Levitation
has a bit of a mixed track record, although I still think it's the
best festival in town in terms of the quality of the music, which is
of course the most important criterion anyway. Last year, I was so frustrated by the failure of the
shuttle system that I wasn't sure I wanted to come back this year.
(The rainstorms and mud didn't help, either.) However, they once
again put together an incredible lineup and I decided to give it
another go. In fact, I bought tickets for both Friday and Saturday.
As I'm sure everyone
has heard by now, the festival was canceled as of 5pm on Thursday.
Heavy thunderstorms were looming once again, and the festival site
was already worse for wear from storms throughout the last week. The
organizers rushed to put together as many shows at local venues as
they could manage, but unfortunately most of them sold out as soon as
they went on sale, as the demand was understandably out of control. I
failed to procure any tickets, but decided to try to see what I could
see anyway.
Event: Levitation 2016
Day 1
Venues: KUTX Studio 1A
and Scoot Inn
Location: Austin, Texas
Date: 29 April 2016
Details about the
make-up shows were a bit scarce and initially available only through
Facebook and Twitter. The Austin Chronicle began keeping track of them, and I
saw that one of the bands I was interested in, Dungen, would be
making an appearance at KUTX. I mentioned this to a friend, and he
immediately was on board, so we rushed to the University of Texas
campus, found a parking spot, and made it to the radio station studio
just in time to be let in.
All I knew about Dungen
was that they were Swedish and occupied a space somewhere between
psych, folk, and prog. The started playing something that sounded
like standard-issue indie rock, but driven by a grand piano and a
prominent bass. However, as the song progressed, it gradually turned
into a serious prog rock jam. It slowly wound down, but without
really pausing, the band started into the next song, which led into
another tremendous jam. At the end of the third iteration of this
pattern, someone whispered in the singer's ear and they brought the
show to an end. They only played for fifteen or twenty minutes, but
it was a fantastic journey. The instrumental work was top-notch, the
harmonies were transcendent, and the jams were captivating without
being excessive. It was just a shame they didn't get more time.
[Dungen at KUTX.]
It was before, during,
and immediately after this set that the fiasco of the make-up show
tickets occurred. Around 2:30, Levitation announced a series of
make-up gigs, with a claim
that ticket holders would have advance access. This took the form
of an email sent at about 2:50 that contained the same links to
Transmission Events ticketing pages that were available on the
Levitation website. The tickets were supposed to go on sale at either
3 or 3:30 (reports varied), but it fact they appeared to go on sale
at variable times throughout the hour. I tried my best, but I did not
get tickets for anything. They all sold out with incredible speed.
There was really only one that I was really, really interested in,
though: Slowdive with Brian Jonestown Massacre and Twin Peaks at the Scoot Inn. In
desperation, I scoured the internet for scalpers, but I could only
find others looking for the same tickets.
At this point, it was
clear that it wasn't actually going to rain that day. This matters,
because Scoot Inn is an outdoor venue. Admittedly, it was odd that an
event that was canceled due to weather would be moved in part to an
outdoor venue, but I guess it worked out. I decided to head to the
venue and try my chances at getting a ticket on the spot. I biked on
down and quickly realized I was one of many looking for a ticket. I
gave up as soon as I realized that there was a grassy parking lot
adjacent to the venue's stage that was full of people hoping to catch
some of the scattered sound waves. I found a decent spot where I
could see the speaker racks on stage, sat down, and waited to see
what happened. This was my view when Twin Peaks went on:
[Twin Peaks at Scoot Inn.]
It wasn't a perfect
experience, but I was excited for the show and figured it was worth
making the most of it. Realistically, I couldn't see anything, and
the audio wasn't as good as I'm sure it was inside, but I could still
hear enough to enjoy it. (It also helped to have a friend join me and
bring beer.) I'm going to do my best to review what I heard, although
my scores will be admittedly somewhat tentative. I doubt my
experience truly represents what the bands offered to the people
inside.
Twin Peaks
played a sort of catchy but rather generic garage rock. They seemed
to play rock 'n' roll fairly straight and by-the-numbers, but I
appreciated that they did have some finesse about it. They were
skilled at dropping in little rhythmic flourishes and shifts that
kept their set from getting too boring. They didn't seem particularly
sophisticated, but they sounded better than their studio work had led
me to expect.
The Brian Jonestown
Massacre were up next. I actually saw them at Levitation two years ago, back when it was still Austin Psych
Fest, and they were the topmost headliner after Primal Scream dropped
out. That time around, they played good music, but they went on late,
only played for 45 minutes, and were plagued by sound issues. This
year there were no major sound problems, but they still only played
for about an hour since they weren't the headliner. They again
featured an abundance of guitarists that all mostly played the same
thing, and while it did make for a fairly big, warm sound, it also
was a somewhat monolithic or monotonous sound. They played
consistently good grooves, but rarely played something really
thrilling. The vocals had a characteristic sort of lazy, stoned
quality to them, which contributed to a fairly mellow mood despite
their classic rock obsessions. The side of their music more akin to
shoegazing, as represented by their early album Methodrone
(from which they played
"She's Gone"), came to the fore. I suppose it was
only appropriate considering the headliner, although I may have just
been reading into it because of the pairing, and my removed location
may have influenced my perception as well. An incomplete setlist can
be found here.
