Bob Dylan & Vampire Weekend in Austin, April 2024

Alex and I have a history of traveling long distances for concerts, and for eclipses.

In 2024, we decided: why not both?

Going to Texas for the 2024 total solar eclipse had been a possibility ever since we saw the 2017 eclipse in Oregon, part of a larger National Parks trip that really hammered home what a crazy cool planet we live on. After that, we immediately started looking at destinations for the next total solar eclipse, telling ourselves we'd book our travel years in advance.

[Then we distracted ourselves by getting married and a global pandemic happened and travel wasn't really on the table for a long time AAAAND by the time we remembered we wanted to go to this year's eclipse, it was February 2024 and flights and hotels for most major cities along the path of totality had gotten ridiculously expensive. But did that stop us? NO!]

You might think we ended up going to Austin because it's the coolest (and least right-wing) city in Texas, prides itself on being weird, has bats, etc. You'd be right about all that, but mostly it was because right around the time we were trying to figure out our eclipse destination, 2 things happened: 1) Vampire Weekend announced a special record release + eclipse show at Moody Amphitheater, and 2) we went to see a fabulously curated clipshow of Bob Dylan performances, leading me to look up Dylan tour dates as soon as I got home, and realizing that the culmination of his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour was in Austin, April 5 and 6—the weekend before the eclipse.

So it all came together quickly: the frantic ticket-buying in the following weeks as each show went on sale (the Vampire Weekend show sold out almost immediately and we were forced to buy lawn tickets at a 500% markup...which Ticketmaster facilitated right on their website....thanks, I guess?), the equally stressful flight and hotel booking (turns out everyone else in the US was also traveling to Austin, who would've thought??), the arrangements to drive down to Vista and leave Coop with my parents while we embarked once again on an eclipse trip. It was all much more expensive than if we'd planned everything years ago as intended, but then again, we almost certainly wouldn't have gotten the location/timing right to be able to see both concerts, so I feel strangely glad we put it off until the last few weeks.

Bob Dylan @ Moody Theater, 4.6.24

We saw the second of Bob Dylan's two Austin shows at the lovely Moody Theater in downtown Austin, and from the second row, no less!

Last time we saw Bob was at the Greek, Berkeley 2016. That was during his crooner phase, in which he played mostly old standards, songs from 2012's Tempest, and the occasional revamped Dylan classic. (That set, FAMOUSLY, he ended with the outro to "Freebird", which was so completely out of left field that sometimes I think I dreamed it.)

The Berkeley show was a great vibe, but I can't say I was blown away. I knew enough about Bob's live shows to know he just does what he wants, doesn't expend extra energy trying to engage with the crowd, and on any given night you might catch him in a good (and articulate!) mood, or a prickly, grumbly, incomprehensible mood. So that prepared me for the Austin show...even though I'd been hearing chatter on r/bobdylan that this recent leg of his Never Ending Tour was a real treat, I tried not to get my hopes up too high.

The first unexpected delight: even though we didn't arrive super early (about half an hour before doors opened), we easily got a spot right up front on the floor, about 10 feet away from Bob's piano! We'd originally debated getting balcony seats because we're old now, but in retrospect I'm so glad we got GA instead!

We had about an hour and a half to kill before the show started, so grabbed some beers and chatted with a friendly older Austin couple in the front row. (Because Bob is strictly anti-camera at his shows, everyone was required to lock up their phones beforehand—it would've felt like a real throwback to pre-smartphone concert-going if everyone didn't have these bulky Yondr pouches sticking out of their pockets.) "Are you familiar with his Rough and Rowdy Ways album?" one of the older Bob fans asked me. I admitted I wasn't too familiar; I'd listened to it when it came out in 2020 and that's about it. "Well, you'll hear pretty much the whole thing tonight," he said, followed by a sincerely enthusiastic review of the previous night's show, which they'd also attended.

The man wasn't wrong. Half of the show consisted of RARW songs, as visualized by setlist.fm.

Of these, my favorites were "I Contain Multitudes" (in my heavy rotation during the height of the pandemic), the bluesy "False Prophet" (it was a very blues-forward show! see note about JIMMIE VAUGHAN below), and the surprisingly touching "I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You".

