Haim tears through SXSW, takes top new act award

• Band made up of three sisters and a male drummer proves itself%2C again%2C at SXSW
• Last year%2C the band got a record deal%3B this year it solidified expectations
• New album and tour dates with Vampire Weekend coming up

Up-and-comers Haim arrived at South By Southwest in Austin last week looking to firmly establish themselves.

The California band, made up of three sisters and a guy drummer, left the talk of the show. And today the band learned that it won the music festival's coveted Grulke Award for best developing U.S. act.

Three Grulke Awards were given out Tuesday. Glasgow, Scotland-based CHVRCHES was named best non-U.S. developing act and the Flaming Lips earned the career act award. The awards are named after the late Brent Grulke, who was the festival's creative director. He died Aug. 13, 2012.

The developing act prizes are for the most creative and promising artists at the festival, while the career act is for established performers looking to launch a new project or reinvent themselves.

Haim came into its second festival with expectations heaped high. The week before, the announcement came that they would be opening for Vampire Weekend on some upcoming tour dates.

"We came (to SXSW) last year and it was super-nerve-racking because we were not a big band, and, really, South By Southwest kind of jet-rocked us to where we are now," said Alana Haim, 21, the youngest of three sisters in the band. The band talked to USA TODAY before a pair of festival gigs Wednesday. "I feel like it would be so awful for us to be good last year and not good this year. Last year, people had no idea and this year people are just waiting for us to fail, basically."

Older sister Danielle Haim, 23, agreed that the group felt some pressure. "Last year, we came and got what we wanted, a record deal," she said. "I feel a little more relaxed but there is a little bit of pressure that people are coming to our showcases to see us."

Those who saw them were impressed. An attempt to see them Wednesday night at the Vevo Lounge was met with stern-faced door guards under order of local fire marshals. Before a Saturday night show with Vampire Weekend, the band closed Filter magazine's Showdown on Cedar Street on Friday with a Clash-worthy smash.

In addition to the group's pop-rock singles Don't Save Me and Falling, the band ripped into a cover of Oh Well, a Fleetwood Mac track from the Peter Green era. They've played this on the big stage (opening for Mumford & Sons) and those who've seen them before were prepared for an intense, hard-rocking rendition. But the proximity of the crowd and the snug stage seemed to propel them to another level of performance. (See a strong but more controlled version in the clip below.)

During the closing song Let Me Go, drummer Dash Hutton, sporting a Michael Pitt hairdo, already had sweat flying from his face as the breakup song built momentum. As a finale, the three sisters each gave all their attention to individual drums they had beat on occasionally during the set.

They joined Hutton in creating a Kodo drummers-worthy beat that ended with older sister Este Haim, 26, smashing her pair of drums with so much intensity that she fell over on top of them, crashing to the stage.

Helped off the stage, it sounded like she said, "I fell, but I liked it."

So, too, did the crowd.