"Who wants to live forever?" shouted Dan Deacon into the crowd already manic even before his set began at MtyMx, the music festival in Monterrey, Mexico from 20-22 March.

Admission to the three-day festival cost just 30 US dollars to see 80 bands from Mexico, the US, and beyond at a drive-in movie theatre on the side of a mountain. Organised by Brooklyn-based promoter Todd P along with local outfit Yo Garage, MtyMx was overtly political and thesis-driven: to bring US bands to Monterrey, to introduce Mexican bands to a US audience, to highlight US border restrictions, and to help correct US ignorance about Mexico. MtyMx had no sponsors, no VIP access, and relied on a team of hardworking, sleep-deprived volunteers. Anyone expecting the sanitised, corporate experience of Coachella was rudely awakened.

Through a historical lens, MtyMx was among the more significant cross-border parties for the location since the Battle of Monterrey in the Mexican-American War of the 1840s. Of course, this time around was not about territory, but about an idea by one person that became the experiment festival enjoyed by many.

Unfortunately, the thesis behind the festival - correcting prejudice of Mexico as unsafe and corrupt - became the very same force that undermined turnout and kept several bands from attending. A week before MtyMx, the US State Department issued a travel warning for Monterrey due to drug-related violence. Then a day before the festival, drug cartels hijacked public buses around the city and set tractor-trailers ablaze. At the nearby university the army killed two reported drug gangsters who turned out to be honor students caught in the crossfire. On March 21st, the paramilitary presence was heavy around Monterrey and school children led a peace march downtown.

Mary Brannen, an American living in Monterrey, said emphatically that the drug war violence was to blame for attendance well under a thousand each day. El Norte, the daily newspaper in Monterrey, held the same opinion. While the venue swallowed up a smaller-than-expected crowd, it also conferred a more intimate, backyard vibe in the Arcadian setting. Festival-goers shared their sunscreen as well as jugs of Mezcal smuggled inside from a nearby Walmart.

Within the festival's domain, however, there were logistical problems. Todd P's bus transportation from Austin, where South by Southwest was ending, suffered massive delays, AWOL bus drivers, and in one case a driver who threatened to kill everyone before turning back to Austin. In the end, more than a dozen bands did not make the trip because of transportation, border problems, or outright security concerns. Kría Brekkan, the one-woman act from Iceland, was on a bus that ran out of gas and had problems at the border. However, she was sanguine about the long trip and delivered a spirited, emotional performance.

Many headliners came through, including Liars, Acid Mothers Temple, and Andrew WK. Not one for doggy spaces in Brooklyn, let alone a DIY festival in Monterrey, Andrew WK and wife Cherie Lily, who was clad in a lycra thong leotard, stormed the stage as if Glastonbury. By two songs into his saccharine, and surprisingly infectious arena rock-pop, a dozen kids joined him onstage.

The wide-ranging music of MtyMx offered Neon Indian's psychedelic rock, the art noise of Health, Teengirl Fantasy's underground dance, the hardcore punk of Ratas del Vaticano, or the beach-fuzz of Coasting. Standout performances included the infectious energy of Lemonade, the frenzied moshpit for Los Margaritos, the all-out jam by Los Fancy Free, or Mentira Mentira who scaled the scaffolding and later stripped to his underwear.

The crowd made bonfires the first night in part to keep warm and also because we could do whatever we wanted. There was a teepee, a taco stand, a rusty swing set, and a small building for staff headquarters that doubled as an impromptu hotbox. On the last night the hotel shuttle got stuck in a ditch. No one was injured and passengers joked, posed for pictures and helped get the bus back on the road - a metaphor for the festival itself.

For those in attendance the experience served as a memento mori, as the threat of violence whispered each day "Remember that you must die." But MtyMx satisfied that ancient duty of art in the face of death: to heighten the present, ignite emotion and, if only for a night, make us live forever. And so late on Sunday evening, the Mexican-American crowd roared with delight as Dan Deacon unleashed his symphony of light and sound, and we all danced recklessly into the night under the stars of Northern Mexico.

Text by Hudson Lines