Live Music Review: The Bright Light Social Hour headlined stellar Scoot Inn performance last Saturday
The Bright Light Social Hour may very well be the hardest working band in Austin. Last fall saw the kickoff of their North American Emergency Leisure tour following the late-summer release of their LP by the same name. The band took a break at the beginning of 2024 so lead guitarist Curtis Roush could tour Europe with Israel Nash, while other members worked on their own respective projects – notably Jackie O’Brien’s STARFLAKE and Juan Alfredo Rios’ regular gig with the nuevo cumbia all-stars, Como Las Movies.
The band played Austin for a few SXSW-adjacent shows this spring and now they’re back on the road, taking Emergency Leisure eastward – but not before one more local show at Austin’s Scoot Inn on Saturday, April 13. Local favs The Mammoths opened early, followed by Mo Lowda & the Humble who are scheduled to continue on tour with The Bright Light Social Hour through the end of spring. By the time Mo Lowda was done vibing, the crowd was primed and the mood shifted in anticipation.
The Bright Light Social Hour took the stage just after 9:30 p.m., kicking off with the high-energy crowd-pleaser, Back and Forth. The setlist that evening was a mixed-bag of songs from the band’s entire catalog, giving us plenty of what they do best – ‘hillbilly disco’ with a thick layer of jam.
The amount of energy TBLSH puts out during their sets could power a small city. All five of them are in fine musical form after months of touring and have upped the showmanship of their performances, leaving no dead air. The whole night was a ride and the audience was buckled in from the first note to the last. The band appeared to be exorcizing their demons, playing into the warm spring night with enormous feeling that built in intensity all the way through to a very sweaty end.
Midway through the show, O’Brien left stage and returned shirtless, looking iconic in a black bralette that mysteriously seemed to increase his capacity for funk. He and Roush took turns standing on a platform that hovered just in front of the audience, giving us a close look at their skills (and in O’Brien’s case, his abs). He and Roush have been playing together for more than a decade and their ability to read one another on stage is a thing of beauty. The audience witnessed several thrilling moments of chemistry between these two masterful performers, the kind of thing that makes live shows irreplaceable for music fans.
It’s hard not to fawn over Roush. He’s an impeccable performer who holds a guitar as naturally as if he’d been shot out of the womb grasping it in his tiny fist. This is a musician’s musician who sounds just as good live as he does on record – and sometimes even better with the freedom for improvisation that live performances can afford.
Other highlights included Mia Carruthers inviting us to dance during Prefecture, while Rios’ smacked around his sparkly gold bongos with rhythms that elevated the crowd’s energy. Zac Catanzaro’s drumming, which is always on fire, seemed extra hot that night. He must have burned six-thousand calories during Shanty, bringing down the house, driving the rhythm with power and intensity while the band and the audience, still high off Rios’ percussion-heavy solo during Prefecture, let it all hang out.
The night belonged to Carruthers, though. Her ethereal beauty was marred only slightly by the carefully chosen streaks of pale blue makeup painted down each of her cheeks to look like she’d been crying, no doubt a nod to the recent loss of a close family member that interrupted the band’s tour just weeks prior. We watched her transform over the course of the show, losing all inhibitions and throwing herself into her performance which included solo vocals during the moody Message from the Stars.
By the time the show was over the crowd was equal parts exhausted and exhilarated. The band returned to the stage for a single-song encore during which they invited any of the remaining Mo Lowda & the Humble members to join them for Tomorrow Never Knows.
The more often you see The Bright Light Social Hour, the more impressed you become with their attention to detail, smooth harmonies, and unabashed power in their live performances. No two shows are the same, each member of the band shining in his or her own way, creating an authentic sound that is truly their own.
Catch The Bright Light Social Hour on tour now through the end of spring.
Setlist – The Bright Light Social Hour – Scoot Inn – Saturday, April 13, 2024
- Back and Forth
- Not New
- Infinite Cities
- Sweet Madelene
- Slipstream
- Dreamlike
- Ghost Dance
- Give To Me Words
- Empty Fields
- Amsalak
- Message from the Stars
- Prefecture
- Shanty
- Tomorrow Never Knows
All photos and video by Nadia Quraishi and Amanda Quraishi
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