Thursday was the first night of the festival, and the Empire Garage was packed. The crowd’s excitement was palpable. Spirit of the Beehive brought an energy-filled set that offered feelings of familiarity. It’s hard to describe… At different times, their sound was both intense and dreamy.
The night also brought Duster’s first-ever show in Texas, and the crowd was 100% there for it! Their sound offered an all-encompassing feeling with their wonderful layers of sound. You can tell these are seasoned musicians just effortlessly in sync with each other. It was incredible to witness their musicianship along with the excited energy of the crowd; it all felt very special.
Friday brought a lineup of different kinds of metal at one of my favorite bars on Red River: Valhalla.
As someone who primarily listens to metalcore (out of all the subgenres within metal) and hasn’t listened to much death metal, I was so impressed by how great the band Death File Red sounded. I was also impressed at how young the band seemed and just how cohesive their sound was! I enjoyed their performance, and they really set the stage for the following bands on the bill.
Noisy Neighbors, a grindcore band hailing from San Antonio, were especially exciting to see, since San Antonio has a much bigger hardcore and metal scene, so it was refreshing to see them on a stacked bill like this in Austin. They really made an effort to connect with the crowd, and it was this band that got the mosh pit started; the crowd was hyped to see them.
Trench Warfare from Midland brought the aggression of a black metal set and an even bigger mosh pit. They seemed to have many fans in the crowd and really set up the crowd for the headliners Cloak, who are fresh off their May album release Black Flame Eternal. They really commanded the room, and their set felt entirely too short, but their performance really ended the night on a high note.
Sunday was the sold-out day show for the last day of Oblivion Access at my favorite music venue in town, Mohawk.
I made it in time to catch Restraining Order, who are so catchy, and you could tell that every single member was thoroughly enjoying performing. Every member had a smile on their face during their set, and they were probably the happiest and most positive hardcore band I’ve seen perform in a while.
Next up were Gel, and they really got the pit going! The crowd went hard in the pit for their set.
After Gel were Magnitude, and their energy was enthralling. They had so many fans take the stage and the microphone, which was so fun to see especially at a show of this size
Second-to-last were Drug Church, and honestly, the band I was most excited to see at the festival. I’ve been a fan for several years and have only seen them a couple of other times at smaller shows. The energy of the band and the crowd was amazing and arguably the most excited I’d seen so far that day for a band. The vocalist really took his time to connect with the crowd and made sure everyone was looking out for each other.
Finally were Drain, and it was pretty clear that this was the band most people had showed up for. As soon as Drain were set to take the stage, it seemed like the crowd swelled and got even more packed than when Drug Church played. The energy as soon as Drain started playing was absolutely chaotic, with fans attempting to climb the speakers and jumping from the upper level of the venue. In a very sweet moment, the vocalist of Drain invited a couple of fans on the stage, saying they’d never done something like this before… which turned into a surprise proposal. The answer, was of course, yes! The newly engaged couple then crowd surfed off the stage, all the way to the back of the crowd.
Oblivion Access truly was one for the books, and I’m excited that I got to be a part of capturing it!
