Eric Webb|Austin 360
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Around this time of year, you usually can find me making a banquet out of Oreosin the newsroom,keeping my shoulders hunchedto high heavenand muttering to anyone unlucky enough to know me:“It’s just too much.”
Well, I haven't been in the newsroom in a while, and no one would ever say there's been "too much" going on in the live entertainment scene lately.
The pandemic stopped timeforourentertainment scene, and alongtime has passedsince we’ve had a truly proper festival seasonin Austin.All of a sudden now, evenif thingsstill don’t feel liketheyused to,and the better of us are trying to figure out how to keep each other safe,it’s come racing back.Apretty spectacular whiplash, if you ask me.
And I know we like to complain — it’s an Austinite’s favoriteleisure activity.Ina city that can’t stop giving itself population transfusions, traffic quagmires andskyline facelifts, though?
The festivals are good.
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By the time you read this,Austin City Limits Music Festival will have returned, Oct. 1-3 and 8-10, sandwiched between a cannonball run of the city’sresurgentcultural events.We always joke about there being too many festivals in Austin. Hardyharharto you, said the fall when a year and a half of pandemic-delayedparties rushed to return.
AGLIFF, theannualqueer film festival,kindakicked us off in August. With vaccines in arms, organizers had planned a grand return to gay parties and in-person cinema. Then the delta variant of the coronavirus— coupled with self-sabotaging public health restrictions fromthe stateandthe sins ofmisinformation,to say it plain—caused a surge, andaGLIFFscaled backagain.
But they still brought drag queens to a drive-in movie, so, all things are relative.
MoontowerComedy Festival — normally in the spring — squeezed into September. As has becomethe norm,the fest required attendees show either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 testresult. I won’t lie: Squeezing next to other comedy fans in the tight (but historic!) Paramount Theatre made me a little nervous, ifjustfrom being out of practice.
Still, there’s just something about the laughter of hundreds echoing off the walls in the same room where Harry Houdini once performed thatbeats watching stand-up on Zoom.
On Sept. 24, comedy icon Margaret Cho had us foldedoverin our seatsat the Paramount.Cho’ssurprise guest,Jonathan Van Ness (her longtime hair stylistand current Austin resident,while the new season of Netflix’s “Queer Eye” films here), really made the room pulse. Nothing like a goodol’ fashionedcelebrity surprise to make you glad you live in this city.
Bob the Drag Queen followed up Cho with afree-wheelingmidnight set, andJacqueline Novak’skinetic, poetic“GetOnYour Knees” showmade us all scream atthe Stateside Theatre the next night.
Moontoweroverlappedwith Alamo Drafthouse’s celebration of genre flicks, Fantastic Fest.Virtual film festivals are great, but you usually don’t get Palme d’Or winners from Cannes that way, like “Titane,” which made its U.S. premiere opening the feston Sept. 23.
Filmmaker JuliaDucournautold the Austin festival crowd how glad she was to show “Titane” in theaters, saying it was “good to start this machine again, together.”Then, she proceeded to show us a twisted slasher-thriller where a lady has sexual relations with a car. Truly, there is nothing likethat festival.
I had to jet from a Sept. 25 screening of A24 fantasy “Lamb” before the Q&A in order to get to Novak’sMoontowershow. I squeezed pastactressNoomi Rapace, on her way to the mic,as I snuck throughthe dark, dim hallway of the Drafthouse theater. You didn’t find yourself in many confined spaceswith international movie starsin 2020, unless you were married to one.
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Now, the two weekends of ACL Fest are taking up their usual first half of October, unless something has gone awry since this writing.As it approaches,I’ve been thinking about the big memoriesthat living in Austin, the festival capital of the world, has blessed me with.
There was the one time that I was walking with my friend and colleague, Sharon Chapman,andweweretalking about how hotthe Irish singer-songwriterHozier is, whenwelooked up andrealized we wereactuallywalking next toall 6 feet, 5 inches ofHozier.
There was the year thatZilker Park became the People’s Republic of Lizzo, and I sawSwedish iconRobyn perform what I remember as feeling more like church than church ever had.
And how could I forget when I used a urinal next toindie-pop singerBorns.
We get to breathe for a hot autumn minute before Austin Film Festival and Texas Book Festival do their usual one-two step later in the month. Sprinkled here and there:Austin Food + Wine Festival, rock crawl Levitation, and sure, the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix out at the racetrack, if you want to count it. (Billy Joel will be there, so why not.)
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We’re all holding our breath for next year, I think. South by Southwest, whose name will unfortunately always be tied to the Beginning of All This, plans to make a physical return next year, after two years ofmore muted digital programming. AndMoontowerjust announcedit’sback on for April, this time partnering with international comedy force JustForLaughs and rebranding asMoontowerJustForLaughs Austin.
I hope that you don’t get the impression that these festivals, and their return,are only as special as a star sightingor two.It’s no secret that I place an unholy amount of importance on pop culture; just look at how I get my W2 every year.
I do truly believe that all manner of arts and cultural expressionhelp me become a better person, and more of myself– movies on the big screen, songs streaming out of speakers,anyone performing a little piece of themselves on a stage while people shut up for a minute and have honest reactions to what they witness, perhaps lubricated by an expensive plastic cup of wine.
And these big, huge, sprawling, money-bloated festivals are, whether you like the idea or not, just signposts of living in Austin.There are big parties thrown around the city every year,invitingsome of the most exciting artists in the world, and they happen in our home. How could you not mark your life by the wild, the weird and the wonderful times that allowsyou to experience?
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To be sure, they’re also signs of immense privilege.The more accessibletheir programming isto the city’s residents, the better.Especially for a monolith like ACL Fest, which takes over public park land, it would be nice to see more waysforthe public to tap into the magic without shelling out exorbitant sums.
Life is short, and it’s hard, and it’s often quite sad.Two hours in front of your favorite musician, screaming the words in sweaty stereo, is nothing short ofthedivine in the world.And to think, you live in the precise moment in human history, and in the precise place, where that’s infinitely possible. This is all just a call for appreciation.
Of courseit’s too much. But what, you wanted not enough?
