I found myself in Austin last weekend because, primarily, I have absolutely zero impulse control and several months ago I had the quiet comfort of being in a well-paying summer job. Within 20 minutes of receiving a text back in August from Rukma Sen, a fellow Stanford Arts Review contributor (and recent Stanford grad), I had my plane tickets booked and two passes for the Austin City Limits (ACL) music festival.

Out of some frugality but mostly an aversion to being immersed in crowds, we decided to attend just one of the days during Weekend 2, October 9 through 11. The choice of when to go was made simple because of our shared politics. With Florence + the Machine headlining Sunday, our belief in #femmesupremacy dictated our choice and so the stage was set: I would be going halfway across the country to one of the premiere music festivals in the nation in the middle of a giant park in which I fully anticipated melting or being crushed by crowds. This is the story of that day, a story of red leather, unmoving lovelorn ballads, and a thinly-veiled but much needed collective exorcism.

Beer in a Shaded Utopia

After trekking for 0.9 miles on a dusty path from our Uber (this indoor queer and city girl most definitely fact-checked this injustice on Google Maps) we immediately went to buy beers and plopped ourselves in a makeshift sanctuary in the shade cast by a nearby group of dancing women. We huddled together, sipping our booze and swaying side to side — sort of to the beat but mostly to remain completely in their moving shadows. After all, it was 96 degrees and I did not fly to Austin to just immediately pass out.

In her ideal world, Rukma would arrive for Florence and the Machine and then leave. But because we spent money, we decided to come early in the day to see Sylvan Esso, a band that I couldn’t describe to her then and can still hardly now.

The best I can offer is a vignette: the first time I heard this music I was chewing my gum obnoxiously and feigning disinterest while secretly side-eyeing guys across the dance floor. It’s the sort of music that fits that mood, and even in the relatively unqueer Austin in the middle of the day, the music held onto that detached, playful tone.

Despite it being the hottest time of day, people were on their feet dancing and screaming, with the crowd spilling out all the way to the entrance. Admittedly, from our makeshift nest atop the zig-zagged black and white table cloth, we saw little of their stage antics firsthand. But when we caught glimpses of the large screens, we saw lead singer Amelia Meath, adorned in all-black, hopping across the stage.

The palpable excitement about this performance proved that Sylvan Esso is definitely suited for larger venues and more prestigious time slots in the years to come—ideally in someplace with AC. After all, no one should have to endure grueling midday sun while listening to songs like “Dress,” a catchy earworm that could even spur two beer-sipping curmudgeons to their feet in the sweltering heat.

Alex in Wonderland

Because it’s the baby-hipster city of Austin, Texas, of course there was an art market in the middle of the park. Featuring local artists and artisans, it was the kind of place that ultimately met all of our needs, especially those we didn’t even know we had.

After all, there was a stand that exclusively sold Texas-style cowboy hats for those few festival goers that didn’t yet own a Texas-style cowboy hat (Rukma, despite my pleading, unfortunately still does not have a Texas-style cowboy hat of her own). This happened to be near a chic, all-leather jewelry stand, perfect for your average queer man attempting to commemorate a recent trip to Folsom Street Fair and match his purple lipstick. Like I said, all sorts of normative needs.

Oh, and there was a general store which sold criminally-expensive $8 bottles of sunscreen. Truly, there was everything our sunburnt bodies needed. Thank you, ACL.

And then we were in a tent????

The tent may have been a mirage, but we still walked to it seeking a respite from the heat (this was before we decided to buy the expensive sunscreen). We were not the only ones who had this idea, since the large space was filled with a sea of raised, wristband adorned arms.

But this DJ duo that happened to be there — Classixx from Los Angeles — deserved the crowds, although admittedly we didn’t learn their names until I sat down to write this article. Whenever I hear music like this or this or this, I can’t help but think that my dad would have loved these guys. (This, by the way, is a huge compliment since he frequents San Francisco clubs and lounges significantly more than I do.) For a more local comparison, this show was what EBF tries to be.

They remixed mostly obscure songs and performed some originals, showcasing a mastery over a wide range of tempos. When we entered, the masses were mostly swaying, but over the course of a few songs, the music built the crowd up to head banging. Their control over an audience unfamiliar with most of their songs was stunning.

With each pressed button, the DJs threw down their arms, putting their whole bodies into the production of music. These kind of stage antics are something we’ve come to expect from singers, but are such a treat in the DJ world. Head-banging, sure, but their complete surrender to their own music — which they so clearly delight in producing and, more importantly, enjoy listening to themselves — is atypical.

One had the sense that if they were not confined to the stage because of their equipment, they’d be those guys at the end of a near-empty house party swinging their limbs across the entirety of the dance floor. The crowd’s dancing was only a hollow echo of what the two men on stage were doing, and we were lucky to feel even a fraction of that spark.

Whispers in a crowd

Iceland is basically known for its volcanoes, its magical fairies, and for producing insane musical talent like Björk, Sigur Rós, and Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, the lead singer for Of Monsters and Men. Being a woman singer with a slightly craggy voice from the tiny island nation home to Björk (who recently just had an entire MoMa exhibition about her) results in constant comparisons, I’m sure, so I’ll spare further elaboration on another set of stunning Icelandic vocal chords.

But this particular show? That’s worth elaborating on. Using her voice that can belt across the stadium, Hilmarsdóttir’s performance commanded everyone’s attention, but the delight of her vocals truly emerges when she is paired with her co-singer Ragnar Þórhallsson. The two often alternate lyrics, setting their voices in rhythmic conversation, but then sometimes he quietly underscores her words with his own faint singing, like a ghost tacked onto her words.

