You’d get little argument if you called Austin, Texas’ South by Southwest (SXSW) the biggest music industry festival in the U.S. for worker-bees, executives, PR flacks and those hanger-ons who need an excuse for a week-long binge of mesquite barbecue and morning-onward benders.

Once regarded for highlighting new and unheard/untried acts looking to get noticed for new material, brand names from Neil Young, Iggy Pop and Bruce Springsteen – this year’s keynote face – have made the stage at SXSW hoping to hawk their wares. Pennsylvania and New Jersey bands have never been an exception to the rule of the Texan road though in 2012, there seems to be less of them.

The electronic-based Com Truise from Princeton, NJ, Philly’s cranky Purling Hiss, weird Pittsburgh poppers 1,2,3, Philadelphia hip hoppers Spack Rock, Chiddy Bang, Meek Mill and Santigold and with dance acts such as Free Energy and Ryat will appear. Most particularly, Philadelphia’s big name noise-dreamers The War on Drugs are on parade this year in Austin.

With its critically regarded, nice selling Slave Ambient barely a year old and recent appearances on NBC’s Jimmy Fallon show on the night that Tina Fey was set to fight band leader ?uestlove for Philly league supremacy, The War on Drugs isn’t hurting for publicity. Surely, they made this trek when their debut disc, Wagonwheel Blues, was birthed. Why make the drive through the Texan prairie now?

"We have played here many times, and it's a great town but this will be The War on Drugs’ first time playing the festival, if you can believe it," says Dave Hartley from Austin. "I think we were in Europe during SXSW when we were touring on Wagonwheel."

War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel says that the 10-month trek for Slave Ambient and promotional appearances on shows such as Fallon’s have won the band a broader audience. "The rooms are just a little bit bigger and the fans a little bit more enthusiastic," says Granduciel. "Otherwise, our lives are almost exactly the same."

To Hartley and Granduciel, the worth of SXSW to their band at this point in its career is about showing off, a way to present The War at their most seasoned. "Since this is The Drugs' first SXSW rodeo, the idea is to cap off what has been a busy and pretty awesome six months or so," says Hartley. "We have really refined our live show by playing constantly and stretching out, so anyone that hasn't seen us recently will be surprised. So I suppose the "worth" of our SXSW is to surprise people."

Surprises presented at SXSW – and the internet, Twitter-verse, and Facebook-landia response to such - is what will put more butts in seats and ears to download as The War on Drugs start the second half of their Slave Ambient tour as soon as they finish in Austin.

"We're going to cover Pink Floyd's Animals front to back as an encore every night," jokes Granduciel when talking about that upcoming tour.

Now that’s a surprise.

Elsewhere in Austin
At tonight's Interactive Awards, the Philadelphia Orchestra is among five finalists for the Music category, which recognizes projects related to musicians, bands, and the music industry, as well as online radio and other developments that offer streaming audio content. The Orchestra worked with local interactive firm Bluecadet on a redesign of its website in the last year. Bluecadet also worked on websites for two other nominees for tonight's awards.

A.D. AMOROSI is Philadelphia's arts overlord, writing as he does about music, theater, fine and low arts for a variety of publications and television stations. Send feedback here.