Live music review: Wavves King of the Beach tour hit Hotel Vegas
Wavves brought their King of the Beach tour to Hotel Vegas for a sold-out crowd on August 20. Their career-defining record, King of the Beach is now 12 years old (Wavves were unable to tour the record on it’s actual 10-year anniversary as intended due to the world wide pandemic). The group came through Austin near the end of a long, 31-date North American tour that ended in Los Angeles last Saturday. The midweek ATX show was a fun, sweaty mess of mosh pits, stage dives and good tunes.
Smut opened up the show with echo-ey indie pop tunes. Tay Roebuck, on vocals, stood affixed to the center of the stage, bopping and swaying along with the drums and distorted guitar. The Chicago-based band is signed to Bayonet Records. The five piece band derives influences from predominantly shoe-gaze artists. Check out “Fan Age”.
BOYO followed up Smut. The psych pop band has been releasing EPs and singles since 2016. Several years ago, front-man and multi-instrumentalist Robert Tilden experienced a series of seizures, leaving him housebound. Tilden spent this time to produce fourth studio album Where Have All My Friends Gone? With Park the Van Records. Check out “Mantra”.
No strangers to Austin, my first Wavves show was at Mohawk during a free SXSW performance. At that show, lead vocalist Nathan Williams jumped from the second level into the crowd. Caught in the middle of the crowd before Wavves came on, I could tell what was about to happen. Based on the murmurs from the four guys in front of us, there were going to be many Lone Star and margarita casualties as soon as Wavves hit the stage. Williams kicked off with “King of the Beach”, singing the line, “never gonna stop me”, setting off a mosh pit that would take up half the space in front of the stage and go on until the end of the show. That only encouraged Williams to invite mosh loyalists onto the stage to stage dive.
Every good mosh pit requires a friendly reminder, if someone falls down, you pick them back up. Additional etiquette around the most polite form of anarchy was introduced: if something gets unplugged, plug it back in. The front monitor went out halfway through the show. Williams stalled with banter between songs to find the plug. Williams encouraged the mosh pit and took more time between songs to distribute bottles of water to the sweaty guys at the front of the stage. The extra care for the fans that Williams displayed was appreciated.
At “When Will You Come?” and “Mickey Mouse”, the audience mellowed out for the less boisterous tracks. Both tracks from their most notable album depart from their common punk rock delinquency, adding reverb, slowing down the drums for a surf rock influence. The solace lasted for one track before performing grungier “Post Acid” and “Afraid of Heights”.
Wavves closed out the show for an encore with “Green Eyes”. The lady next to me had been requesting it all night. “I try running away, I’m just not fast enough,” the crowd crooned. The audience went bananas, screaming-singing “my friends hate my guts” alongside Williams, summoning the final remains of angst that resided in their core. A Wavves performance is nothing if not cathartic.
Featured photo by Daniel Castro
You must be logged in to post a comment.