While they occasionally enter that “big concert” range of sound — they are playing in a giant venue like Zilker Park, after all — their greatest feat is that the impression of their performance that you’re ultimately left with is of two kids whispering anxieties to each other in unconfident voices, talking about creaky houses or pet dragonflies or whatever other fantastical memories we all once held as children. And after their set, you want to go back there.

The Romantic Shaggy Dog

When people ask me who Hozier is, my go to answers are either just the word “scraggly” or, for the post-verbal among you, a quick Google search of an Irish Wolfhound (Sirius Black’s animagus).

Though the similarities to this downtrodden dog are aesthetically accurate, I don’t mean to trivialize his artistry. This man wields a voice that finds its way into whatever cracks your heart brings to the concert. In his intimate ode, “To be Alone,” each reverberation of his voice feels as spindly and frail as the twisted roots of ancient trees. His voice captivates the crowd as he grabs onto us for whatever sustenance he needs, for whatever audiences do for musicians, for whatever feels good.

He does not try to universalize the intimate stories his songs tell, narrating encounters with cryptic snippets of pasts real and imagined. Yet he is undoubtedly understood by audiences who are compelled to feel and emote with him as his voice fills venues, parks, and souls.

To my empathetic ears, Hozier is capable of making me cry from just a few words, yet Rukma could only remark, “I feel like ballads are designed to make you have feelings, but I just don’t.” Yet even our very own grinch acquiesced to the power of his words, admitting later, “Okay. Hozier is pretty fucking good.”

And even as we moved further from his stage (to get as close as possible to where Florence would perform), his voice trailed after us as if haunting the stadium. In a way, I guess, that’s exactly what Hozier does.

And then: my Rebirth happened

Dressed in a burnt orange blouse, a white vest, and white pants, Florence fit right into my image of Texas, emblazoned as it is with televangelists and Longhorn gear (which is literally everywhere in Austin and absolutely hideous on any skin tone darker than pale-as-snow).

Fortunately, Florence’s vaguely earth-goddess red hair and distant ethereal voice immediately created a weird preacher-cult aesthetic that transcended something as common as a college fandom. She was above it all as she floated on that stage.

When she commanded us to raise our voices, I felt compelled to raise my spirit as well, to transcend the moment because concert experiences do not only begin when you pass through the gates. It can be said that, for me, this particular concert experience started a year-to-the day before. After all, I had been reminded by Facebook earlier that morning that it was exactly a year ago today that I met my last serious (and now ex-) boyfriend. But I was here now, and I was here to let it out, to remember and to forget all at once.

With this in mind, as I watched her arms smoothly flow up and out and her entire form spin in tiny pirouettes, I thought about my past year of joy and hate and pain and recovery. Sometimes, like earlier in that morning, I still felt some pain. But Florence was here now, and when she told us to shake out our devils, I did just that. My year of hurt remained but, for once, it felt like it was squarely in the past — like a lesson learned, not a lesion lingering around.

Florence Welch possesses a voice that has the power to expel all the bad out of the world and can literally sing the moon into existence (at least on one occasion on this particularly excellent stage). Matching the fantasy of her lyrics, her backdrop divided itself midway through the concert to reveal a large, circular screen. In some songs, it burned red — which, quite frankly, made me want to consult Revelation for signs of end times — but over the course of “Dog Days are Over,” a digital moon appeared on the screen. After Florence’s assurances that the darkness was past, the moon revealed herself to us, rejoicing along with Florence, the crowd, and this here humble, recently-exorcised writer. We were all there in that moment together.

In addition to reeling in the occasional cosmic body, Florence’s voice also conjured up femme heroines on that stage. After “What the Water Gave Me,” for example, both Virginia Woolf and Frida Kahlo were as tangible to me as anyone dancing in this stadium. I knew of their work, so in a way, these lyrical allusions to Woolf and Kahlo made them more real and lifelike than this anonymous mass of bodies. For a moment, I walked alongside Clarissa on her way to the florist and I sat by an injured Frida painting to regain her strength. In that one moment, my idols and heroines were with me, with us.

To be frank — and you, the reader, may have already picked up on this — it felt at times as if we were in a trance. We were told to hop, so we did; we were told to take off our clothes, so we did (though few stripped to their nude bras and jumped into the crowds like our most-enthusiastic Reverend Florence herself did). She wanted us to climb onto one another. She wanted us in the sky: free, powerful, and beautiful. If only for the briefest of moments, the crowd en masse flew with her.

And then came the last song, no different in intensity than the rest — just as stunningly lighted, just as boldly sung — which inevitably faded into the slow murmur of a crowd begrudgingly finding its way home. Though we walked out of the park for the last time this festival, I simultaneously felt that I am still, in some small way, floating above, suspended in midair.

This lightness of being I hope is permanent. Even on campus today, I still carry the beat of Sylvan Esso in my footsteps. I still feel with Hozier. I still wear my red-leather, art market bracelet wherever I go. And now, it seems, I finally understand the quiet language of love, the same language I heard blasted in ballads on that day in Austin and that today I hear whispered among the wind and palm trees of California.

Concerts are more than just music. Austin City Limits was a gathering, a happening, a weird concoction that takes form at some level above mere bodies in a park. Where this magic emerges from, I do not know—and yet, as every performer, stage manager, audience member and, hell, the entire city of Austin can attest to, something special transpired this weekend. For me, it was more than live music. Perhaps, for me at least, my devils were shaken off that day.

Alex Zivkovic ('17, Art History/CSRE) has escaped from Orange County and all that this former life entailed. When he's not staring at art, he's probably writing poetry/essays/manifestos about art. Or, ya know, mobilizing his queer agenda and thinking 'bout balkan diasporas inside his palace of books.