If you want to know how far the South by Southwest Music Festival has strayed from its anti-corporate, indie rock roots, you need only consider this: One of the most popular shows on the final night of the festival was Justin Timberlake, playing a concert sponsored by Chevrolet to promote the newly revamped Myspace Web site.
When Mr. Timberlake arrived at the Coppertank Events Center at 12:15 a.m. on Sunday, the place was packed to capacity with more than 750 fans and fire marshals had ordered the organizers to turn people away at the door. The city had ringed the front of the center with fences and barricades. Dozens of police were on hand for crowd control, including a mounted unit. Many in the crowd had been waiting for three hours or more.
Wearing a hipster hat, a jacket and a T-shirt with a tuxedo design, Mr. Timberlake ripped through an pulsating hour of his slick rhythm & blues, doing a mix of older hits and songs from his new album, “The 20/20 Experience,†which will be on Tuesday. He was backed by a 16 piece band, which he dubbed the Tennessee Kids, playing at a decibel level that could be felt physically.
The set included several hits from his last album in 2006, among them “FutureSex/LoveSound†and “What Goes Around…/…Comes Around.†But he also sang much of the polished new album, including the love song “That Girl†and the sexy come-on “Suit & Tie,†which was released as the first single.
The party was intended to publicize the relaunch of Myspace, a venture in which Mr. Timberlake has invested. But it is also part of a larger media blitz to re-establish Mr. Timberlake, 32, as a pop idol, a role he had relinquished in recent years to pursue acting and designing clothes. Since the start of the year, he appeared on the Grammy Awards, hosted “Saturday Night Live,†and did a week of performances on “Late Night with Jimm! y Fallon.â€
