Austin's Live Music

Austin claims more live music venues per head than anywhere else, and whatever the arithmetic, the effect is real: on any given night there are hundreds of shows, from blues on the east side to country dance halls in the hill country, psychedelic rock, Tejano and singer-songwriters. The Continental Club and Antone's are the institutions, the latter having launched Stevie Ray Vaughan. Sixth Street is the loud, young, sticky-floored strip; Rainey Street and the east side are where locals go. The city hosts South by Southwest in March and Austin City Limits in October, both of which take it over entirely. Add a million and a half bats emerging from under the Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk each summer evening, and Barton Springs, a spring-fed pool that stays at twenty degrees year-round.

What you actually see

• The Continental Club and Antone's - the venues that made the city's reputation.
• The Congress Avenue bats - a million and a half emerging at dusk in summer.
• Barton Springs - the spring-fed pool at a constant twenty degrees.
• The hill country dance halls - Gruene and the old wooden halls outside the city.

When to go

Spring and autumn are the pleasant seasons; summers are brutally hot. South by Southwest in March and Austin City Limits in October fill the city and multiply hotel prices, which is either the reason to come or the reason to avoid those weeks. The bats fly from about March to October.

Honest expectations

Sixth Street at the weekend is a young, drunk, chaotic strip that most residents avoid, and the good music is elsewhere. During SXSW and ACL the city is unaffordable and unmovable. Austin has grown very fast and the cheap, weird city of its reputation has largely priced itself out, which locals will tell you about at length.

Nearby

The hill country and Fredericksburg are west; San Antonio is ninety minutes south.