The club-hopping has commenced. Back to its choose-your-own-adventure format, Levitation kicked off Thursday night with lots of synths on Red River and post-punk at the Ballroom, before Friday’s tentpole show at the Far Out Lounge saw legendary punks Gibby Haynes and Bikini Kill bookend a fiery set from torchbearing young locals Die Spitz. Read the Chronicle’s recap of the festival’s first two nights below, and find more reviews from the rest of the weekend come Monday morning.
Arlo Parks Spins Sincere Electro-Pop
Soft-spoken songwriter Arlo Parks is testing the boundary waters between bedroom pop and club tracks on her April album, Ambiguous Desire. Onstage, Parks was in the dance floor groove, comfortable and smiling as she swayed along to the release’s atmospheric single “2SIDED” and house-treated tracks from throughout her discography in front of a table packed with synthesizers and mixers. The spread of technology took center stage, while a guitarist and bassist, each armed with additional synth setups, largely played in the shadows.
Though no less artistically impressive, the showmanship of knobs and pads doesn’t always translate from headphones to stage lights, especially when paired with delicately delivered verses. The set retained Parks’ fluid, self-possessed gloss through cleanly mixed guitar riffs and DJ breakdowns alike. Visually, the Thursday night set’s most interesting moments came when two or more musicians joined each other at the assortment of gadgets, tapping and twisting while bobbing up and down like mad scientists around a defibrillating Frankenstein.
The crowd embraced the English singer’s electric conversion, anchored by silken vocals and introspective lyrics. Snapping and gliding along to the laid-back techno grooves and finishing chorus lines of favorites from Parks’ 2021 debut, “Eugene” and “Caroline,” the audience was ready to test out dancing harder to the new club-forward moments and the XX-meets-Beach House rendition of 2018 breakout hit “Cola.” They, and Parks, fell into an easygoing cadence that didn’t quite erupt on the bass drops of “Heaven,” but rippled through Mohawk in a hazy rhythm. – Caroline Drew
Spacemoth Sets the Synth-Pop Bar
A one-woman show in the studio but a tight-knit trio in concert, Spacemoth took the indie synth-pop of their two albums, added gnarly guitar, psychedelic lighting, and pastel striped and checkered jumpsuits, and led a crowded 13th Floor to a place outside this reality. Led by singer, songwriter, and producer Maryam Qudus, the Oakland combo blended propulsive rhythms and pop hooks by wielding guitar loops, rock-steady drums, and enough electronic keyboard sounds to make the average synthwaver blush. The trio opened with the widescreen “Flower Memory,” one of the centerpieces off their superb second album Inward Eye, which provided the bulk of the 12-song set. Alternating on nearly every song between her clanging Rickenbacher guitar and her Prophet 600 synthesizer – “It’s being very vintage right now,” she explained as the keyboard struggled in the September heat – Qudus made synth-pop rock hard, and put garage rock through an electronic filter. “Paper Cup” and “Telepathic Butterflies” brought the funk to Jason Slota’s sharp drumming, but the steady metronome of motorik kept “This Shit” and the impossibly anthemic “Round in Loops” rocking like thundering horses. Spacemoth ended the set to wild applause with the same one-two punch that opens Inward Eye: the shoulda-been-a-hit “Do We Exist?” and the droning “Internet Fantasy.” What a great way to kick off Levitation: by setting the bar for everyone else. – Michael Toland
Radium Dolls Authenticate Austin-Australia Rock Connection
“Drinkin’ and ridin’ bulls – dumb shit like that, big ass trucks” – Texas and Australia agree on a great deal, according to Radium Dolls frontman Will Perkins. We also see eye to eye, it seems, on cheeky lyricism and a well-placed harmonica. The Brisbane-based rockers gained an Austin following at South by Southwest 2026, and the band and fans seemed ecstatic to reunite.
Perkins, who could play Boomhauer’s alternative son with his stiff flattop, dangly earrings, and slim Eighties sunglasses, veered his gravel-tinged vocals from smirking shouts on set-opener “I Think Your Boyfriend Likes Me Too,” to spoken word-intonation for “Rat Song (For a Film),” and steered through earnest melodicism, and even a glimpse of falsetto, on “Moving.”
His brother, Thomas, held down the punk-inspired numbers as the sole guitarist – a contemporary rock rarity – accentuating sparse rhythm chords on tracks like “CIA” and pulling out a lengthy solo on set closer “Treat,” all while grinning like a dog that’s been gifted a cheeseburger.
Bassist Ewan Day’s harmonica licks filled in where a second guitarist might’ve, imparting a distinct vintage gravitas instead – without missing a down stroke. “That’s the first harmonica-playin’ bassist you’ve probably ever seen in your life,” Perkins leered, accurately.