Another unexpected delight: I was, quite honestly, blown away by how good Bob's voice sounded, and (get ready for it) how HAPPY he was. Was really not expecting either, and felt like we got a really special show. It's easy to think that a guy like Bob Dylan might phone it in after 60+ years of performing (and to be fair, I do think he does this a lot), but then you see him smiling when he reaches a chorus, or beaming after a particularly nice guitar lick and realize he must still be doing this, to some extent, simply because he loves the music. It was such a treat to see up close!

Other notables:

Bob played piano the whole time, occasionally standing (showing off his sparkly country jacket) and every once in a while busting out the harmonica to everybody's delight. There was a lonely microphone up front that we thought might be there for an encore, but it went unused. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Bob's piano was mixed pretty high, which I'm sure was intentional, and he played it with abandon!
"When I Paint My Masterpiece" - I think I like the jazzy Latin remix better than the original??
"Every Grain of Sand" - I latched on to this song in high school for some reason, and was delighted to hear it at the end of the set. It was a beautiful rendition, and I think his voice now is even better suited to sing it.
Special guest Jimmie Vaughan! Maybe 30 minutes into the set, Bob announced a special guest for the evening, Austin blues guitarist (and brother of Stevie Ray), Jimmie Vaughan. Jimmie blasted through some bluesy tunes, hung out in a background during "Key West" then came out again for pretty much the rest of the show. It seemed like he was learning a lot of the songs on the spot; I wouldn't be surprised if Bob called him up earlier that day asking if he wanted to join him for a "couple" of tunes. 😄

Reading some other fan reviews of the show, it does seem like Jimmie's extended guest spot was unexpected, and that maybe guitarist Doug Lancio had gotten on Bob's bad side and was literally being replaced at a live show, lol. I have no idea what was going on re: lead guitar, but I personally wasn't distracted by it and enjoyed the interactions between Bob and Tony (bassist) and Jimmie, even if it was all pretty ad-hoc.

The show ended rather abruptly ("encores are for losers" - Bob Dylan, probably) but I left that night significantly more fulfilled than the Berkeley Freebird show. Being so close to the stage makes a difference, I'm sure. Even if we hadn't been up front, though, I think the intimacy of the venue would've made Bob's genuine happiness apparent from any seat at the Moody. Just like the fans said, it's a good year to see Dylan, and I'm so glad we did!!

Interlude: Here are some other things we did in Austin, when not at these shows:

Visited the Texas State Capitol, where I went on a personal scavenger hunt to find as many lone stars in the architecture as possible
Went to our favorite brewery from our last trip, Blue Owl Brewing (East Austin is totally where we'd live if we were Austinites)
Cruised around various parks and waterfronts on e-scooters
Hung out with the resident cats at The Butterfly Bar and Patrizi's 😍
Bought goth soap and a vial of glittery tea at The Velvet Casket, then walked through a cemetery along I-35 highway
Ate BBQ at Cooper's and fried chicken at Gus's
Waited for bats at dusk; saw a few bats

Vampire Weekend @ Moody Amphitheater, 4.8.24

Note on the venue names: Austin loves its Moodys. Or should I say, the Moodys love Austin? We've already crossed Moody Theater and Moody Amphitheater off our list, not sure if we'll ever make it to Moody Center but you never know!

Maybe I'm still coming down from the high of hearing amazing new music from one of my favorite bands while witnessing a celestial event that won't happen in that particular part of the world for another 300 years, but I'm just going to say it now: this was the best concert of my life so far. We'd seen Ezra & Co. once before at Outside Lands, but this was my first dedicated Vampire Weekend concert—where the crowd skewed very Millennial and seemingly every other person wore a t-shirt with text in all caps Futura Bold.

First, the non-eclipse highlights:

