SXSW 2008

AUSTIN – South by Southwest is a petri dish for exhaustion. Only the truly established acts get to bring help. Which is where I attempted to come in.

The New Frontiers isn't established. The Dallas-based indie-pop quintet is representative of the vast majority here: hardworking, focused and with palpable potential, but self-contained. It has a manager but no booking agent. It has a label, but one with limited and iffy resources. It has talent as well as pure, palatable musical intent. But as happens more often than not, it's what develops around a band – most of which is out of its direct control – that ultimately makes a band, no matter how much so-called "grunt work" it's willing to expend.

So, for its first-ever honest-to-goodness SXSW showcase (it was in Austin last year, but not officially), I decided to help the New Frontiers out. I chose New Frontiers because it helped another band last year – Oxford, Miss.'s the Colour Revolt, which had its gear and most of its belongings stolen in Dallas two weeks before SXSW. The Colour Revolt boarded at New Frontiers guitarist Jacob Chaney's home for several days, and various New Frontiersmen took the Colour members around to buy clothes and scour pawn shops for their gear (most was eventually recovered).

Erich Schlegel / DMN

Rock critic Mike Daniel gets a taste of what it's like to be a SXSW band roadie.

I offered my 6-foot-4, 235-pound self as a roadie at its 1 a.m. showcase at the Thirsty Nickel, smack in the middle of Sixth Street's live-club madness. Band manager Lonny Olinick bit, enthusiastically. The band – Mr. Chaney, singer-guitarist Nathan Pettijohn, bassist Ryan Henry, keyboardist Guy Turner and drummer Alex Bhore – sounded stoked through Mr. Olinick's filter.

But reality checked the experience.

Load-in was at 6 p.m., seven hours before the performance. I missed that because of a prior engagement. Six acts performed before the New Frontiers, so Mr. Bhore set up his kit after load-in and allowed the earlier acts to use it (though with a caveat: "Please don't [expletive] with my drums. Love, Alex" was scrawled on two of the drum heads).

I arrived at 11:40 p.m. to meet the guys. None were there yet. Mr. Chaney was recovering from the effects of a few too many earlier in the evening; Mr. Turner was napping off-site; the others were checking out other bands and checking in with friends. That was fine, since each official SXSW venue has three or four volunteers who guard gear, manage the stage and sound, man the door, and help with onstage breakdown and setup between acts.

Eventually everyone showed up; we hung out outside the Thirsty Nickel and became acquainted. Mr. Bhore was the most talkative; Mr. Chaney, the brashest; Mr. Pettijohn, the shyest. I told Mr. Bhore, "I'm here to help," and he said, "Great! Thanks, man!"

Only I didn't, much. Mr. Olinick got tied up with another band at another venue and didn't arrive until 12:35 a.m. or so, and once fellow Dallasite Collin Herring ended his alt-country set at 12:40 a.m., the New Frontiers sprang into action setting up. The SXSW staffers assisted, Mr. Olinick disappeared again, and I just watched. Evidently, Mr. Olinick didn't express how involved I wanted to be – though at one point I did save an acoustic guitar from being kicked, as drunken sorts stumbled by the small stage at the tight, narrow venue.

The showcase was good; New Frontiers' country-tinged brand of emotive roots pop resonated. A core group of 30 supporters, including members of the Colour Revolt and emerging all-female act the Bridges, took it in. Most others there, however, were snockered and unbadged commoners who wouldn't have cared if Lou Reed was onstage. The bar even broke out body shots at one point.

"Yeah, we're used to that," said Mr. Pettijohn. "We just do what we do."

By the time I'd cornered Mr. Bhore after the set to say "What can I do for you?" the cords were wound, pedal boards sealed up and the mikes cased. I ended up helping pack the drum kit; wheeling Mr. Henry's eight-speaker, 150-pound bass cabinet around (it's overkill, dude); and carting off the band's road cases to its van-towed trailer, which took Mr. Chaney 45 minutes to fetch from a distant parking area. It was 3:35 a.m. when I departed.

Telling moment: Each of the band members' girlfriends helped wheel a piece of gear up to the trailer. It seemed like a ritual.

Being in a band is like joining a family. Everyone has responsibilities and chores, and the unit is close-knit. Even in a unit as friendly as the New Frontiers I was welcomed, but I wasn't family.