Live music review: Hot Sauce Festival brought heat and local music Sunday
If you were brave enough to get “peppered up” this past Sunday at the 31st annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival held at the Far Out Lounge and Stage then you’re one of the lucky ones. Hundreds of adventurous souls came out to hear great, local music from Ley Line, Deezy Brown and Jake Lloyd, Geto Gala, Indoor Creature and Van Mary.
Those folks also got a “good burn” from vendors and vote for their favorite hot and spicy products; ATX Hot Sauce, Boerne-Brand Texas-Style Hot Sauce, Burn City Sauces, Castaway Sauce Company, Fantastic Fuego, Ghost Scream Hot Sauce, Hill Country Hot Peppers, Jaime’s Spanish Village Salsas, Kester’s Distribution, Salsa Maya, Teardrop Pepper Company, Texas Salsa, Wicked Provisions, Yellowbird Sauce and Good Burn all made appearances at the festival to showcase their new, pepper-infused recipes.
The Scoville levels of these hot sauce rustlers’ peppery creations were completely off-the-charts. You could feel the heat in the air, on the tip of your nose, and in your eyes just walking by the vendors’ booths. It was a seriously spicy interlude from the unusually rainy, hot and humid summer we have had in Austin this year.
But listening to the groovy tunes wafting from the Far Out music stage made the Sunday afternoon at the Hot Sauce Festival cooler by the hour. Van Mary opened the musical program with their delightfully sentimental sounds, rocking hips of all ages with punk-rock jams.
Indoor Creature took the stage shortly after, with an old high-school friend of the author’s in the line-up, Mason Ables. Their synthesized sounds set a chill vibe that may have cooled many of the burning mouths in the crowd by taking the heat down a notch.
Geto Gala bounded to the stage next, creating bouncing heads, shoulders, knees, and feet among the crowd. Next up, Deezie Brown and Jake Lloyd served up an impressive duo-dynamic compilation of underground sounds. Their smooth R&B wordplay, over guitars and drums, created a back-beat that rocked the crowd to the tips of their toes.
After the “Who’s the Hottest” awards were handed out by the hosts at The Austin Chronicle, Ley Line took the stage, sharing their gratitude for the venue, the bands, and the Chronicle, with the group’s sultry, Portuguese and Colombian rhythms, bringing the festival to a glorious multicultural close.
Each song of their set appeared to resonate with the audience on a deep human and moral note. The paintbrush of mixed cultural influences that Ley Line expresses through their songs, connected with the festival crowd. The Hot Sauce Festival was a spicy reminder that the love and appreciation of peppers is a universal feeling shared by many cultures and people, especially Austinites.
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