Some of the biggest stars at SXSW 2025 spent the festival’s third full day of music at Willie Nelson’s Luck Ranch, where everyone from Julien Baker and Torres to Jessica Simpson and Lucinda Williams all showed up. Others were at Rolling Stone‘s Future of Music showcase, where música mexicana heartthrob Ivan Cornejo drew a sea of adoring fans. You can read about both those shows here — and you’ll also hear about some of the wildly varied, totally original independent acts you could find all over town if you kept your ears perked. Here are the best things we saw at SXSW on Thursday, March 13.
Stubb’s, the legendary backyard BBQ in the heart of Austin’s live music district, devoted itself to the music of New Orleans on a Thursday night showcase at SXSW 2025. Shortly after a rousing show by the Rumble with Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr. came the centerpiece of the night: an appearance by Big Freedia, the queen of Big Easy bounce. Plenty of throbbing rhythms could be heard throughout her set, but she’s embarked on a new project, launching Big Freedia’s Gospel Revival. Halfway through her show, Freedia explained that she had the power “to bring people together through the power of ass, but now God wants me to save souls.” Just because she’s now singing for the Lord doesn’t mean she’s succumbed to sanctimony. Big Freedia’s gospel preaches to both the soul and the body, placing an equal emphasis on her loose, lively band’s slippery funk and the testifying from her gospel choir, who never took a moment of rest. Those harmonies pulled every one of the songs toward the spiritual even when the rhythms are unmistakably designed for a party, a fusion that can be invigorating. Toward the end of the set, Big Freedia told the crowd, “Thank you for enduring this with me, even with my mistakes tonight…this is something the world definitely needs.” Any mistakes the musicians made only added to the collective’s humanity, helping the performance seem exuberant, joyful and inclusive. —S.T.E.
Vermont singer-songwriter Lily Seabird is one of SXSW 2025’s most compelling new voices.
Salihah Saadiq for Rolling Stone
Lily Seabird Brings the House Down
One of the best-kept-secret venues at SXSW is Tweedy’s, a bar/coffee shop in a big, old house near the University of Texas’ campus. On Thursday afternoon, noise complaints from neighbors forced the alt-country-leaning backyard party known as Dylanfest — booked with excellent taste by writer Dylan Tupper Rupert — to move indoors and push everything back by an hour. That was great news if it meant you were there early enough to catch a 3 p.m. set by New Orleans-via-Florida songwriter Thomas Dollbaum. With experience working as both a poet and a carpenter, Dollbaum knows how to build a sturdy song. He’s also friendly with North Carolina phenom MJ Lenderman, and that’s not a bad reference point for the music he played with a small backing band — deeply felt Southern rock anthems with the feel of classics you just haven’t heard yet.
Next up were Brooklyn’s Youbet, who played grungy songs with occasional bursts of guitar theatrics, fueled by singer-guitarist Nick Llobet’s tightly coiled energy. (If you were old enough to have distinct memories of the 1980s and 1990s, their intensity might have reminded you of a young Michael Stipe.) Between songs, bass player Micah Prussack complimented the bar’s “house-show vibes,” which included wood-paneled walls, a brick chimney, and vintage posters showing the Stones circa ’65 and ZZ Top in the Seventies. “That’s what rock & roll is all about,” Prussack joked after a particularly loud number rattled some furniture. “We’re trying to break the windows of this bar/coffee shop.”
The most memorable performance of the afternoon came from Vermont’s Lily Seabird, who played slowly and deliberately, accompanying herself on harmonica and electric guitar, with a second guitarist in a Grateful Dead baseball cap adding subtle accents. Seabird, 26, writes crushingly honest songs, and her weathered voice gives them a spellbinding quality. “You changed the shape of my heart and the smell of my hair/Gave shape to the ground that I walked on,” she sang on a showstopper about loss called “Over and Over Again,” from her 2024 album Alas. The title track from her upcoming LP Trash Mountain (out next month) was even better, as she sketched an everyday scene full of existential weight: “There was a man pushing a shopping cart full of bottles of belief/And he was yelling about taxes and drinking a Twisted Tea.” If this year’s Dylanfest felt like an informal show in someone’s living room, Seabird gave the performance that everyone would be talking about on their walks or rides home. —S.V.L.
Sunflower Bean are SXSW lifers.
Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone
Sunflower Bean Rock All Night
“Guys, is it safe to say this is the best venue at SouthBy?” Julia Cumming asked partway through Sunflower Bean’s late-night set at the patio at Hotel Vegas. Cumming reminisced about the times her life changed witnessing the Osees play this backyard bash, speaking with evident affection for John Dwyer’s mercurial neo-garage outfit. Sunflower Bean may be a considerably different band from the Osees, but they share a deep conviction in the enduring power of rock & roll, a belief that came shining through in the power trio’s SXSW set. Sounding large enough to fill an arena, Sunflower Bean thrived on the close connection to the crowd that this smaller stage provides. Cranking up their amps and largely forgoing ballads — at one point Cumming brushed by guitarist Nick Kivlen’s suggestion that it might be time to play a slow number — the trio sounded huge, descending into galvanizing sludge by the end of the set. It’s a far cry from the polished precision of their forthcoming self-produced album, Mortal Primetime, but the remarkable thing about the show was how it proved that the group’s melodies are not only strong enough to survive a bludgeoning, they may even sound better when delivered with a heavy hand. —S.T.E.
Ivan Cornejo Brings All the Feelings
All of the fans at the Moody Theater screamed in unison when the stage lights blinked and a video popped up, showing Cornejo declaring his pride and love of música mexicana. In the video, he shared his reaction to finding out he would be one of this year’s Future of Music cover stars: “I just remember looking back and thinking of all the fans, and thinking this was going to stay a dream, and now we’re here.”
When Cornejo walked onto the stage, the mood had been set. Light twinkled from the stage, the dreamy strum of requintos filled the theater, and fans instantly began singing along as he pulled off a 1-2 punch, first performing his hit “Está Dañado” and then following it up with its sister smash, the endlessly brooding “Está Dañada.” The intention was clear: Everyone was about to process some deeply felt emotion. It didn’t matter what part of the setlist he was on. The fans had learned every song, and they were there to wail along to all of his tales of broken romances and dark loneliness. —J.L.
Anouska Sokolow and Tim Curtis of Honeyglaze
Honeyglaze Are the Real Deal
Honeyglaze are the Real Deal. They claim that title themselves — it’s the name of their second album, released last year — but it was also undeniable as the three-piece indie outfit from South London commanded the stage in front of a packed SXSW crowd at the downtown bar Valhalla. Singer-guitarist Anouska Sokolow, bassist Tim Curtis, and drummer Yuri Shibuichi were masterfully in sync, with their twisty riffs and driving beats floating through the room. Sokolow is a charmingly droll storyteller, smirking while delivering her hyper-specific lyrics on Real Deal tracks like “Pretty Girls” and “Cold Caller.” Her writing isn’t overly sweet, though, and avoids too much navel-gazing: Instead, she’s casually brutal, emotions always barely teetering on the edge of a total crash-out. The band played their afternoon set with a sense of restraint, but the momentum just kept building and building until it couldn’t anymore. They erupted into the thrilling, angry closer “Don’t,” when Sokolow finally let her full-bodied vitriol loose. “Don’t raise your voice and interrupt me when I’m speaking,” she snarled, giving way to a blaring guitar-shredding interlude. “I’ve got things to say, I’ve got fucking feelings.” —L.L.
M(h)aol’s Sharp Edges
“There are so many of you,” M(h)aol’s Constance Keane said as she looked out at the sizable crowd at the 13th Floor, a reliably grubby pub, around midnight for a showcase put on by the indie label Don Giovanni Records. “How strange. Is there nothing better going on?” It would have been hard to find something better than Mh(a)ol. The Irish art-punk crew, who recently signed to Merge Records, are an unusual band in the best way. Keane, the drummer and lead singer, was joined by two bassists — one of whom (New York indie scene longtimer Mallory Hawk) met the others for the first time less than a week ago — and a guitarist who spent the whole show facing away from the audience. They backed Keane’s spoken-word riffs on feminism and modern life, all soaked in piquant irony. She noted that one song, “DM:AM,” was largely made up of generic guys’ names she has encountered using Hinge in London. Another, “1-800-Call-Me-Back,” built up to a hypnotic dance-punk chant (“The number you have called is not in service!”). Both will appear on Mh(a)ol’s upcoming second album, Something Soft. And while this band can be sharply hilarious, they can also turn dead serious on a dime. They closed with “Pursuit,” a song they described as being about trying to walk home safely as a woman. “I thought about it all,” Keane repeated over and over again, her tone rising to a scream. “I thought the shoes that I’m wearing would help me run away from you/Who are you, anyway?” Bracing, unsettling, and powerful. —S.V.L.
