The Flaming Lips, DIIV, the Black Angels, and More Reviews From Austin Psych Fest

Momma Hits the Main Stage

An almost immediate sound issue didn’t stop fans of Momma’s delicate double vocals and meaty grunge guitar from dancing along to the band’s early evening set on day one of Austin Psych Fest. About an hour and a half before sunset, the Brooklyn band’s Deftones-esque opener “Last Kiss” lost some of its heft when co-vocalist Etta Friedman’s guitar dropped out of the mix. Forced to vamp during an ensuing tech troubleshoot, Allegra Weingarten shouted out local goth hub Elysium and revealed a secret Momma Fortnite skin before the quartet resumed with “Medicine,” a standout from 2022’s stellar Household Name, about five minutes later. In a sea of indie rock imitators, that album separated the Nineties-loving twentysomethings from the pack, and last year’s follow-up Welcome to My Blue Sky cemented their place in the counterculture zeitgeist – and on festival mainstages such as this weekend’s larger Willie Stage. The booking proved slightly premature. The quieter moments of Household Name, while catalog highlights, failed to fill the thick, springtime air, and the still-jarring Daylight Saving sun prevented a full rockout at 7pm. Still, Friedman and Weingarten’s near-identical vocals intertwined perfectly, as did their Lego part guitar lines. A slightly slower performance emphasized the sludge in the band’s syrupy sweet pop-rock, but it went down easy all the same. – Carys Anderson

DIIV Soundtracks the Doomscroll

Oshin’s nostalgic and Is the Is Are’s a masterpiece, but for all the magic of their dream pop origins, DIIV is right to lean into their heaviest, most nihilistic tendencies. The modern era calls for it. Onstage Friday, the band pulled primarily from 2019 magnum opus Deceiver – a black hole of despairing, battering guitars that soundtracked this writer’s COVID-19 lockdown – and 2024’s Frog in Boiling Water, an equally intense rebuke of warmongers and capitalism. Spliced with aggressive white strobe lights, the satirical promotional videos the band honed during their last album cycle filled the silence during tuning breaks, from an uncanny valley assurance that “political radicalism is not the answer to deep-rooted issues” to an advertisement promising us that “all your problems will melt away with a simple purchase of DIIV merchandise.” Frontman Zachary Cole Smith and bassist/backing vocalist Colin Caulfield let those visuals do the talking, preferring alongside Cheshire Cat-grinning lead guitarist Andrew Bailey and drummer Ben Newman to focus on locking into “Take Your Time,” rocking “Doused” and “Blankenship,” and throwing 2016 revelers a bone with the buoyant “Under the Sun.” In a tight 55, the band both swaddled and smothered, their wall of sound enveloping the festival grounds like a warm blanket you were never quite sure they wouldn’t bring up to your face. – Carys Anderson

The Flaming Lips Make Happy

The conceit of the Flaming Lips is a familiar one: heavy songs in a featherweight package. This ethos was cranked all the way up for the group’s Austin Psych Fest performance, just two days after longtime bandmember Stephen Drozd publicly discussed his 2025 ousting for the first time in an interview with Stereogum. The multi-instrumentalist’s thoughts on the band’s nostalgic direction, and his physical absence from a well-established partner dynamic with frontman Wayne Coyne, loomed offstage for dedicated fans. Whatever the falling out means for the group’s internal compass, their stage presence Friday night was consistently theatrical and almost garishly outgoing. Confetti cannons fired frequently, confetti-filled balloons met zealous hands in the crowd, and inflatable characters of impressive stature danced to songs like “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1” and “Do You Realize??” In honor of the Austin visit, the Oklahoma City band covered Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You in the End” and reprised their fabulously explosive rendition of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” made famous in a 2004 Austin City Limits taping. In quiet moments and costume changes, Coyne ceaselessly implored the crowd to cheer. “C’mon, c’mon,” he pleaded coolly. “You have to be happy,” he instructed the crowd at one point. “You have to be alive, okay?” The requests, however enthusiastically obeyed, soon warped the cheerful sheen of psych-pop optimism. – Caroline Drew 

