This year’s South by Southwest was filled with many big time stars. A few widely talked about were, Anne Hathaway, Lizzo and Shawn Mendes. But an up and coming band appeared at the event this year. Mt. Joy played the outdoor stage at Ladybird. 

    The band is most known for their hit song “Silver Lining”, it hit  #1 on the Billboard Triple A charts. Mt. Joy has around 2,000,000 monthly listeners and 200 million streams on spotify.

“One of my favorite songs that Mt. Joy played at the concert was ‘Silver Lining’, sophomore Sydney Borick said. “It was a great experience to be able to see one of their most popular songs played.” 

SXSW 2023 is scheduled to take place on March 10-19 . It has not been announced who will be performing at the event yet. 

“I would definitely go back next year, even if I am not familiar with the artist! It would be more fun knowing the artist but it’s still a super fun experience,” Fowler said. “I think it’s the memories that count the most.”

The concert at the Lady Bird stage was free for any guests who wanted to attend. There were 3 performances that took place. 

“Mt. Joy of course was amazing but out of the other artists that performed, I would say Houndmouth was great,” Borick said. “I only knew a few of their songs, but they were still such a fun group to listen to.”

The event started in the middle of the day and went until about 10pm. The weather was hot and humid, so most of the audience dressed in shorts and t-shirts. 

“During the concert, the weather ended up being super hot so I just ended up wearing a cropped tank top and jean shorts, ” Fowler said. “It ended up being perfect for the temperature.”

The previous artist that performed at the lady bird stage in 2019 was Patty Griffin, along with Andrew Bird, Courtney Marie Andrews and William Tyler. The performers were also a huge hit and grew in popularity. 

“Overall my experience was a ten out of ten, it made me crazy when they played a song I had never heard before,” Borick said. “I just wanted to be able to sing along with everything.”

The concert included an opening performer that was a smaller artist that not many had heard of before. Many of the audience enjoyed this performer and this helped her to get even more monthly listeners. 

“I was super excited because there was a smaller artist that I had never listened to before that performed, her name was Susannah Joffe,” Fowler said. “I actually ended up loving her and started listening to her songs after the concert.”

Mt. Joy also ended up playing a new song from their upcoming album ‘Orange Blood’. The album will be out this June. Mt. Joy fans are excited because the band has not put out a new album in a year and a half. 

“The best part of the concert was definitely their closing song, because it was my favorite song from their most recent album,” sophomore Gabby Fowler said. “It was surreal to see them perform it live and it was also the first Mt. Joy song that I had ever listened to.”