Over the past few years, no Halloween weekend in Austin is complete without the sights and sounds of Levitation – a multi-venue celebration of psychedelic music and the adjacent sounds of industrial, metal, ambient, and more. Beginning on Thursday, October 31st, and running through Sunday, November 3rd, this year’s edition featured a nightly residency by Oh Sees, a rare sighting of the ‘70s doom legends Pentagram, and an autumn sound bath by Tycho. Each performance at the event was brought to life with meticulously curated light shows spanning from ‘60s-era liquid light projections to Studio 54-era disco balls to modern LED strobes and floods. One would be hard-pressed to find another music festival so dedicated to psychedelia’s audio and material culture that also immerses concert-goers into a truly elevated experience.
Daylight Savings on Saturday night gave the bruised and battered festivalgoers an extra hour of recovery on Sunday before heading out for the fourth and final evening of shows. Sunday’s primetime slots pitted shoegaze versus metal with English band Slowdive at the Far Out Lounge and Austin’s The Sword holding court at Stubb’s on Red River. Given it was the Sabbath, the QRO Mag team decided to attend the “Church of Drop D Tuning” for a stacked lineup showcasing the metal artistry of the past and today.
A smattering of janky Halloween costumes in a field of black concert tees greeted attendees as they entered the gates of Stubb’s. With the sun setting earlier in the day, the lights and projections were more prominent as they saturated the stage and crowd as Austin-based band The Well took the stage for their 5:30 pm slot. Self-described as a heavy psych-rock/proto-metal power trio, The Well has built a growing cult following since its founding in 2012. With doom riffs and key progressions galore, the band set the tone for the evening by kicking out signature tunes such as “Mortal Bones” from the 2014 album Samsara and the aptly named “Sabbath” from 2019’s Death and Consolation.
Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol kept the heaviness going as they took the stage at 6:24 pm. The Austin band’s star has been rising lately, securing an early spot during weekend 2 at the prestigious Austin City Limits Festival just a few weeks before (QRO recap). The shaggy power trio of Leo Lydon on vocals/guitar, Sean St. Germain on drums, and Aaron Metzdorf on bass/backing vocals emerged in a sea of swooshing vertiginous projected lights and had the presence of a band twice their size. The highlight of their set had to be the heavy tune “Body Bag” from this year’s Big Dumb Riffs, when the band was bathed in a flood of blood-colored liquid lights that bubbled and swirled like something you would see when looking at a crimson specimen under a microscope.
The walls of the BBQ venue felt like they were closing in on themselves around the 7 o’clock hour as an estimated crowd of 2,500 began filling up the sold-out show. Nearing 8 pm when the crowd reached peak capacity, doom metal pioneers Pentagram took the stage. The band has had over two dozen members since its early days as an underground metal group in the 1970s, but the constant has been the vocals of sole founding member, Bobby Liebling, who hails from Northern Virginia with a plume of white fright wig-looking hair. Between the 1970s tune “Forever My Queen” and the more recognizable 1980s hit “Sing of The Wolf (Pentagram)”, Liebling recalled the nightmare he had the previous evening that foretold the joint nightmare the United States would wake up to a few days later on November 6th.
As the evening progressed, an obscenely long merch line snaked around the back of the venue and nearly into one of the porta-potties in the far back. After seeing the new Sword screen-printed tees, it was no surprise late arrivals began queueing up immediately for sick 80s-style graphics akin to Conan the Barbarian and similar medieval video game packaging from the era. Again, the celebration of material culture in the form of tees, posters, and vinyl combined with the play between the visuals and music make this a truly unique festival.
Being an Austin-based band performing in front of a sea of diehard fans makes The Sword oddly approachable. For example, lead guitarist Kyle Shutt was spotted casually walking around the crowd before their 9 pm set. This set was the first show that The Sword has played since breaking up in October 2022, explaining the high demand for tickets and tees and they delivered a fiery set. Taking the stage to a recording of the 1976 song “The Boys Are Back In Town” by Thin Lizzy, The Sword, fronted by vocalist and guitarist John D. Cronise, progressed through nearly 20 sludgy metal songs sourced from their vault of seven albums. Anchored by solid doom offerings such as “Freya” from 2006’s Age of Winters and fan-favorite “Cloak of Feathers” off of 2012’s Apocryphon (QRO review), one was hard-pressed to find a person not headbanging or in a power stance playing along via air guitar. The Sword’s set was one for the ages and put a big old fat exclamation point on the festival and weekend. Welcome back, boys!
