It’s a tough ask to open a festival stage at 11:45am on a Sunday. It’s even harder to do it the day after a Red River Showdown. San Marcos collective Pnthn (“pantheon”) faced a tall order as their ACL Fest service began to no more than 80 people at the T-Mobile stage. They returned locally after performing at Emo’s in February with rapper Vince Staples.
The octet, six of whom are rappers, attempted to establish a high-octane atmosphere, but incredibly loud bass and poor mixing made live vocals near indecipherable from close range. The self-proclaimed “House of Gods” does everything from music to merchandise designs in-house, which made the collective’s nondescript performance yesterday disappointing.
Brotherhood feels like a real-time positive for the group, but with so many people onstage dancing and shouting every which way, proceedings initially possessed the passionately raw yet disorganized nature of a cafeteria cypher. Things improved as members channeled their enthusiasm with more focus and vocal quality heightened. Crowd size also doubled as did reception.
Members Kenny Casanova, Gulfwey, and Tony Tone stood out in particular. Influences and sounds range further than 808s. Imagine an interpolation of Jhené Aiko’s bridge on Top Dawg Entertainment rapper Ab-Soul’s “Terrorist Threats” with a shot of purple drank and there you have Pnthn’s “good ass halal.”
Whether it’s artists arriving late or musicians trying to squeeze in extra syllables, ACL Fest adheres to set times. Tony Tone’s microphone abruptly went silent and Pnthn’s ACL Fest debut ended in an antithetical manner to its boisterous beginning. Valiant effort existed throughout and hopefully a future ACL Fest performance will truly demonstrate Pnthn’s uniqueness.
PNTHN
Sunday, Oct. 13, 11:45am, T-Mobile stageThis article appears in October 11 • 2019.
