RippleFest Texas 2024 was held over the weekend 19-22 September 2024 at The Far Out Lounge and Sagebrush in Austin, Texas. MetalTalk’s Sunil Singh experienced this exceptional weekend and reports with photographs from MetalTalk’s Melanie Webster. You can read the first two days coverage here.
RippleFest Day Three: Far Out Lounge
There just is not time to process the magnificence of live performances that occur in machine gun fashion at RippleFest Texas–a festival that has NO overlap between bands. At some point, your expressions and emotions reach an orgasmic limit.
Trying to capture experiences like this with words and photos starts to get away from you. You are left in a puddle of your own ineffable emotions. You have reached the asymptote of what can be humanly expressed.
This is my mindset as I welcome Day Three, the longest day of the festival.
I had to quickly recover and calculate how this day was going to go. I would eventually have to come back to the hotel to nap, but dammit, I needed to be there to see Shadow Of Jupiter kick things off in the scorching Texas heat at 1:30 pm.
I have seen tons of opening bands, but what this Chicago-based quartet brought to the Yellow stage in almost oppressive heat deserves some kind of medal. The attitude/vibe was set almost immediately, with lead singer John Piotrowski sporting a Robin Trower shirt.
Shirts matter. In this case, to pay homage to the mighty guitarist who gave us the epic album Bridge Of Sighs, you know the delivery of whatever amalgam of stoner/doom is going to come at you is going to be a soulful and righteous as fuck.
Did not disappoint. Colin Peterson, who I enthusiastically met the first night, was playing like he won the lottery (we all did being at Ripple). So much energy was released by this opening set–and their super cool merch, specially designed for RippleFest, perfectly reflected the attitude and aura of Shadow Of Jupiter.
Fury blues. That is the best way to describe their set. Well done, gents. Well done.
If Shadow of Jupiter brought the blues to RippleFest, then New Mexico’s Violet Rising brought the soul. Not just any soul. A sultry one that sounded like one hot, slow psychedelic striptease.
The band, while relative newbies on the scene, played a confident set of their steamy music that dripped heavy potential in absolutely no uncertain terms. The whole band just gelled on stage, with Christi Sanchez leading the charge with a perfectly timed dose of unstoppable, feminine energy.
Her boyfriend, Ricardo Sanchez, was dialled in, hitting those drums as though they would be rendered useless after the set–still hurting from the fact I didn’t see him in his other band, Blue Heron on Day Two.
Guitar work from Chris Sanchez(bass) and Alex Ziete(electric) was the propulsive engine that pushed the band with the necessary cruising speed. Several hundred happy RippleFest fans enjoyed the trippy ride.
I did the quick shuffle back to the Yellow stage and sat at a picnic table under a tree. Stop right there. How many heavy music festivals have the earthiness vibe to sit with such wholesome luxury while waiting for the next dose of crushing music? Not too many.
Getting there soon after Violet Rising not only paid dividends in finding some refuge from the building heat, but it also gave me the opportunity to hear Bonnie Rhaymes Dio warm up her vocals before her band Crystal Spiders hit the stage. Not that I was going to go anywhere, but hearing that soaring voice was a kind warning to all those within earshot not to leave for any reason.
Again, shirts matter. In this case, lead guitarist Reid Rogers was sporting an old Rainbow shirt that, thankfully, looked like it had seen better days.
So, you can understand how I was expecting some elements of the greatest Heavy Metal singer of all time, Ronnie Jame Dio, to be represented by Bonnie and Aaron. Wowzers!
Absolutely brought the heavy, which swirled around the Metal-up-your-ass vocals. The Man who now resides on the Silver Mountain up above would have given approving horns.
I think this is where the heat wreaked havoc on my thinking. Yes, Melanie and I were planning on taking a break and heading back to our hotel for a nap, but I completely flubbed on leaving after Crystal Spiders.
Badass Borracho were on next, and I had specifically circled them as one of the bands I needed to see at RippleFest. Apologies to the band, but I wandered over to Violet Rising’s merch table to give them a copy of my book. They were one of the last additions to the book before it went to print. The reactions of the band members say it all.
Music is powerful. Having artists be ‘seen’ and recognized for the time they have devoted to being creative and expressing themselves is the least we can all do. The energy of RippleFest lives constantly on and off stage, weaving through all our bursting hearts.
It was time for Melanie and I to depart, refuel, and recharge for the evening portion of the festival’s last official day.
Walking back into a packed Far Out Lounge at dusk with a few dinner cocktails under my belt had a perfection that needed the perfect song. Cue up Kal-El, who were playing a special second set at RippleFest.
Melanie and I walked through the entrance exactly as my favourite song by them, Spiral, had already lifted off into the beautiful Austin sky. It could not have been better choreographed. I had only been gone for a few hours, but it felt like homecoming, reinforcing the decision to take a break. My musical palette had been cleansed. I was ready to take the homestretch of this festival by the horns and dance in pagan merriment.
You can read all our Ripplefest coverage at MetalTalk.net/ripplefest.
