Yesterday marked the beginning of our residency at Austin’s Levitation Festival, where we’ll be parading around with cameras, notepads, and lukewarm cans of Lone Star for the remainder of the weekend. Here are a few highlights from our first day on the ground. — Jackson Todd

Shannon and the Clams

Truth be told, Shannon and the Clams are probably the least psychoactive-sounding group on this overwhelmingly psych-centric festival’s entire bill. But it’s funny how - when used tastefully - a dye projection backdrop can make a mind-altering experience out of any gig, regardless of the band’s genre.

It’s hard to pin down the group’s sound; I had them down as “Ronnie Spector meets The Ventures,” but then somebody said “Etta James meets the B-52s,” which makes way more sense. Listen to their latest release, Year of the Spider, and draw your own conclusions.

Ty Segall and the Freedom Band

Immediately following Shannon’s set, Ty Segall and co. closed out the Stubbs stage with a career-spanning, genre-bending set of crowd favorites, deep cuts, and marathon jams. Tracks from Harmonizer provided the night’s fix of glam, while a medley of Emotional Mugger-era tracks ensured things didn’t get too pretty (see: “Squealer Two”). The night took on a particularly melancholic note, as it just so happened to be longtime drummer Charles-Moothart’s final show with the band. Listen to his solo work here.

Dead Meadow

It’s easy to pigeonhole groups like this; there is certainly a sludge-centric, Sabbath-worshiping side to their sound that you’d expect from a band with a name like Dead Meadow; one might draw comparisons to veteran bong-riffers like Sleep, Electric Wizard, Melvins etc.... But the other, more unassuming side of their sonic palette surfaces in the band’s quieter moments - when it becomes evident from the drummer’s facemelt that the acid is starting to take hold, and the jams start to begin to wander past the fifteen-minute mark, well into Brian Jonestown Massacre territory.

Flat Worms

If the hour-long monodrome that was Dead Meadow’s set left our crew with any sort of adrenaline deficit headed into midnight, Flat Worms brought our levels back to baseline. Tight, anarchic, abrasive - so much so that at certain times you feel inclined to look away, to plug your ears - but that deep, greedy, primal, dopamine-craving corner of your brain simply won’t allow it. Combined with caffeine fatigue, dehydration, and acute tinnitus, songs like “Red Hot Sands” and “Into the Iris” put us in a sort of trance-state that we still haven’t snapped out of.