[Brian Jonestown Massacre at Scoot Inn.]
Finally, Slowdive
came on stage. Here's the setlist (with some help from here):
01. Slowdive
02. Avalyn
03. Catch the Breeze
04. Crazy for You
05. Machine Gun
06. Souvlaki Space Station
07. When the Sun Hits
08. Morningrise
09. She Calls
10. Alison
11. Golden Hair (James Joyce/Syd Barrett cover)
Ever since they
reunited in 2014, Slowdive have relied on a fairly regular setlist
for their shows. It's hard to complain, though, since it's a solid
collection of songs. It is quite biased towards Souvlaki, and
includes more EP tracks than anything from either other album, but
that's probably a fair representation of their best work. Naturally,
they started with the eponymous "Slowdive" from their debut
self-titled EP.
Slowdive also have a
tendency to let their three guitarists meld their sound together into
one big sound, but they make it work more successfully. While The
Brian Jonestown Massacre aim for a thick chorus effect, Slowdive
develop a gigantic wall of sound. They rely on a variety of guitar
effects, driving bass, and airy vocals to build up their desired
atmosphere. It makes for a beautiful and hazy sound that just washes
over you in waves. While the music flowed past, the vocals were
mostly indecipherable, although that's fairly par for the course with
shoegazing acts. At any rate, the music was somewhat heavier and more
intense than on record, which may reveal the insufficiencies of the
production available to them at the time. At the point in "When
the Sun Hits" where the song really picks up, it felt huge. It's
already a great song on record, but this performance felt
transcendent. Some other songs admittedly seemed a bit vague and
meandering, but most of them were a wonderful experience to bask in.
Final Thoughts:
This was a strange day by any metric. It was very disappointing to
have the festival canceled, especially with such short notice, but it
would seem that Travis County made the call and that was that.
(Apparently the flooding concerns were bad enough that the Lower
Colorado River Authority decreed that camping
by the river would not be permissible.) Although Friday was
ultimately a clear day, overnight it stormed heavily. Levitation and
Carson Creek Ranch posted pictures the following morning showing the
devastating results: thoroughly flooded grounds, knocked-down fences
and portapotties, and destroyed tents. It turns out they made the
right call. (Amazingly, there were claims floating around the
internet that Levitation conspired to cancel the event since it
didn't sell out and they could recoup the insurance benefits. This
makes no sense when you consider that the festival has never sold
out.)
Despite my frustration
and disappointment, I can't really say I'm upset, since it was clear
that Levitation wasn't happy with the situation and was trying to
make the most of it. I was far angrier after the shuttle situation of
last year. However, while I sympathize with Levitation and trust that
they are a committed, local organization dedicated more to the music
than to the money, that's not to say they handled everything as well
as they could have.
Levitation did a great
job of putting together last minute shows all weekend, but
disseminating the details was occasionally difficult. On the positive
side, the shows were all $5 (or free) and all proceeds went to the
Austin Relief Alliance. Much less positive was the fact that ticket
holders were not actually given any sort of advance opportunity to
purchase these tickets, despite the initial
claim. This was particularly unfortunate for people that had
traveled from out of town; all of their planning and early orders did
nothing for them. In fact, the line of people that formed outside
Scoot Inn for the Slowdive show got entirely
screwed
over.
Supposedly, despite initial promises that they'd get the first chance at tickets, they were told at the last minute that they'd too have to
use the overburdened website to try to buy tickets like everyone
else. Since the tickets were cheap and could be bought in sets of up
to four, there was a lot of complaining about scalpers, although I'm
not actually sure how much of that really occurred. I've heard one
report of a $75 resale, but not much else.
In the end, I still got
to listen to two of the bands I wanted to see, and I caught a brief
set of another, and that was all for free. It wasn't what I was
hoping for, but it was better than nothing. I was far from alone;
they were multiple hundreds of people in the fields and on the street
around Scoot Inn, and I'd bet many of the other make-up venues had
external crowds. I'm very disappointed that I lost my chance to see
David J and the Gentlemen Thieves, and I missed out on Brian Wilson,
Animal Collective, Woods, Lee Ranaldo, and plenty of others. On the
other hand, I did see some interesting sights at the Scoot Inn
parking lot, like this:
[Firedancer outside Scoot Inn.]
Scores:
Dungen: A-
Twin Peaks: C+
Brian Jonestown
Massacre: B
Slowdive: A-
P.S. Many thanks to
Mustafa!
P.P.S. What does it say
about my luck (or the effect of climate change on Texas) that I have
held tickets for the only Levitation to ever be canceled as well as
the only day of Austin City Limits Fest to be canceled thus far?
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