Live music review: Stacked bill at Sagebrush featured Nemegata, Being Dead, Garrett T Capps and Queen Serene
When every local live music bill in Austin is always stacked, it becomes a pick-and-choose affair on a night-to-night basis. Last Saturday night at South Austin live music haunt, Sagebrush, a gauntlet of some of Central Texas’ best, took the stage with a four-band bill whose occupants represented some of the best from various areas of the scene. With a bill that included rising national indie stars Being Dead, Central Texas Americana titan Garrett T Capps & NASA Country, world music act Nemegata and local shoe-gaze act Queen Serene, the evening held no misses.
Sagebrush is off the beaten path, far from South Congress staples Continental Club and C-Boys Heart & Soul. When you enter the honky tonk, you are greeted with a welcoming sight of a large stage area, a huge dance floor with tables on the side and candles gently lighting the dim room. After arriving at the venue shortly before 9 p.m., San Antonio native and billed performer Garrett T Capps could be seen getting a refreshment from the bar, preparing for the bill that Capps booked himself. No stranger to the Austin scene, the Texas musician also co-founded the annual Wizard Rodeo in East Austin and operates San Antonio venue the Lonesome Rose.
Shoegaze act Queen Serene were the first to take the stage, coming with a new drummer for his first outing with the band. Frontwoman Sarah Ronan wields a guitar like a keyboard. The Queen Serene bandleader switches sounds in a brisk, gained-guitar fashion. With a crack rhythm section and backing vocalist/guitarist Matt Galceran, the psychedelic outfit displayed perfect fuzzed-out, screaming guitar sync. Since releasing their eponymous debut LP in 2023, Queen Serene is proving themselves to be a favorite frequent flyer in the Austin scene. Ronan also took time to dedicate the closing tune of the set to the late Krautrock pioneer Can vocalist Damo Suzuki, who passed away earlier in the day Saturday.
Prolific artist Garrett T Capps has been on a shredding, outspoken trajectory since releasing his latest full-length, People Are Beautiful with backing band NASA Country. The Capps backing band are all interwoven shredders. The NASA Country ensemble is composed of guitar-synth rock wizardry, a firing-on-all-cylinders affair that Capps called “Kraut-Country,” in a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone. Their sound is far outside the normalities of what one might find in Nashville or other country-oriented regions.
In 2020, the NASA Country penned the politically charged album title track “People Are Beautiful,” which closed the Saturday night set. Capps composed the piece at the height of the nationwide protests against police violence and racial inequality during the pandemic shutdowns. Capps put his guitar to the side for this tune, allowing for a high-octane, psychedelic country sendoff that showed the NASA players shifting into full rock n roll mode to close the set.
Austin threesome, Being Dead, is having a good time. Assembled by power songwriting duo Falcon Bitch and Gumball, they have put their heads together to be one of Austin’s most exciting bands. When we last checked in with the live trio, they celebrated their album release at Sagebrush last Summer, which came with a packed, sold-out room to witness indie rock legends in the making.
Last Saturday’s gig was a kickoff for Being Dead’s upcoming tour with Oklahoma City indie act Husbands, scheduled to kick off in Houston this week. “Last Living Buffalo” made its staple appearance in the set list, along with When Horses Would Run lead single, “Muriel’s Big Day Off.” The trio presented in their usual crisp and delightfully jittery form, studio-perfect, and ready to burn rubber on the upcoming tour. The set also featured three new, unreleased original songs. The Austin band purportedly recorded their next record earlier this year. The new tunes shined as set highlights, eliminating any chance of a potential sophomore slump.
Nemegata sent the audience off with an all-out Cumbia jam dance party. Taking the stage with auxiliary percussion and keyboard-ridden instrumentation that gives them a psychedelic edge, bandleader, Víctor-Andrés Cruz immerses the audience with his instrumental versatility. Throughout the performance, the audience was met with a rotating world music carousel of sounds. The tunes and jams that followed were a mind-bending trip that supported the joyous late-night vibe immaculately, allowing for a well-rounded take on the wide genre-spanning music Nemegata presents.
Saturday night’s epic finale displayed of the boundlessness of the Austin scene, showing musicians from various backgrounds attracting new fans that come for their unique outputs. For a Garrett T Capps curated bill, that type of mythology is a constant. Artists will continue to produce and thrive in Austin at this rate.
All photos by Drew Doggett except where noted
You must be logged in to post a comment.