the largest music festivals in the United States, with more thousands of performers from all across the globe playing in over seventy venues across Austin over four days in March. Largely an industry-based event, SXSW has garnered a reputation for being the place for new, up-and-coming bands to break into the industry, and particularly British bands looking to break the US market. Acts who have gained mass notoriety after playing sets at SXSW include The White Stripes in 2001, and British emo-punks Gallows who took the festival by storm in 2007.

2007 was SXSW's biggest year yet, and saw more than 2000 bands take over Austin between March 14th and 18th. Highlights included stand-out sets from The Rapture, Cold War Kids and Kings of Leon. David Byrne, formerly of Talking Heads, and The Who's Pete Townshend were among the event's conference speakers (Townshend later made a guest appearance, joining The Fratellis onstage and showcasing his trademark windmill guitar moves). British punk legends The Buzzcocks also played a raucous set, as did US punk icons Iggy & The Stooges. There was also the emergence of a one-night-only supergroup, as Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave was joined on his solo set by a mass of unannounced special guests including Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, MC5's Wayne Kramer, Primus bass supremo Les Claypool and Slash of Guns 'n Roses and Velvet Revolver fame.

SXSW is the single highest money-making public event for the Austin community, generating more revenue than even home games by Austin's hugely popular college football team, the Texas Longhorns

SXSW is just one of Austin's festivals - the city is also host to the All Tomorrow's Parties-esque Fun Fun Fun Festival, a two day event that last year saw performances across three stages from acts such as Cat Power and Diplo as well as sets from Austin natives Okkervil River, Zykos, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness and Explosions In The Sky, who headlined.

Also, the Austin City Limits festival has quickly become one of the most popular and well-attended festivals in the entire United States, ranking alongside Coachella and Lollapalooza. The festival brings together over 130 bands across eight stages over three days. The festival works in conjunction with the popular Austin City Limits TV show, which showcases local Austin acts as well as artists playing the festival.

For any fans wishing to experience "the live music capital of the world" for themselves, there are plenty of hotels in Austin available to suit a range of budgets, but with the eye of the America turning to Texas, booking in advance is advised for the more popular acts.