Chuwi Represent Puerto Rico
The Puerto Rican wunderkinds Chuwi are made up of four radically different characters — siblings Willy Aldarondo, Lorén Aldarondo, and Wester Aldarondo, and their close friend Adrián López — and they weren’t afraid to put everything out there at Rolling Stone‘s Future of Music showcase. The band is from Puerto Rico’s coastal town of Isabela, and they’d all flown out to be in Austin for the first time ever and introduce themselves to an audience ready to take in their stories. They were going to do it over bold, infectious beats, powered by merengue and bomba rhythms from back home. They immediately hooked in the crowd with “Judy Nelson,” a track that shows the full range and body of singer Lorén’s captivating voice. Toward the end of their set, Lorén shared in both Spanish and English that they had been watching for a long time as displacement and gentrification took place in Puerto Rico, reflecting some of the larger realities around the world. They teed up the emotional song “Tierra,” but then brought everyone’s heart rates back up when they signed off with the percussive “Tikiri.“ In a whirl, they were off, leaving the crowd pumped for more. —J.L.
Julien Baker and Torres
Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone
The Stars Come Out at Luck Reunion
For its 13th year, the boutique festival held on Willie Nelson’s Luck Ranch in Spicewood, Texas — just outside of Austin, as the song goes — proved to be unlike any music fest on earth. With stages set up in and around the Old West buildings that dot the grounds, a movie set where Nelson filmed his 1984 Western Red Headed Stranger, the vibe at Luck Reunion is both cinematic and surreal. As was this year’s lineup: Arcade Fire, Julien Baker & Torres, and buzzy protest singer Jesse Welles played sets alongside Lucinda Williams, Taj Mahal, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Jessica Simpson even made a surprise appearance to preview the rootsy Americana songs she recorded for her upcoming EP and went all-in on a cover of Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man.” She treated fans from her early MTV days with a country rendition of her 2023 hit “With You” too. Baker & Torres, however, may have been the most colorful of the day. Playing songs like “Sugar in the Tank,” off their album Send a Prayer My Way, the duo donned Nudie-type suits embroidered with cats and cannabis leaves (it was Nelson’s ranch after all). —J.H.
Working to Save Independent Live Music
Ten in the morning on the third day of music at SXSW is awfully early for most attendees, so the fact that the panel for “Small Stages, Big Impact: Saving Indie Stages for Artists” drew a healthy audience to the Austin Convention Center speaks well to the work that the National Independent Venue Association performs. NIVA executive director Stephen Parker moderated a discussion featuring Wasserman Music agent Alex Christie, Bandsintown Co-Founder and Managing Partner Fabrice Sergent, and Andre Perry, who is the NIVA board president and executive director of Hancher Auditorium and the Office of Performing Arts and Engagement at the University of Iowa.
The differing backgrounds of the three panelists illustrated how a successful live music ecosystem must serve the needs of the artists, the venues and the audiences, a mission that is critical to NIVA. Launched in 2020 as a way of bolstering America’s independent venues in the wake of COVID-19, NIVA functions as the glue holding together artists and community. Throughout the panel, the participants emphasized the importance of secondary and tertiary markets, a stance underscored by the decision to hold this June’s NIVA conference in Milwaukee: The intention is to build a series of interconnected communities that serve the needs of their own cities. Perry emphasized that these smaller communities are where new generations of artists will rise, partially because they’re diverse: “You might have the DIY space, you might have non-profit, you might have classic rock,” and even if they serve different audiences, “everyone has to talk to each other.” An important part of the conversation is touring bands. Christie admitted that it’s “not easy to be on the road these days,” further explaining that “after Covid and inflation..it’s cruel to offer only $250 a night when they do bring crew…it almost puts them in the red every single time.” That financial reality is one of the reasons Sergent argued “It’s more hard to be an artist than an entrepreneur.” Hearing these realities can be sobering, particularly when Perry told an attendee that there were no shortcuts in building a newer, younger audience in a local market, claiming that it’s a 10-year project. There may be no easy roads to building a community but this discussion is necessary: if NIVA can help foster a thriving independent community of indie venues, it benefits both the artists and audiences. —S.T.E.
Ki! Blast Off Into Funky Space
If you wandered into Valhalla at the right time on Thursday night, you’d find people dancing with joyful abandon to the music made by Korea-born, Denmark-raised guitarist Christian Ki Dall. He and his two bandmates on bass and drums were smiling as they turned out one mostly-instrumental surf-rock/funk/lounge groove after another, and the energy was irresistible. Ki is a colorful lead guitarist who’s equally capable of spiraling into noise or locking into a rhythm, and he drew cheers after every crowd-pleasing solo. “We are Ki!,” he told the partygoers, “and you are amazing.” —S.V.L.
