Live music review: Day one and two of Levitation brought world’s best independent acts to Austin

The first two days of Levitation Festival 2024 featured multiple stacked bills for a plethora of packed venues in the downtown Austin area and beyond. The Cosmic Clash team was in attendance to capture the action and highlighted some of our favorite acts that made their way to Austin for the action-packed Halloween weekend. From the Red River Cultural District to South Austin, the carefully curated talent brought their best for the masses that flock to the local music joints to watch the coveted Black Angels produced weekend with some of the independent music world’s best acts.

The Strange Lot – Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheatre – 10/31

Local psych-garage act Strange Lot has become a rarity in town. Taking after inspirations like The Jesus and the Mary Chain, The Black Angels, The Velvet Underground, and more, Strange Lot took the stage as the first performing artist on Thursday night at Stubb’s. Armed with record crate-digging expertise, Strange Lot showed the generations of music knowledge at their disposal with a slew of tunes that would set the tone for what was to come on the opening night. We’re told that Strange Lot plans to return full-time with an upcoming record produced by Black Angels frontman Alex Maas, who also worked with local shoegazers  Daiistar on their debut record Good Time. 

Mdou Moctar – Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheatre – 10/31

Nigerien musician Mdou Moctar and his trusted instrumentalists made for a more than ideal headliner, on-deck performance for the Halloween showcase at Stubb’s on Friday. Moctar and his associates are an instrumental masterclass, showcasing playing chops and songwriting expertise that demonstrated the ensemble in perfect sync for the 70-minute co-headlining slot. The shredfest featured all the psychedelic mannerisms the Levitation brand promises while weaving West African influences that presented the music of their culture from across the Atlantic. Moctar took time to step into the Stubb’s crowd to get up close and personal with the audience while he deftly guitar picked along with his band who held things down on stage. The crowd was left in awe as the attendees eagerly awaited the arrival of the evening’s headliner, The Black Angels.

The Black Angels – Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheatre – 10/31

After being on tour for the better part of 2024, Austin neo-psych hardliners The Black Angels returned home to welcome audience members to their incredible Halloween weekend festival. The Angels have been busy touring overseas, tearing up the West Coast, and lending their hands to various projects that has the now 20-year tenured psych experts more potent than ever. As promised, The Black Angels took the stage and launched straight into their 2010 record, Phosphene Dream. The five-piece ensemble, now joined by Daiistar bassist Misti Hamrick, slashed through the 36-minute record with urgency, with Maas half-jokingly declaring to the audience, “If you don’t like this record, this is your chance to leave.” After the album playthrough concluded, the Angels kept things rolling with nine more tracks in the cannon, with some new cuts that have yet to be released on any studio offering. “Young Men Dead” appeared as is tradition, but not before an exemplary version of Wilderness of Mirrors cut “Empires Falling,” a necessary feat to commemorate the upcoming presidential election. The opening night show closed with new cut “Molly Moves My Generation,” which is proving to be one of the most ferocious songs the Austin legends have produced to date.

Boris – Empire Garage – 10/31

Tokyo’s Boris made their way to Austin for the second time in just over a year to deliver a full-album production of their 1998 classic drone-stoner-doom landmark release Amplifier Worship. When the Japanese band took the stage and plunged into a deafening guitar drone, the audience was enlightened with precisely what they were in for during the late-night Halloween gig. Empire Garage was packed to the gills for this spectral occurrence, crowding the Garage venue with little room for fans to move, let alone mosh, for the bone-crushing spectacle that Boris serves up every time they plug into their 50-foot amplifiers to play. The 1998 album channeled that of drone legends like Sunn O))) and Earth, taking after their ear-shattering delivery with auxiliary sounds and continuous drop-tuned guitar strums that felt like they could last a lifetime.

