Monday, September 14, 2026

music festival

Case CockrellLive MusicPreview

Live music preview: Seven more bands to see at Levitation 2026

Levitation 2026 is coming up fast, and with programming scattered across Austin, a tight plan is a necessity if you want to catch everything worth catching. The festival will take place over a four day stretch on September 10 – 13, bringing a wide variety of bands to build a packed fest experience. The festival traces back to The Black Angels and founder Rob Fitzpatrick, who’s kept the lineups deep and eclectic year after year. Here’s another round of seven bands curated by The Cosmic Clash team worth building your schedule around. Set times and tickets are on the Levitation website.

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Case CockrellLive MusicPreview

Live music preview: Six bands to see as Levitation returns to multi-venue format

Levitation returns to Austin September 10-13. Founded by members of The Black Angels and rooted in the city’s psych scene, the fest outgrew that single genre label a long time ago, with lineups running doom metal, darkwave, punk, and electronic acts alongside the psychedelic elements. After centering 2025 at Palmer Event Center, it’s back to the multi-venue format that’s anchored the fest since 2018. The Far Out Lounge & Stage on South Congress carries 2026’s main programming, with showcases scattered across downtown filling out the rest. Here’s who’s worth building your schedule around curated by The Cosmic Clash team. 

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Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: King Gizzard’s Field of Vision nights two and three with no song repeats

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard don’t rest. The Melbourne sextet closed out the second Field of Vision Festival with two more three-hour sets on August 15 and 16, pushing deeper into the Meadow Creek grounds in Buena Vista, Colorado they’d already claimed as their own. They’d fired the first shot on day one: a surprise drop of their 28th LP, Alien Metal, with zero warning. Then came the dare. “No song repeats,” the band promised Friday night, and fans spent the rest of the weekend hunting for new-album cuts and deep tracks to see if that promise would hold. Field of Vision was three of only seven U.S. tour dates. There was no room to coast.

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April DawneLive MusicReview

Live music review: Diary of a Perimenopausal Gal at King Gizzard’s Field of Vision Festival

It’s almost 1 a.m. and our ride is coming at 4:30 a.m. My chest is tight from not knowing if I have everything done at home and at work, but it is what it is. When I wake up from my short nap, it’ll be go time to head from Austin to Colorado for King Gizzard’s second Field of Vision Festival in Buena Vista August 14-16. The psych rock, metal, electronic and rock n roll band from Australia has become a touring phenomenon.

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Live MusicMatt BassReview

Live music review: Miracle Blood engulfs Davis Square at Somergloom, fire department called in

Friday (August 7) evening marked night two of four of Somerville’s annual Somergloom Festival, and the first night at Davis Square’s iconic Crystal Ballroom. Fresh off a 15-date tour spanning the U.S. and Canada, Boston noise-punk power trio Miracle Blood brought a scorching, powerful set to the chandelier-clad ballroom and an eagerly awaiting hometown crowd as the band engulfed Davis Square at Somergloom Festival.

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Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: inaugural Mayhem Fest at new Crow Bar ended on blistering note

Austin metal venue, The Crow Bar hosted Raven Mayhem Fest 2026 ended on a blistering note on Saturday, July 25 featuring bands from all across the Austin heavy spectrum and beyond for the inaugural three-day long extreme metal music festival at the newly reopened Crow Bar in far East Austin off Highway 183 at 523 Thompson Lane. Since reopening for SXSW 2025, co-owner Aryn Jonathan Black and booker Jay McDowell have been curating some of the heaviest-hitting bills in the Austin area. After the first Crow Bar location was lost to arson, owners Black and Steve Gee are back with a vengeance, and there’s been hell to pay since getting the underground-leaning establishment back up and running.

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Live MusicReviewRobert Dean

Live music review: Hardcore music festival The Rumble featured Hatebreed, Turmoil and more

On Friday, July 17 as part of the annual festival The Rumble, Turmoil made their way back to Chicago for a triumphant return, playing songs from The Process Of and giving it everything they had in the process. I felt like a kid again, bobbing to the riffs of “Let It Die” while screaming along to the opening salvo of the hardest intro of all time, yelling “what the fuck?” alongside frontman John Gula.

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Greg AckermanLive MusicPreview

Live music preview: Five bands to see at The DLC’s first Pogo Fest

One of the cooler spots to check out live music in Salt Lake City is The DLC, a small-capacity live music venue situated inside Quarters Arcade Bar downtown in the heart of SLC’s nascent live music corridor.  The room is intimate, cool and you can battle your homie at Mortal Kombat after the show. This Saturday, June 20 the venue is hosting their first ever Pogo Fest to highlight the great psych-rock and similar acts the venue is booking. Aside from The DLC the area includes venues; International Artists Bar, and SLC Pub . Those locations along with a an outdoor stage at Exchange Place will serve as the four stages for Pogo Fest which is highlighting psych-rock and psych adjacent acts from Salt Lake City for the most part. We picked out five bands to see from the 20-plus artists line-up for SLC concertgoers. The mini-fest is an ideal way for local fans to get to know some of the better up and coming acts playing the growing Salt Lake music scene. Advance tickets are available via 24 Tix.

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Greg AckermanInterviewsLive Music

Interview: Austin artist Shakey Graves is coming to Utah Arts Festival with a great new record

When The Cosmic Clash got to Salt Lake City one of the first annual events we heard about was the Utah Arts Festival. We were duly impressed that a city SLC’s size, invested so heavily in visual art, music and literature. There were panels, live music and tons of visual artists represented. It seemed like the story of Salt Lake’s Mormon monoculture was exaggerated fiction. In town, at least culturally it kind of is. The city founded by Mormons has more similarities to Austin, Texas than it does to the Vatican; Blue dot in a red sea, state capitol, big public university north of downtown? Sounds like ATX. We learned the UAF is celebrating its 50th Anniversary, doubling down on quality musical headliners including Austin’s own Shakey Graves. The singer and songwriter performs June 20 (Saturday) early on in his recently launched tour supporting his new record, Fondness, Inc.

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Case CockrellLive MusicPreview

Live music preview: Levitation 2026 genre bending lineup and schedule is out

Levitation returns to Austin on September 10–13, 2026, bringing another epic four-day weekend of music and art to the city’s

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Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: Austin Psych Fest 2026 weekend highlighted Black Angels, Thee Sacred Souls

It’s difficult to chose which day of Austin Psych Fest at Far Out Lounge and Stage was the best so we combined our Saturday and Sunday coverage into a single whopping review. After the elation of The Flaming Lips, it was time to get serious with The Black Angels as they celebrated the 20th Anniversary of their landmark recording, Passover. It was also an opportunity to bask in the glorious harmonies and feel good vibes on Sunday with the soulful tunes of Thee Sacred Souls closing out a Latin-themed day of music that felt made for the unofficial day of rest most Americans think of the beginning of the week as. Indeed, the vibe-shift was welcoming after two days of aural assault from some of the best psych-rock and psych adjacent acts in the world.

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