Missing drummer Bryce Equinox this tour, Lachlan Gonzalez more than properly bashed out the group’s alternatively swaggering and stomping arrangements. Equinox will surely get a chance to bust out his own chops for Austin audiences again if Perkins’ promises of a swift return are to be believed. – Caroline Drew
Gurriers Reward the Late-Night Crowd
Consider it a ringing endorsement when Eric “Emo” Hartman attends your show. After psychedelic lodestar the Vulcan Gas Company manifested at 316 Congress from 1967-1970 – now Patagonia – Austin music grew by the decade, as did its landmark venues: Armadillo World Headquarters, Liberty Lunch, Emo’s, Stubb’s. Before the genre itself, Emo Hartman hosted a generational uprising at the corner of Sixth and Red River by teaming with groups like Gurriers. Hartman saw the Dublin fivepiece previously and says they remind him of UK upheavalists Idles. Opening night of Levitation, a festival deserving its own Vulcan Gas Co. (not the fine dance club on Sixth), Gurriers caught air at 29th Street Ballroom beginning at 1:08am. Post-punk pugilist Dan Hoff took a confrontational stance as the band lit a heated Irish drone, its singer working the mic stand like a giant stick shift. “Austin, are you ready to dance?” he demanded. Tough to move a comfy midsize room sitting firmly on a concrete slab, but bounce it did for the next 50 minutes – clapping, pogoing, moshing. Drummer Pierce O’Callaghan dropped a Clash beat, bassist Charlie McCarthy thrashed around in a black dress, and guitar duo Ben O’Neill and Mark MacCormack crossed streams. Dirges, tribalism, and riot-squad outbreaks barked dissatisfaction and dogma, blunt and bludgeoning. Welcome to the late-night rituals of a midtown sanctuary aspiring to a little Emo’s. “Pins,” from Gurriers’ upcoming sophomore LP Nobody’s Coming to Save You, brooded late in the set, propulsive and brightly chorded nevertheless. “Don’t die in the sun,” waved Hoff. “Goodnight Austin.” – Raoul Hernandez
The Real Butthole Surfers Stand Up During Gibby Haynes’ “Butthole Surfers Mania”
Gone were the shotguns, missing was the fire, and the chaos kept mostly to a minimum. A tooth or maybe two also went conspicuously absent. And yet, Gibby Haynes’ suppertime set Friday at Far Out Lounge – September 11, no less – stirred up just the right amount of weirdness from the Butthole Surfers singer. Raindrops falling fat and lazy greeted the still towering Texan backed by guitar, bass, drums. Grunge goodie “Dust Devil” popped off immediately as encored by a Daniel Johnston moment. “Hi, how are you?” gurgled Haynes. Jeans, polo shirt, ball cap, and a wedding band, your now deranged uncle – as opposed to his younger maniac self – wasted no time ladling a little sonic lunacy. “Hey,” first song on the Buttholes’ debut EP of 1983, delivered its synthy Lone Star loop, while “Dracula From Houston” off 2001’s Weird Revolution lilted ragga-esque. Watching from the VIP platform, his bandmate Paul Leary took it all in, nodding during a churning “Who Was in My Room Last Night?” Then he ambled stageward. Like the 13th Floor Elevators materializing at Levitation 2015, Austin history suddenly sat up. The guitarist and drummer “Jeffrey ‘King’ Coffey,” as introduced by Haynes, realized a live reunion pop-up for the books. For nine breath-held minutes, the Earth tilted via Haynes’ vocal spasms, Leary’s axe serum, and Coffey’s demon percussion on “Lady Sniff” off BHS LP bow Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac. Then Leary screamed, “There’s a time to fuck and there’s a time to crave, but the Shaw sleeps in Lee Harvey’s grave” and time stood still as the Butthole Surfers once again ruled our live music landscape like a grinning cyclops. – Raoul Hernandez
Die Spitz Stays Scrappy
Die Spitz is never going back to playing Hole in the Wall, but even when they perform for thousands, their club kid origins are never too far away. Now one year out from star-making LP Something to Consume, Austin’s latest, greatest export torched the Far Out Lounge with the same scrappy energy – boisterous, irreverent, imperfect – they’ve always had, refusing road-tested polish as much as they declined to frontload their set with that album’s biggest hits.
Singer-guitarist Eleanor Livingston, multi-instrumentalists Ava Schrobilgen and Chloe De St. Aubin, and bassist Kate Halter walked out – Halter on her hands – to Kesha’s “Blow,” ripping into Schrobilgen’s choppy addiction allegory “Red40” before Livingston seethed through spooky 2024 single “i hate when GIRLS die,” Halter’s smiley pouncing and bouncing offsetting the menace of her low-slung axe. Even as razor-throated Schrobilgen howled “My Hot Piss,” Die Spitz’s closest thing to a ballad, Livingston, the band’s cheekiest performer, couldn’t keep a straight face, instead encouraging the crowd to wave their hands along like cheesy lovers at a stadium show.
Two dog-themed highlights from beloved 2023 EP Teeth – De St. Aubin’s revenge fantasy “Groping Dogs Gushing Blood” and Schrobilgen’s pummeling “Hair of Dog” – inspired a “woof” chant and plenty of crowd surfing, even if both guitarists/drummers pushed the tempo of the tracks they weren’t singing when they hopped behind the kit. With onstage dancers in tow for closing thrasher “Throw Yourself to the Sword,” the young quartet bowed to Olivia Newton-John’s “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” Another joke? Who cares? – Carys Anderson
Bikini Kill Calls All Freaks to the Front
Somewhere around the 40-minute mark, well after Kathi Wilcox plucked that “Feels Blind” bassline and Kathleen Hanna wailed “I’m sorry that I’m getting chubby” in “DemiRep,” the sold-out Far Out crowd watching Bikini Kill mounted a familiar chant: “Girls to the front.”
“Oh yeah,” Tobi Vail said. “Kathleen doesn’t say that anymore because she wants to be more inclusive.”
Hanna’s subsequent tweak to her iconic rallying cry – “If you are femme or nonbinary or trans or not a straight white cis man, please come to the front” – landed with a touch of compensatory clumsiness, especially after a Portlandia-esque moment when the 57-year-old wavered on an audience member’s pronouns. She spoke with conviction soon enough.
“I’ve seen cis women policing who is a woman in the front row, and so I don’t wanna be a part of that fucking bullshit,” Hanna declared. “I don’t wanna be a part of them telling someone who’s super masculine that they don’t belong there. I don’t wanna be a part of people of color being told … that they don’t belong in the front.”
Modern messaging from the reunited Riot Grrrls hit with the same fervor as their decades-old feminist punk. Through melodic deep cut “Outta Me” to classic closing twofer “Double Dare Ya” and “Rebel Girl,” the instrument-trading quartet rocked loud and tight, demanding a brighter future even while revisiting the past.
“I’m so happy to be the elder punk rock person out here playing songs with my friends that I still fucking love,” Hanna smiled. Levitation was happy to have them. – Carys Anderson
The Garden’s Funhouse Post-Punk Makes for a Hauntingly Good Time
A rollercoaster through a haunted house with a surprising sense of rhythm might approximate the Garden’s unrelenting, yet contagiously danceable, live performance. The jump scares in this case are abrupt changes in tone and genre – like the fuzzy electronic breakdown on the title track of their July LP, Bootleg, or the beachy acoustic strumming in the prechorus of “Horseshit on Route 66” – while startling to the uninitiated, they quickly become the fun of the whole thing.
The witchy laughter on 2022’s “Haunted House on Zillow,” ghost-referencing samples on “5 Mile Ponytail,” and a lengthy instrumental break accentuated by similar animatronic laughter placed fright-inducing domiciles top of mind, but it was the catharsis-maxxing, frenetic energy of the duo’s music that left the crowd looking like they’d stepped off the ride of a lifetime. Never mind that Wyatt’s bass and Fletcher’s drums were the only instruments on stage, the Shears twins’ ceaseless rhythm never let the backing track feel like, well, a backing track on older favorites like “Call the Dogs Out” and recent hits like “Eve of Nothing.”
Over the last 15 years, the twins’ fun house take on post-punk has continued to attract young emos and keep the attention of older punks and experimentalists, all of whom headbanged, slammed, and even shimmied together at Stubb’s. In the windswept grins of these varied faces, some painted in Pierrot-style clown makeup, the impetus behind the band’s cult following was easy to see. – Caroline Drew
Man or Astro-Man? Surfs the Cosmos
Refreshing in small doses, the reverb, rumble ‘n’ twang of surf music can feel old 15 minutes in due to repetition and formula. Not, however, when it’s in the hands of Man or Astro-Man? The Auburn, Ala., quartet has spent over three decades twisting that influential instrumental style to their own mad purposes. Cramming the tiny 13th Floor stage with giant cell phone screens that both supported the numerous samples (high fives for resurrecting a bit from the obscure 1974 Spider-Man story album Invasion of the Dragonmen) and allowed attendees to post their own cell phone photos in real time, the fearsome foursome blazed through their guitar bombs with humor and enough energy to blow up a rocket booster. Each member contributed personality as well as skill: guitarist Star Crunch bent to his high-volume task with furrowed brow, second guitarist Avona Nova and drummer Birdstuff allowed the music to move them as it would, and bassist/theremin wielder Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard served as snarky emcee. Drawing mostly from their Nineties repertoire, the band tore through short and sweet explosions like “Planet Collision,” “Maximum Radiation Level,” and “Destination Venus” like the world would be spared an alien invasion if they did it right. Not everything worked – a gag involving a dot matrix printer, a Powerbook 170, and the unperformed “A Simple Text File” died on the vine of technical difficulties. But when Man or Astro-Man? was on, which was 99% of the time, they brought down the thunder like an interstellar bullet train. – Michael Toland
Editor’s Note: This review has been updated to correct the name of a song Gibby Haynes performed last Friday.