A Place To Bury Strangers – Empire Control Room – 10/31

The loudest band from New York City arrived at Levitation once more as seasoned festival veterans. With new album Synthesizer out in the world, Oliver Ackermann and power trio, A Place To Bury Strangers took the stage in a more-packed-than-packed Empire Control Room to sweat it out with their dedicated fanbase that loves getting their eardrums rattled as much as the Brooklyn mad-lads do. The volume inside the Control Room was duly cranked to room-shaking levels, prompting the three-piece to perform at animalistic intensity that saw shrieking vocal deliveries, bludgeoning drums, and stampedes of bass guitar that let the residual noise become an instrument of its own. A chunk of the deafening onrush featured the noisemakers ceremoniously treading their way down to the floor to give the crowd an eye-level view of the mayhem. Ackermann’s mad scientist status came through in a curb-stomping, seizure-inducing strobe light presentation to cap off the first day of the festival happenings.

Meatbodies – The Far Out Lounge & Stage – 11/1

Los Angeles mainstays Meatbodies opened the stacked bill at Far Out Lounge and Stage to a kickoff an eight-band bill curated for the high-anticipated Austin return of The Jesus Lizard. The Ubovich-led outfit performed as a three-piece for the Levitation stop, slashing through tune after tune from their steady but worthwhile catalog. Frontman Chad Ubovich has lent his hand to various acts such as Ty Segall-Charles Moothart joint project Fuzz and production credits with punk legends Surfbort, among others. The L.A. band also recently released their latest LP, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, a record that contains longer, more thoughtful compositions rather than their psych-punk garage traditional sounds. 

Pissed Jeans – The Far Out Lounge & Stage – 11/1

Philadelphia’s Pissed Jeans made a locked and loaded return to Austin on the heels of their first album in seven years, Half Divorced. Taking the stage just after sunset, the Pissed quartet took the reins and got straight down to business. Since the Pennsylvania band operates on their own terms with touring and when to ride the touring circuit on their sporadic album cycles, a stage show from the self-aware hardcore punks isn’t to be taken lightly. When the band took the stage, it was off to the sludge-induced punk battlegrounds. Older barnburners such as “Ignorecam” appeared, along with new smashing tracks like “Moving On,” “Junktime,” and “Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt.” Alongside more doomsday-oriented banter from frontman Matt Korvette, the East Coasters performed with overwhelming passion, also sharing appreciation for being chosen to open for The Jesus Lizard, a cited influence for the band members throughout their now 20-year tenure. 

Slift – The Far Out Lounge & Stage – 11/1 

After a two-year drought from the lands of Austin, French progressive psychedelic punks Slift made their slide back to Austin with a spellbinding onslaught. With Far Out’s side stage crowd space proving to be a challenging endeavor for the packed crowd, Slift wasted no time rolling out a whirlwind of new and old cuts of their ever-growing catalog. Since the release of their latest record, ILION, that spans a double album-length 80 minutes, the masterclass of Slift has been elevating at an alarming, brain-melting rate. The pre-Jesus Lizard side stage outing proved to be the pickup fans needed to get juiced up for evening’s final stand, with tunes that stretched the boundaries of progressive rock and dialed-in psychedelic knowhow. Before the adoring crowd knew it, the hour-long audio attack concluded, leaving only The Jesus Lizard to close out the second night of Levitation madness. 

The Jesus Lizard – The Far Out Lounge & Stage – 11/1 

Claiming Chicago as their present home since relocating in 1989, The Jesus Lizard is bona fide Austin royalty. With members of the group originally forming as Austin noise rock pioneers, Scratch Acid, The Jesus Lizard sculpted the blueprint for all that is the noise rock empire right here in their original home. The nearly sold-out Far Out Lounge main stage was packed tight to witness the Austin to Chicago act’s return, allowing each group member to shine as bright as the legacy they have created. With storied stage presence, shocking instrumentation, and a laundry list of bands that worship them, TJL has evolved back into a full-time band, releasing their first record in 26 years, Rack, which picks up right where their creative output left off in the 90s. For a band that formed in the 80s, the ensemble hasn’t lost a grain of their zest for live appearances, featuring frontman David Yow interacting with the crowd and giving a generation of new fans a taste of why their legacy exists to this day in the highest of forms. The career-spanning show gave fans a worthy serving tray that emulated all the sounds pressed on those vinyl records years ago, producing a dignified night two festival closer that left attendees with jaws dropped to the floor as the clock struck midnight.

Featured photo and not captioned images by Drew Doggett. All other photos by Troy Gonzales