Being there for the very first live performances of "Ice Cream Piano", "Connect", "Gen-X Cops", and "Hope". I'd intentionally not listened to the new album Only God Was Above Us, which had come out 3 days before, because I wanted to experience the new songs at the show. It was totally worth it, because now I'll always think of that day when I hear them. "Connect" and "Hope" I especially loved, which we'll get to later.
"Harmony Hall" with Brian Robert Jones! The jam band vibes were immaculate.
It was Ezra's 40th birthday! He wasn't very vocal about it, but in the second half of the show he brought out his friends Thomas Mars (Phoenix) and David "Dave 1" Macklovitch (Chromeo), who treated us all to some French banter on stage (why not??) and then ended with a cute rendition of "Joyeux Anniversaire" for Ezra. ☺️
- Side note: I know VW fandom transcends generations, but truly they are a Millennial band, and I feel lucky that they are "ours." The fans who traveled from out of state to be there that day (over half, by a show of hands) were mostly our age, some with their kids, others with partners or long-time friends. We've gotten to grow up with Vampire Weekend, from preppy college optimism to mid-20s burnout to marriage and now whatever self-reflective, newly creative phase this latest album represents. That said...
I loved dancing with a bunch of strangers to "A-Punk" and "Cousins" and "Walcott" and feeling about 15 years younger!
The on-stage game of cornhole and the band throwing chocolate bars into the audience during a previously unheard medley of country-infused covers called "Cocaine Cowboys." C'mon.

☾ Eclipse highlights ☽

It didn't rain! We'd been watching the weather report, which predicted thunderstorms in early afternoon. But apparently Austin weather is very unpredictable, and on the day of the eclipse it was cloudy with intermittent sun, and wonderfully warm. Not the best conditions, but could've been much worse.
THE FIRST GLIMPSE. It felt like everyone was buzzing with nervous energy throughout the first half of the show, hoping we'd get lucky and get a break in the clouds. Then, during the piano solo in "Connect", it happened! The sky brightened and a big cheer swept through the crowd and we all rushed to put on our eclipse glasses (those of us on the lawn spilled out into the walkway for a better look) and behold: there was the blood orange crescent of the sun looking fabulous. The thing I wanted to capture more than the eclipse itself in that moment was the childlike wonder on everyone's faces as they got that first glimpse. Humans are so great.

"Sunflower" and "Flower Moon"—or as Redditors called them, "Skaflower" and "Flower Moon (Satanic remix)". The latter was the lead-up song to totality: floaty sax and piano descending into dissonant madness as the sky got darker and the air got colder. Real chills, I tell you!
TOTALITY. It sure hits different when you're at the mercy of the cloud gods. Austin was set to get just 1 minute 37 seconds of totality, already a smaller window than the 4+ minutes about 80 miles west. What are the odds that the persistent clouds would break during that 1 minute and 37 seconds? Ezra announced a pause in the show so we could all enjoy the eclipse without distraction, and the band went backstage, presumably to their own private viewing spot. So we all stood there in darkness as totality started, celebrating a sight we couldn't see, a few groups throughout the crowd howling at the sky for entertainment. I think we were all prepared to not see anything, and instead marveled at the eerie quiet of the city while the Capitol and downtown buildings lit up in the "night" sky.
Then an enormous cheer erupted from the furthest corner of the lawn, sweeping toward us in a split second as the clouds gave way and THE TOTAL ECLIPSE punched a hole in the sky for all of us to see. This was the thing we'd been waiting for all day, and I was still SO CAUGHT OFF GUARD by the sight that the next thing I knew there were joyful tears running down my cheeks and I was emitting sounds bordering between laughs and sobs, which were drowned out by the deafening cheers all around us. I couldn't control it, so just let it happen.

https://twitter.com/madkisonews/status/1777428254598553927

(Very grateful to this fellow VW fan who managed to capture it—my eyes are tearing up now just watching this.) Of course, a phone video can’t capture the magic of the moment, but you can get a sense of how fleeting it was, and how crazy the crowd went for it. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

After that the band came back out and played "Hope"—another song from the new album—and the entire time I felt weightless, still reeling from the 2 seconds of totality. The rest of the show went by in a bit of a blur, full of "this will only ever happen on this day!" moments. There's a lot more I could write about the concert and the album, but this post is already getting way too long.

Let me end with this: the concert was life-changing, and OGWAU is a brilliant display of songwriting and production, easily one of my favorite albums of all time. Every listen makes me love it more. Just like Modern Vampires of the City will always remind me of Berlin and Prague in 2013, and Father of the Bride was the soundtrack to our Southwest road trip in spring 2019 (the trip when Alex & I decided to get married), Only God Was Above Us will forever hold a special place in my memory, already imprinted with images of muggy Austin afternoons and the following breezy days in San Diego, before heading back home.

THANK YOU VW, THANK YOU AUSTIN, THANK YOU SUN & MOON, FOR A WONDERFUL SHOW.

Coda: A few photos, for the family members reading this: