“To anyone visiting Austin, I say welcome home,” Mayor Steve Adler shouted to the gargantuan crowd amassing at Auditorium Shores for Saturday night’s Beto O’Rourke rally.
Soon, the municipal leader touted the capital’s progressive achievements: “a welcoming city that gives sanctuary to immigrants and refugees” (having established a legal fund for deportation defense), a city that “fights for the rights of the LBGTQ community and against bathroom bills,” and a city that passed a controversial ordinance forcing businesses to guarantee all employees paid sick leave.
In reading the burg’s political resume, Adler reaffirmed something everyone already knows about us: we’re the resistance. Smack dab in the center of America’s most populated red state, Austin remains the South’s progressive heart.
Thus, it came as no surprise that last night’s massive parkland crowd – stretching from the river all the way back to the Long Center – rivaling attendance at any event held at Auditorium Shores in recent memory. Meanwhile, the El Paso Congressmen-turned-Senate-candidate’s ascent as a political superstar was evidenced by vendors selling loads of official and bootleg Beto O’Rourke merchandise to enthusiastic Betoans.
Texas troubadour Joe Ely, who crafts songs with a poet’s gifts and working class muscle, proved an ideal candidate to christen the cool evening’s five-act musical proceedings, peaking with a tender “When the Nights Are Cold.” Bilingual violinist Carrie Rodriguez brought to mind hardship at the border with the inspired “Llano Estacado,” a song of suffering and hope amongst immigrant families in the Southwest. Austin R&B dynamo Tameca Jones proved music brings people together with a powerful rendition of “With a Little Help From My Friends.”
Shoulder-to-shoulder for the first few acres, followed by a sea of blankets and camp chairs, the rally felt like a Blues on the Green crowd, except quadruple the size and 10 times the attentiveness. In between sets, an unseen DJ worked through a brilliant playlist with subtle nods to O’Rourke’s campaign: Marty Robbins “El Paso” into Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere Man” into the Clash’s “Clampdown.”
As appearances from the night’s two headliners, O’Rourke and Willie Nelson, neared, Fort Worth’s contemporary soul-pop singer Leon Bridges came out on fire and delivered Saturday’s strongest set. Recent single “Beyond” got bodies moving, then the gospel-inflected “River” washed an emotional warmth over the masses. If Bridges stole the show musically, which he absolutely did, then Austin City Council member Greg Casar did the same among the event’s speakers.
“If Ted Cruz could see what I see, he’d be so scared right now,” stated the District 4 representative, looking over an audience now waving black and white Beto signs.
While the candidate Casar introduced wouldn’t stoop to slam his Senate race opponent, the councilman made explicit who the resistance set in its sights.
“Men like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz wanted us to give up. They wanted us to see kids getting being torn from their families and put in cages in the desert, and they wanted us to say, ‘That’s horrible, but there’s nothing we can do about it,’” he declared. “Men like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump wanted to put Brett Kavanaugh up into the Supreme Court and for us to hear Dr. Ford’s story and say, ‘That’s horrible, but we can’t change that.’
“Did we give them what the wanted?”
The crowd hollered “no,” then “hell no!”
“That’s right. Here in Austin, Texas, we’ve resisted and we’ve fought, and we defied the odds,” he said.
Reminding attendees that voting begins in 24 days, Casar then brought up the man he said will fight for Austin’s ideals in Washington.
Amid a correctly pronounced chant (“Beh-Toe, Beh-Toe”), O’Rourke emerged onstage and laid out what he says he’ll fight for: LBGTQ rights, increased pay for public school teachers, affordable college options, increased resources and services for military veterans, treating addiction as a medical not criminal issue, universal healthcare, and decriminalizing marijuana. Behind political stances loomed a larger theme, equality – unity.
“I don’t care about the differences between us,” he said. “If you are a Republican, you’re in the right place. If you are Democrat, you’re in the right place. If you’re an independent, you’re in the right place. Whoever you love, however many generations your family has been in this country or whether you’ve just gotten here yesterday, right now we’re all in the same boat.”
That sentiment drew the largest cheer of the night, until Willie Nelson & Family emerged and kicked into eternal opener “Whiskey River.” Following the usual run of live favorites, highlighted by a superb guitar duel with son Lukas Nelson on “Texas Flood,” O’Rourke once again joined the band to sing “On the Road Again.” Soon thereafter, Nelson debuted a new song called “Vote ’Em Out” in which he sings, “The ballot box is the biggest power we got.”
As the throng filed out of the park at 11pm, a woman placed her arm around her boyfriend’s neck and asked, “Now are you gonna register to vote, honey?”
“Uh. I don’t know,” the man in a cut off Longhorns shirt replied.
“Come on,” she implored. “It’s so easy!”
You have until Oct. 9 to register to vote.
See the rest of our photos from the event in our gallery.
This article appears in September 28 • 2018.