Live music review: Die Spitz sold-out Stubb’s for debut album release
A sold-out show at Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater in Austin can be one of the most treacherous live music experiences in the downtown area. For the occasion of hometown heroes Die Spitz, exceptions had to be made to celebrate their debut album release Something To Consume via Jack White’s Third Man Records on Friday, October 24. The Austin hard rock quartet has been busy the last couple of years, racking up multiple headlining tours, opening slots for the likes of Amyl & The Sniffers, Viagra Boys, and Sleater-Kinney, and dropping new tracks ahead of their recent full-length studio release. For their homecoming after multiple stints worldwide, Die Spitz brought fellow Austin acts The Opera and Fuck Money to help them celebrate this monumental occasion.
Rising Austin art punk sextet The Opera opened the bill, an outfit known for their noisy, off-kilter delivery. Vocalist Tyler Dozier showcases a deadpan, yet tell-all ethos, guiding the backing ensemble through swift tempo changes and spells of noise that present a forward-thinking representation of the stranger side of the local scene. The Opera also recently shared a bill with New York electronic scene crashers Sextile, showing yet another Austin music force advancing through the ranks in the footsteps of their headlining contemporaries.
The Opera recently released their debut EP I Want This To Last, a beginning of what is sure to be an upcoming Austin buzz artist. The Cosmic Clash thinks so, which is one reason we booked them at our SXSW 2025 closing, Webberville Block Party this year.
The newly reformed Fuck Money took the stage next, equipped with Roman Empire gladiator-esque stagewear that’s par for the course for the local noise punk juggernauts. The setup came with stage performers, a suit-of-armor-wearing frontman in Taz Trébuchet, complete with a sword and an execution that served as the opening set’s climax.
Drummer Alton Jenkins has served as the backbone of the group, bringing the highest level of percussion technicality as a founding member. Fuck Money released their debut album Self Titled earlier this year after a stretch of acclaimed EPs, a snapshot of their steady history in Austin as one of its most hard-hitting audio assaults you can see in town.
The crowd at Stubb’s felt packed from stage to the back wall by the time Die Spitz took over for the main event. The audience was ready to rock out in their usual crowdsurfing, mosh-ready fashion. The members of Die Spitz are Ellie Livingston, Kate Halter, Ava Schrobilgen, and Chloe De St. Aubin. With members known to switch songwriting duties and instruments for their recordings and live gigs, the personalities of each setlist offering can conjure something a little different at each show.
The onstage high energy of the group brings the rowdiest crowd the Central Texas music scene has to offer, with attendees ignoring the photo-pit stage barrier as stage-diving and crowdsurfing ensued. With 75 minutes being the billed show length for Friday night, the ATX players unleashed a career-spanning setlist, touching all of their releases to date.
The entirety of Something To Consume weaved its way through the setlist on Friday, each track ripped through in studio-perfect form. Sludge metal single “I Hate When Girls Die” also made an appearance, showing the electricity of a band that has often been unfairly reduced to being just another “all-girl punk band.” Don’t listen to them guys; the songs range from acoustic grunge ballads, doom metal-esque headbangers, and luscious shoegaze dreamscapes.
The headlining expedition included a gauntlet of guests, including a violin player and Livingston and Aubin’s dads on guitars for the evening’s encore, showing that music is all in the family for Die Spitz. Staples “Hair of Dog,” “Groping Dogs Gushing Blood,” and “Evangeline” also appeared, leaving room for Consume lead single “Throw Yourself to the Sword” to send the sold-out Stubb’s crowd home after a triple-bill of some of Austin’s most raucous live bands.
Die Spitz continues on a nationwide tour through the end of November before embarking on a run of more Texas shows in December. Tickets can be found via the Die Spitz website.
Featured photo by Drew Doggett
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