The Black Angels Celebrate 20 Years of Passover

Triumphant and thunderous two decades after their debut release, the Black Angels took to their hometown stage, at the festival they helped create, confident leaning into the moody side of their psych rock reckoning. “20 years later, here we are,” lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Alex Maas addressed the crowd as their performance began. “Some of you weren’t born yet and some of you are still alive.” The loyal audience that has grown up alongside these torchbearers of Austin’s psychedelic legacy were in a similarly celebratory mood, adding a side-stepping and hip-swaying energy to the record’s requisite stoic headbanging. Grounded in artery-clearing basslines and tight drum beats, the local icons revisited their 2006 record in clean succession, backlit by abstract black-and-white visuals befitting of the release’s artwork and the omnipresent, static-like distortion found in their vocal effects and guitar tones. Near the set’s final chapter, the quintet cut down to two for an updated version of Passover hidden track “Fighting in Iraq.” Christian Bland sang the straightforward story, adapted from Jimmy Cliff’s “Vietnam,” and once again replaced the site of fighting – this time with Iran. Though less than verbose on stage, Maas gave a Mother’s Day shout-out and expressed the group’s gratitude for the fanbase that’s supported their continuing career while thoroughly reminding them of the crisp musicianship that draws them in. – Caroline Drew 

Como Las Movies Beat the Heat

“It’s fucking hot,” grinned bandleader Nelson Aguilar deep into Como Las Movies’ late-afternoon set Sunday. Said no band ever from a local stage, right? And yet, the homegrown electro-cumbia cabal mitigated the heat perfectly. In fact, by local standards, 88 degrees isn’t hot – except in a parking lot. Teasing a fall release, hopefully the full-length follow-up to enchanted 2023 debut LP Como Las Singles, the ATX fivepiece pulled hard focus from the perspiration streaming down one’s body. Double keyboards leading guitar, bass, and drums gave the trad-loving quintet a futuristic bend, as if regional Tex-Mex syncopation originated from far into the future. They rippled sci-fi-delic, yet warm and loving. Aguilar & Co. followed radioactive peers Money Chicha, whose shredding bandleader Beto Martinez and the Mother’s Day opening spinner Adrian Quesada once co-led Grammy-winning big band Grupo Fantasma. Our brown town scene rivals any in the country. 

Set times moved back in light of thunderstorms forecast for early evening. Austin Psych Fest and its better half Levitation have run afoul of global warming, and venue volatility, at every turn in their two-decade history. Rocks and gravel, plus a sole pecan tree for patrons to gather on and zero seating other than VIP, make Far Out Lounge inhospitable at best for such an embed. And what to make of the irony of a parking lot having no parking? – Raoul Hernandez

Trish Toledo’s Commanding Psych-Soul

Austin doesn‘t even know how much it misses Pachanga. Eastside Latin music festival staged on the water at Fiesta Gardens 2008-2016, it rollicked and banged acts ranging from Kinky and Bomba Estéreo to divas as diverse as Julieta Venegas and Mala Rodríguez. Besame Mucho at Circuit of the Americas, another parking lot, proved too much hassle. The sole woman Sunday at Psych Fest, Trish Toledo begs to command any sidestage at any festival anywhere. Glimpsed late last month at Austin Blues Festival during Adrian Quesada’s stunning Boleros Psicodélicos performance, the Los Angeles femme noir put the same whammy on Far Out Lounge’s big screen as the sun set. Roses hanging off the mic stands of her backing fourpiece, her 30-minute emotional smash-n-grab began with her band setting a sultry Latin tempo as she stood just out of sight, perfecting her tresses. When Toledo emerged, the five songs that followed sizzled and crisped like a telenovela directed by Robert Rodriguez, hyperreal and bloody dramatic. “A little psychedelic soul,” she announced, her bewitching balladry belted in both English and Spanish conjuring its own genre. Time stopped when she inched the mic back from her lips to unleash something big and burning. Although she insisted love boasts a bright side, her torch tunes seethed otherwise. – Raoul Hernandez

Thee Sacred Souls Bring the Waterworks 

Like a Michael Franti out of Spearhead or even Trey Privott in Austin’s Los Coast, the oracle of Thee Sacred Souls singer Josh Lane transcends. If Brooklyn soul indie Daptone Records spins a modern analog to Motown, this San Diego trio, with its threepiece horn section and backup duo, incants myriad Motor City immortals. Lane’s sweet, easy falsetto tames the savage heart. “It’s been a minute since we’ve been in Texas,” he greeted the 75-minute festival closing. At least since last May, when the group taped an Austin City Limits episode that premiered in January. “Let Me Feel Your Charm” swooned like Smokey Robinson, while “On My Mind” went full-on Marvin Gaye and “Running Away” upticked into Curtis Mayfield. At points when the material started sounding too similar, Lane eclipsed it anyway. “Supposedly it‘s going to rain soon,” announced the singer in the home stretch, “but hopefully we’ll make it out.” Debut single “Can I Call You Rose?” dispatched everyone at 9pm as the heavens ripped lightning. Fifty-four minutes later, the skies cried. – Raoul Hernandez