Austin Psych Fest Takes Over The Far Out Lounge
Photo by Oscar Moreno
For the past few years, Austin Psych Fest and its sister festival, Levitation, have started to feel a little like a rotating cast of familiar faces: the same legacy psych giants, the same beloved Austin locals, basically the same dependable names circling back every season. That’s not necessarily a complaint. If anything, it’s a testament to how consistently strong the festivals remain. These are bands people genuinely want to see. But somewhere between nostalgia and repetition, I’ve started craving the kind of unpredictability the festival once leaned into that made events like this year’s Halloween Freakend feel genuinely dangerous in the best way.
Still, maybe that’s the tradeoff that comes with longevity. A festival survives by knowing its audience, and Austin Psych Fest knows exactly who shows up every year: crate diggers, aging psych heads, black-clad garage rockers, affluent hippies who spend a lot of money to look poor, curious newcomers, and people chasing some version of transcendence under the Texas heat, both with the assistance of substances and sober. This year’s festival felt repetitive, but still capable of moments that completely cracked the sky open (figuratively and literally).
Instead of trying to flatten the weekend into one singular review, we experienced Austin Psych Fest through three different sets of eyes: Lauren Hernandez on Friday, Alejandra Sol Casas on Saturday, and Oscar Moreno on Sunday.
The Flaming Lips. Photo by Lauren Hernandez
Day One - Lauren:
If you missed the festival, you didn’t miss much—just cryptic messaging, gigantic inflatable robots, otherworldly sounds, confetti stuck in your hair, a record store in a tent, really nice, genuine people…
GUYS, I GOT TO SEE DIIV HAHAHA. They were fucking great. My sister and Cy saw them when I was in Italy and have been talking about the insane experience ever since. And this was a hot, swampy outdoor festival in fucking Austin, but I don’t care!! They were amazing! They were playing music so filled to the brim with emotion that I felt like I’d explode. My arms had goosebumps even though I’m still sticky with sweat. What a thrill…
If you don’t know DIIV, you should. Their fantastic stage presence and sound were accompanied by insane projections. Like The Velvet Underground did, except modern and cryptic, funny and eerie. The best messages I read were: “Alchemy is real,” “Music Works” (a sticker slapped on the bass), “Please come home,” and “See God.” Wow, that’s basically a poem in itself…
I’ll mention Starcleaner Reunion, who played a little set between DIIV and The Flaming Lips. It was cute…
At this point, I am beyond exhaustion. I have only been here for about five hours, but my knees are buckling, and my head is spinning like a globe…
The Flaming Lips were fucking awesome. And I don’t say this mildly. I haven’t listened to them since I was 17, sitting at the corner desk in my agriculture business class. Even then, I thought they were a bit strange and convoluted. But no one can deny that their music is powerful.
The leader of The Flaming Lips’ army, Wayne Coyne, siphoned the crowd’s energy into his jumpy, excited stage presence. Only about six minutes into their set, there were two ginormous inflatable robots filling the entire stage. Smoke poured above the crowd, with three different types of confetti and lasers. It was otherworldly. It was magnificent.
And the guy standing next to me during this first half was fucking hilarious.
Wayne Coyne: “Everyone, Jonathan is here.”
Crowd: “WHOOO AHHHHH!!”
Wayne Coyne: “For those that are unaware, this is Jonathan’s 100th Flaming Lips show.”
Crowd: “AHHH WHOOOO!!”
Guy in the crowd: “Poor guy.”
For the second half of the set, I politely made my way to the barricade. I got to see inflatable lips, eyes, rainbows, and aliens. A prism of projections and lasers artfully cutting through clouds of smoke. I just finished a 400-page book on Pink Floyd, and I’ve never compared a band to them in my life, ’cause that would be insane. But The Flaming Lips’ stage presence can only be compared to Pink Floyd’s.
The inflatables, the LED backdrop, the projections, and the light show—it was all so much. But at a concert, nothing can be too much. So The Flaming Lips kept pulling out prop after prop, stunt after stunt, and I just stood there and watched—completely enamored.
*Click HERE to read Lauren’s full review.
Melody’s Echo Chamber. Photo by Alejandra Sol Casas
Day Two - Alejandra Sol:
Rain halted the fest after only one performance, pausing it for over an hour as attendees were told to seek shelter. The delay ended up cutting out Grocery Bag’s entire set completely.
When things finally resumed, I made it back a few minutes before Ty Segall, who was kicking things off with his usual controlled chaos. Even before officially starting, he was already loosening the room by teasing fragments of songs, slipping into Black Sabbath riffs and even the Peanuts theme, just to mess with expectations. “Guys, this isn’t our set yet,” he laughed. When his set officially started, it was the usual headbanging, but breezy California garage rock. Between songs, he stayed conversational and unbothered, even defending his hand-painted pants after someone shouted they hated them.
From there, Al Qasar expanded the scope internationally, billing themselves as coming from “France, Afghanistan, Brazil, New York, and Compton. They sounded like it, too. Global psych filtered through sitar, reverb, and a double-mic setup, making the vocalist’s voice echo and multiply.
Melody’s Echo Chamber brought the mood inward again with her dreamy, polished psychedelic and Mad Alchemy’s liquid light projections washing over her. She played all her bangers. Before “Childhood Dream,” she asked the crowd to close their eyes and recall a childhood memory, briefly shifting the field into something intimate and still, though not everyone complied. “I don’t want to close my eyes. I came here to see you!” one person shouted. Rude, but same.
The night closed with The Black Angels performing the entirety of their debut album, Passover, released in 2006 to celebrate their 20th anniversary. The ritualistic droning guitars, militaristic rhythms, and apocalyptic haze still sounded massive nearly two decades later. The lighting alone was probably the strongest of the weekend. Stark white strobes, silhouettes swallowed by smoke. Visually and audibly, this set was just pure sensory overload.
Thee Sacred Souls. Photo by Oscar Moreno
Day Three - Oscar:
My day started with catching the tail end of Night Beats. Earlier that day, the festival announced that, due to a massive thunderstorm creeping in during the late hours of the night, the festival would be staggered, with no breaks between stages, and would conclude at 9 p.m. instead of 10, as originally listed in the flyer. It did not stop the mood as Italian psych-pop quartet Dumbo Gets Mad continued on the small stage. Their immersive grooves and synth-laden beats had everyone groovin’ and movin’ as if they were priming the crowd for the incoming cumbiazos from LA LOM.
Disappointingly, though, there were no cumbia circles, but everyone still enjoyed the trio’s way of executing classic cumbias drenched in reverb that made the humidity and looming breeze a perfect substrate to move your body to. Classics like “Juana La Cubana” and “El Cascabel” set a nostalgic tone, while their originals, like “La Danza de LA LOM” and “Figueroa,” brought us back to earth. They ended the night with a Los Mirlos tribute, honoring the godfathers of chicha.
Sultry songstress Trish Toledo kept the vibes going as her Chicano soul-inspired set captivated the crowd while couples danced to “Do You Love” and "Somebody Please”.
Thee Sacred Souls concluded the festival. Flanked by a brass section and backup singers, they played banger after banger, pulling at heartstrings at every turn. The crowd sang to every lyric of “Easier said than done,” “Will I see You Again,” and “Weak for your love” as Josh eventually got close and personal with the crowd, stepping offstage. They ended their set with “Can I Call You Rose?” as the clouds overcast the grounds.
