Sound on Sound is a music festival featuring indie, punk, hip hop, metal, and dance music on the renaissance grounds in Sherwood, Texas. Beach House, Explosions in the Sky, and Phantogram were a few of the headliners at the festival. The 45-minute drive from the big city we call home is long and tiring, but if you have a great friend to go with you, the drive is memorable and helps creates a mindset for the great, magical, and exotic festival.

Sound on Sound embraced the surrounding renaissance structures and ambiance with mini bike joustings, ax throwing, and two stages that were covered with dragons and castles. The people working the festival were anything but ordinary, too. There were bowling pin jugglers, people dressed up like colorful trees, and balloon makers. Heavy metal and alternative fans made SOS a melting pot of people with all sorts of different personalities.

The festival’s map was hard to scale down to navigate the grounds. The shops that were scattered were also hidden and far off the main roads of the festival. Also, throughout most of my time there, I felt as though I was traveling in circles and trying to find the correct path. However, while traveling in circles the music from the stages drew me in and mesmerized me as I watched the bands playing and saw the people dancing to smooth indie music.

It has become a tradition of popular festivals in the Austin area to experience rain at some point. Sound on Sound was no exception and was evacuated on Sunday due to “extreme weather”.  Festival-goers were forced to return to their tents, cars, and shuttles. The rain made evacuating the grounds a terrible, muddy game. Every step taken was either solid ground or a muddy sinkhole camouflaged as solid ground. It also seemed as though that the festival was not prepared for this disaster because there was no true evacuation plan and a few of the shuttles left Sherwood with no plan to return. However, the rain didn’t dampen the spirits die-hard fans, whose shuttles were turned into party buses, and festival-goers were crowd surfing and jamming out in the pouring rain once the festival reopened.

  Sound on Sound is an interesting festival made for tough, crazy fans who want to be teleported to a mystical land of music. While this festival has long ways to go before it becomes as good as ACL, it’s a great festival for those who want a quick getaway from the city and a non-stop weekend party. Just pray there is not any rain next year.