I’m sitting here with Texas’ infamous would-be ban on “sexually explicit performances” in front of me — the law so ridiculously bad that the latest judicial update is that an octogenarian, Reagan-appointed federal judge struck it down — just to see if Tove Lo technically would have violated it with her fantastically on-point Day 2 performance at ACL. Sad, really, that that was one of my first thoughts after taking in the second half of her show, especially because it was quite tame by any reasonable modern standard. But here we are; this is Texas in 2023, chasing a puritanism that harks back to “the devil’s music” corrupting America’s youth, and shutting down Elvis’ abominable hip gyrations.
Without analyzing the gory, eye-rolling details of what started as “the anti-drag bill” and became broader as lawmakers tried to make it look a little less discriminatory, my verdict is: no, Tove Lo probably didn’t run afoul of it. At least not in the half I managed to see. But with the ever-present sexuality that underpins her top-shelf dance pop and the presence she has crafted therein, Tove Lo did manage to low-key demonstrate the folly of what lawmakers did earlier this year.
The songs were exquisite, beaty bangers — no surprise, since Lo (real name Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson) has been one of the best in her genre for the past decade or so. Her command of high-toned melody was ever-present on standouts like “Suburbia,” “No One Dies From Love” and, of course, the song that she said “changed my life,” the soaringly glum anthem “Habits (Stay High).” The dancing — the kind even GOP lawmakers wouldn’t have a problem with — was skilled, effortless.
But it was the tight, revealing outfit and the more suggestive of her moves — things that are eminently part of the Tove Lo brand — that made me smirk as I wondered about the aforementioned, on-hold law. The law’s teeth, most intentionally, comes not from clarity of policy vision, but from fear. Namely, the fear of club owners and, I guess, festival organizers who would be criminally liable for putting on these “sexually explicit” performances in front of anyone younger than 18.
But true, equal application of this law as written is a laugh, something that Tove Lo approached exposing on Friday. Faced with Tove’s thong worn beneath transparent fishnets, and some of the most expert booty-shaking and undulating an ACL crowd will witness, what could possibly be done to ACL? What if her set had unequivocally violated the law — say by incorporating, ahem, “a device designed and marketed as useful primarily for the sexual stimulation of male and female genitals”? Good luck ruining ACL with that $10,000 fine. The idea of convicting Tove Lo herself with the law’s potential penalty — one year in prison and a $4,000 fine — is also a laugh, one that, again, raises the specter of the obscenity charges some rock performers faced in the ’50s.
SB 12 — in both its intent and its execution — is bigoted and absurd. The indecency laws as we know them were fine as is. Even short of what would have violated this so-far-stopped piece of legislative diarrhea, Tove Lo deserves kudos for being her authentic performing self in front of thousands.
Some other notes from Day 2:
Much of my Foo Fighters analysis, and likely that for Tegan and Sara (top photo), will have to wait until my festival overview later on. But for these two performers who have been bucket-list shows for me for a long spell, the equivalent of “meeting your heroes” (loosely speaking; I didn’t meet them in person) worked out just fine. Dave Grohl’s borderline-insane, Sam Kinisonian intensity in the set’s opening 20 minutes or so really makes you wonder if the Foos can sustain it — and if they do, will it be too much? But Grohl eventually, beneficially dialed it back a little, and some shrewd pacing (largely involving small bursts of fucking around) helped not wear them out. Grohl and his band are indeed one of rock ‘n’ roll’s treasures, packing their set with every wall-rattling hit you’d want to hear.
T&S lived up to expectations, despite what was decidedly a rough hour for Sara Quin. For about half the set, she gestured and conversed with a sound engineer to stage right, seemingly unable to hear Tegan. At one point, a rather massive-looking dragonfly — no joke, this thing looked like a bat — flew at Sara’s face. “Speak Slow” — for one song that should’ve been a highlight that wasn’t — sounded out of sync, to the point where the opening verse was almost unrecognizable. But overall, the Canadian twins and their band sounded more than good, giving fans excellent-sounding versions of the likes of “Back in Your Head,” “Where Does the Good Go?” and “Closer.”