My first Osees show was just a year ago, though I first heard them as Thee Osees on a West Coast Song of the Day podcast many years ago, back when I loaded my podcasts onto my iPod Nano and strapped it to my arm when I went on a run. I remember them as a garage-y tambourine folk band.
Over time, with life and family, I lost track of Thee Osees. Getting back into the music scene many years later, I would hear about how The Osees put on one of the best live performances around – and I was perplexed as to how a freak folk band had such a die-hard following and frenzied live shows. I jumped into their catalog and found a different sound than I expected, and I experienced their first show last year.
I photographed their set and posted photos of crowd surfers on Instagram, not expecting everyone I photographed to find them or even for us to exchange messages afterward. I texted a longtime friend (and Osees fan) shortly after connecting with so many fans over Instagram: “The Osees community is something special. I may have found my people.” A year later, I’m still connected to many of them, and a few have become solid music friend connections.
When the Osees come to Austin, they play at Hotel Vegas, typically for multiple nights — and often during SXSW, Levitation Festival, or around Halloween. So just over a year later, I was back at Hotel Vegas with some of the same people I connected with last year. This year added the excitement of longtime collaborator Brigid Dawson returning with the band after a hiatus from recording and touring.
Most of the shows that I see at Hotel Vegas are on the smaller, divey, inside stage. I’ve seen many stellar, memorable shows on that stage. But when touring bands with large followings like the Osees come through, they move shows outside to the patio stage.
With no barricade, as soon as the show starts, front row fans are pressed against, and sometimes onto, the stage. Crowd surfing begins after folks are warmed up and continues until the end. An Osees show genuinely is one of the best live shows around. The frenzied energy of bandleader John Dwyer alongside the front-and-center synchronized drumming of Paul Quattrone and Dan Rincon is both fascinating to watch and intense enough to feel in your bones.
And though I’ve recently joined the Osees universe and don’t know all the history and iterations of the Osees projects, Dwyer celebrated the excitement over “Brigid Fucking Dawson!” returning to the stage multiple times, and the crowd felt it too.
It was the kind of show where you leave, check your bank account and PTO, and see if you can follow them to their next stop and through the end of the tour.
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