The worst thing about South By Southwest is seeing so many bands get eaten alive on stage. For every sleeper group that plays to a huge, adoring crowd, there’s two playing to mostly empty rooms. It’s a common trap, but one that Milwaukee’s Codebreaker easily avoided, since they brought along something to Austin that most bands don’t: fans.

Seven or eight of the band’s friends followed the group to Austin and stood front and center for their prime-time show Wednesday night at Rusty Spurs (a somewhat douche-baggy bar with an incongruously nice stage). The built-in crowd helped draw people to the dance floor immediately, and Codebreaker kept them there with their hooky dance-rock synthesizers and Sugar Hill Gang-styled funk, the heavy bass luring a steady stream of jovial passersby from the street.