“I guess they gave the hottest time slot to the hottest chicks here,” Jordan Miller, lead vocalist and bassist for the Beaches, told their 3:20 crowd in the middle of yet another scorcher at ACL Weekend 2 on Saturday. To which her sister, guitarist Kylie Miller, followed the obligatory “wooos” from the crowd by wryly noting to Jordan, “You said that last week, and it hits just as hard.”
It was another reminder that at Weekend 2, you might be seeing not just the same setlist everyone saw a week ago, but the same stage jokes and roughly the same banter. Nonetheless, the Beaches made a rousing case Saturday that two weekends of them in Austin are more than warranted: The more people see these resolutely rocking Canadians do their thing live, the better the world is for it.
For their allotted hour, it was nothing but remarkably tight, uncontainable, straight-ahead rock from the quartet, who have been piling up the hits in the Great White North since 2017 and broke through in the U.S. last year with “Blame Brett.” Humor, nods to ACL’s improvement in LGBTQ+ artist representation, and — above all — relentless energy were all major parts of their set. Tuneful rockers abounded, including “Edge of the Earth,” “Grow Up Tomorrow” and new single “Jocelyn,” many focusing on the trials of relationships with fury, warnings and finger-pointing, including finger-pointing at oneself. They emerged as a top-tier highlight from Saturday, an expert and passionate exponent of tried-and-true rock stagecraft.
Being Dead: Alive, trippy and rolling
How much is a fresh Best New Music review at Pitchfork worth when it comes to drawing an enhanced crowd at ACL? As in, the actual quantity: How many curious spectators and brand new fans?
It’s unknowable, probably — yet it was on my sabermetric/analytic-steeped mind when I arrived to see locals Being Dead for their 12:05 Day 2 set on Saturday. The modern, Conde Nast-owned Pitchfork isn’t the massive eyeball-grabber it once was, and its merger with GQ announced this year even raised questions about its existential future. But for a young band, a BNM accolade still is something you’d rather have in hand than not.
As it was, Being Dead’s freaky and retro psych-rock drew a typical mass of humanity (read: modest) for a noon ACL set. Counting people sitting back in the shade along the outside wall of the IHG stage, the crowd probably was about the same as the temperature, maybe a little higher. Those who didn’t show, though, missed out.
Backed by the kind of trippy visuals that their out-there, hard-hitting lava lamp garage basically demands, Being Dead rocked weird and, commensurately, were a little weird. Before they’d played a note, Cody Dosier — who’s known professionally as either Gumball or Schmoofy, and trades lead vocals, guitar and drum duties with Juli “Falcon Bitch” Keller — kicked things off by thanking Miller Lite for their ACL sponsorship. Then he came back repeatedly to the same tongue-jammed-in-cheek shoutout to the corporate overlord: “If you’re not drinking Miller,” he announced at one point early on, “you can go to another fucking stage.”
Falcon Bitch, meanwhile, is given to the kind of off-center show of crowd appreciation that goes, “Y’all the real ones, though. Y’all the real ones. Go forth with that knowledge. Everyone else here is a bot.” Together with bassist Ricky Motto (real name Nicole Roman-Johnston), they were a charging freak-psych force recalling the entire lineage of everyone between the 13th Floor Elevators and the Black Angels. Highlights included the heavily distorted “Firefighters,” viciously picked by Schmoofy, and the double-lead-vocal action on the freak-rock/sunny-’60s-pop meld of “Van Goes.”
Other notes from Saturday
- Jungle in the early evening >>> Jungle in the afternoon. More will be said on the British groove machine (top photo) in my overall festival recap later this week, but their excellent 2018 set was easily eclipsed by Saturday’s 6:10 show, which began at dusk and gave way to night. The lights and video augmentation that the (onstage) octet’s disco and funk assault basically needs for full effect were present, and the result was fairly incredible.
- On the same stage right before Jungle, Remi Wolf’s pastel alt-funk/soul may have provided a sneak preview of tonight’s highly anticipated, likely over-attended Chappell Roan extravaganza. I mean that not so much in terms of musical similarity, but in terms of a massive crowd — dominated overwhelmingly by female voices — singing along with a relatable heroine who doesn’t fit into the traditional image boundaries of pop superstardom. “Bouncy” might be the most used (and appropriate) term to describe Remi’s alt-bubble gum sound, and bounce all over the stage she did. She’s an expressive performer who dances like no one’s watching, and she showed why she’s easy to like all the way around.
- Hat tip to the performing savvy of Dua Lipa for not only acknowledging the Red River Shootout (won by Texas in a 34-3 blowout) during her headlining set, but donning a #1 UT jersey and then wearing it while performing “Be the One.” (Being a Kansas City Chiefs fan, I was about to be impressed if it said “Worthy” on the back, but naturally, the name was “Lipa.”) Was the choice to wear the #1 jersey during “Be the One” a conscious bit of clever symmetry? I’m going to guess yes. Either way, Dua knows how to play to her audience.