The Best Shows at SXSW 2013

Slipknot's Corey Taylor fronts the Sound City Players, with ringleader Dave Grohl on drums

Sound City Players: With a cast of all-stars which included Rick Springfield, Lee Ving, Stevie Nicks, Rick Nielsen, John Fogerty, Chris Goss, Krist Novoselic, and the entire Foo Fighters as the house band, it was hard to hate Dave Grohl's Sound City experiment. Sure, for some it was wanky overkill, but it terms of sheer musical glee, Sound City satisfied.

And who would have thought that in the span of four hours I would be singing along to Fear's "I Love Livin' In The City," Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide," and "Jessie's Girl"? That was the pop-drenched world that Grohl created with Sound City. CRAIG HLAVATY

Photo by Marco Torres

Dave Grohl Crushes Bitchiness: How SXSW will manage to top the back-to-back positivity and charisma of Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl is beyond me. The latter's keynote speech managed to turn Nirvana's story into something genuinely inspirational, an affirmation of personal expression.

But by far my favorite little rhetorical turn was the way he made both Pitchfork and reality singing shows look so incredibly silly, just by talking about them in the same sentence. Because it's true, isn't it, that the difference between Christina Aguilera and the lazier end of Pitchfork's criticism boils down to little more than amount of hairspray. KIERNAN MALETSKY