Friday, March 6, 2026
The Cosmic Clash

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Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: Levitation 2025 ramble with Pavement, Mastodon, The Black Angels and more

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Levitation Festival 2025 took place September 26 – 28  and marked another successful installment in a new location, with more than 30 acts making their way to Austin for yet another Black Angels-sponsored party featuring talent from all over the world. With a new HQ at Palmer Events Center on Barton Springs Road, the convention center turned into Levitation’s psychedelic playground for three days over the last weekend. Each day of the event brought unique vibes that spanned the festival’s usual suspects, first-timers, and legacy acts, all of which helped bring the star-studded booked talent to life for the three-day, two-stage rager. The Cosmic Clash team made their way to the convention center for the weekend to capture the action and highlight every moment that stood out to us at Palmer.

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ACL Festival skyline
Case CockrellLive MusicPreview

Live music preview: Six must see bands at Austin City Limits Music Festival 2025

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Austin City Limits Music Festival is an annual music extravaganza that takes place in the heart of Austin every Fall, and the curated talent ranges from worthy up-and-coming artists and legacy acts to round out its eclectic, genre-spanning array of music. For this year’s installment, The Cosmic Clash has put together a list of six must-sees you need to put on your list for the first weekend at Zilker Park which begins October 3. Tickets and set times can be found via the ACL website or through recommended resellers.

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Acid Bath Levitation 2025 Drew Doggett
Live MusicReviewRobert Dean

Live music review: Acid Bath, Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol led Levitation 2025 metal day

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Hats off to the folks behind the scenes at Levitation Festival. They pulled off a diverse event at a little-used location to great effect. The Palmer Events Center sounded great and showed a lot of promise for what the festival can be in the future. Keeping parking at $10 a day was a smart move that kept fans happy. The food and drink options were crazy expensive, but I understand that goes with the territory of putting a festival on – but on the real? $19 for a brisket sandwich is banana town. Just walk down the street to Whataburger next year. 

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Lola Tried PR photo
Becky RodriguezReviewSong

Song review: Austin act Lola Tried released single off new EP, Hot Shot Barbie

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“And just like that…” Austin’s rock four-piece, Lola Tried released the latest single on September 8 for their EP, Feast which dropped four days later. As this is the fourth EP release for the long-running local act, “Hot Shot Barbie” is clear in its effort to build upon their power pop, garage, and indie rock background and make giant leaps toward revamping and further evolving their sound with the upcoming record.

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LEV18 Roger Ho
Case CockrellLive MusicPreview

Live music preview: Seven more must see bands at Levitation 2025

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The 2025 edition of Levitation is coming up fast. Each year, Austin’s The Black Angels and trusted booking powerhouse Rob Fitzpatrick cast star-studded lineups that never disappoint the local and out-of-town music fans traveling to Austin for the annual multi-venue programming. The Cosmic Clash team is here to provide another list of bands you need to see during the festival takeover at Palmer Events Center and venues throughout the Austin area. Set times and tickets can be found at the Levitation website for fans to plan their schedule to see all the music they can throughout the weekend. 

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Spoon-landscape- 4 Moody Amp Angela Betancourt
Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: Indie rock legends Pixies and Spoon played Moody Amphitheater

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Indie rock legends come in many forms. Whether you’re discussing the likes of Modest Mouse, Built To Spill, or Guided By Voices, someone in the room is going to eventually bring up The Pixies. Hailing from Boston and now entering their 40th year, the prolific songwriting of singer and guitarist Black Francis remains influential. For their 2025 North American tour, the Northeastern outfit enlisted the help of hometown heroes Spoon, making a sensible pairing of two leading musical entities in their respective birthplaces. For the Austin stop on the run, the double-headline bill made its way to Moody Amphitheater on Saturday, September 6, a sweaty occasion that made it all about the music. 

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Pigs x7 29th St Ballroom Troy Gonzales
Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs delivered bone crushing riffs

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Newcastle’s Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs (or Pigs x7 to make things easier) has been on a steady barrage of bone-crushing riffs, a consistent stream of records, and travels throughout the world to deliver their flammable methodology of sludge metal to the masses. Fresh off the release of their 2025 full-length Death Hilarious, the Pigs quintet covers all their bases with down-tuned guitar strikes and relentless, raw vocal aggression. With Nashville alternative metal act Waxed in tow on this run of shows, the double bill wrapped their tour in Austin at the under-new-management 29th St. Ballroom, sending things off with a deafening display of power on Wednesday, August 27.

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Tear Dungeon 17 Radio East Justin Clark
Live MusicReviewRobert Dean

Live music review: Tear Dungeon tour kick off at Radio East with stage dives

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I’ve seen a lot of things in my years of going to rock and roll shows. I have experienced a man in a rubber sex mask spit fake blood into a child’s face. Whenever Tear Dungeon plays, there is always a chance of something insane happening. Between roof climbs, the highest stage dives, a garage being ripped down to the studs (see: their show at the now-defunct Ghost Cat Lounge) the band has established a culture of chaos at their shows, that if you’re here, being an absolute psycho is A-OK. The band’s show at Radio East on Saturday, August, 9 was no exception

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MMJ ACLTV HOF 2025 announcement
April RiggsLive MusicReview

Live music review: My Morning Jacket got inducted into ACL TV Hall of Fame and I missed it

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I sent The Cosmic Clash crew a text about the upcoming Austin City Limits taping of My Morning Jacket, when I realized the band was being inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame on Friday, August 1, by Cameron Crowe. Our editor responded to say it was all mine since I was the first to mention it. I had previous plans to see Dead cover band Deadeye play for Jerry Garcia’s birthday as well as catching the live streams for King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and the 60th Anniversary of the Grateful Dead Money Grab happening at the same time, but I’m flexible and enjoy seeing MMJ and their bandleader Jim James anytime I can

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Semihelix HSN 2025 13th Floor Troy Gonzales
Greg AckermanLive MusicPhotos

Live music photos: Hot Summer Nights featured Andrew Cashen, Semihelix, Portrayal of Guilt and more

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The Red River Cultural District’s cover-free Hot Summer Nights event took place last weekend in venues all over the downtown neighborhood July 24-26. Nearly 150 primarily Austin-area artists took to the stage at Mohawk, 13th Floor, Elysium, Chess Club and a dozen other RRCD venues. This is the eighth year the neighborhood organization has organized the event which spawned from its original sister event, Free Week which takes place the first week of January each year. Resound Presents founder, Graham Williams is credited with originating that event while he was working as a talent booker at the original Emo’s on Red River and Sixth Street. featured in this photo story is Andrew Cashen and Disciples of Creation, shoegaze/psych rockers, Queen Serene, Pearl Z, Sexpop, Mujeres Podridas, Stop Motion Orchestra, Portrayal of Guilt, Semihelix and lots more.

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Of Montreal Radio East Troy Gonzales
Live MusicReviewTroy Gonzales

Live music review: Of Montreal sold-out Radio East for 20th anniversary of The Sunlandic Twins album

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There comes a time in every music fan’s life, when the band or musical artist who they once viewed as hip and innovative, suddenly becomes seen as a nostalgic act. Which might be hard to argue when said band, of Montreal, founded by Kevin Barnes in 1996, is now celebrating the 20th anniversary of one of their most seminal and popular albums, The Sunlandic Twins with an ongoing tour. While it has never been my favorite album, (Satanic Panic in the Attic or Hissing Fauna and Are You The Destroyer both vie for that honor),  I’ve rarely missed one of their live shows. There was no way I was going to pass up a chance to enjoy this 2oth anniversary celebration with new and old fans for what turned out to be a sold out show at Radio East on July 16. 

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