Andrew Tinker and Erin Austin at Austin City Limits: How Denton almost took Austin

by Jim Wall of My Denton Music

Two o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon. I am literally getting on the Andrew Tinker bandwagon, a chartered bus arranged by Tinker to haul fans from Denton down to a battle of the bands competition at Antone's in Austin. The Austin City Limits Sound and the Jury competition final round consists of five bands playing 20 minute sets that will be judged and voted on by the audience. The band that gets the most audience votes and best score from the jury wins the grand prize, a spot at the actual ACL festival happening the following weekend.

The obvious issue is this: It is much easier for Austin bands to navigate their fans to a show in Austin on a Wednesday night than it is for out-of-town acts. This year, two bands from Denton tried to win even though the odds are against them: Andrew Tinker, well-known and respected Denton "popster," and Erin Austin, a new face to Denton. Tinker's strategy is to get friends and fans on this bus, haul them down to Austin, and hope for the best.

The bus riders are a hodge-podge of North Texans that for some reason or another were willing to sacrifice their afternoon, (and stay up really late), to support Tinker and his band. There are people of all ages in attendance, from the older men at the front of the bus, probably family friends who must be in their 50s, to some high school kids sending text messages back and forth. I am seated in the middle of the bus where a long-haired Richard Rousey is lecturing on Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and The Matrix. Andrew Tinker made sure to provide all the riders with food, snacks, and even some beers. Spinal Tap is playing on the built-in CRT monitors. In his email, he also invited the riders to BYOB. The guy to my left is drinking a Red Stripe from a can. On the bus there are even a few people who say they have never even gone to an Andrew Tinker show before.

Added all up, there are about 40 people on the bus all chatting with each other, taking pictures, drinking, reading, and listening to music. Tinker arranged for each rider to receive a free t-shirt and some glowing bracelets for the show.

We arrive at the entry to Antone's just before 7 p.m. There is a line stretching around the side of the building. Our crowd, when all together, looked like a massive team assembled to accomplish a mission: beat Austin. However, in the hour leading up to the show, the masses continued to pour into Antone's, and before long it was hard to walk from one end of the venue to another without having to squeeze through a cluster of people. All the bands had done their best to amass a large group of fans, and I would estimate Antone's had nearly reached its 600 person capacity. Luckily, Andrew had been making calls all week, and I saw people from Austin that I hadn't seen in years. Peter Hofstad of the band Sarah Reddington (formerly from Denton) was there, and a battalion of fans who now reside in Austin pushed our numbers well in excess of 100 people.

To vote, we were given a specially-printed guitar pick and asked to drop it into a jar labeled with the band's name.

Unbeknownst to most the Denton fans, Andrew Tinker and his band had done a radio interview and acoustic song for KLBJ in Austin earlier in the day on the Dudley and Bob show. This is likely responsible for a large group of Austinites who were there cheering for Andrew along with the Denton crowd.

The order the bands would play in was apparently chosen at random, however the two Denton bands were given the first two time slots, and the Austin bands were given the last three. This hardly felt random, but I suppose it's possible.

First, an emcee who claimed to be from Chicago got on stage and welcomed everyone to the event. He announced Erin Austin in an immature manner, stumbling and laughing through her bio as she took the stage.

OK Sweetheart (Erin Austin), whose music is similar in style to that of Regina Spektor or Zooey Deschanel, began her set by announcing how appropriate is was for her to play in Austin (for the first time) because her last name was Austin. Her songs were much bouncier than anything I had heard from her online recordings. The crowd seemed to enjoy her laid back style and simple melodies. After her first song, she announced that this was her first time to ever play a live show in Texas, which took the audience by surprise. I could hear whispers going throughout the crowd, which wasn't a challenge, because OK Sweetheart's sound is anything but loud. Austin seemed to have finished her short set with some time left on the clock, so she told a joke, and the band re-grouped and played one last song.

Sporting a green bandanna, the emcee, Mr. Chicago, returned to the stage and proclaimed that her set was "amazing," which he did following every band with varying levels of enthusiasm. He then introduced Andrew Tinker with the same lack of motivation that he had announced the previous act. (He referred to Kelyn as "giant bass man," which was a bit comical, because Kelyn was holding his guitar at the time).

It took Andrew Tinker nearly no time at all to set up, and before playing, he got the crowd riled up by asking for his Denton fans to cheer, and then asking the whole room to cheer. The audience screamed and cheered, and without warning, Tinker launched into their first song.

Tinker began the set by playing "Candy," a song about a cover model girl and the boy that she walks out on. The energy was awesome, and the audience lit up with enthusiasm, clapping, screaming at the appropriate parts. The cameramen at Antone's were all over Kelyn's guitar solos, and there was not a single eye in the place that was not glued to the stage. With no transition time, Tinker went into "Working Man's Blues," and continued to jump from one song to another without pause. Julia looked sexy as always as she plugged away on her bass guitar wearing a tight purple dress and green scarf. Jeff looked like a 12-year old having a seizure while keeping perfect time on the drums. He played immaculate fills at the ends of every song and the vibrations were reciprocated by the audience's cheers and hollers. "Mother Nature," which starts off with some philosophical lyrics and simple musicality built to a haunting guitar-solo and rock-jam that made the whole venue feel like it was about to burst. And when it came to a sudden and precise end, the crowd and the judges were all clapping and shouting as loud as they could. Could it possibly keep going? Yes! Andrew teased the audience by asking if they would like to hear another song, and then launched into "Show Me How you Rock and Roll." "There's a place on avenue G where my sweet little lady stay..." Denton and Austin fans went wild. Richard Rousey (from the bus) jumped off the stage and began to crowd surf. By this point, he had ripped the sleeves off his t-shirt and fashioned his own Andrew Tinker tank-top. The entire crowd at Antone's went wild, and it was clear that Denton, Texas might just win this little competition. Subsequent acts' fans tried and failed to do a crowd surf, where Andrew Tinker succeeded with flying colors. Richard's success wasn't just because of Andrew's fans, it was because the fans of other acts joined in and participated in the energy. No other fans inspired the whole room the way Andrew's did. And no other acts commanded the same collective crowd cooperation, hometown or not. Jeff finished the set with a drum solo, and I was sure I just witnessed something on par with the splitting of the Red Sea.

The emcee returned to the stage, and with a little bit of embarrassment in his voice, he once again proclaimed the previous performance to be "amazing." He gave away some tickets for the ACL festival and began to announce the next band, Mobley. However, Mobley brought along with them a lighting rig and some CRT monitors which they bring to every show, and it took them a while to get set up. We waited for about 40 minutes for Mobley to set up, and it truly felt like the show was over at this point. On the up-side, it allowed for the audience to mingle and talk about how great the performance by Andrew Tinker was, and the merch table was buzzing with new fans and converts.

Mobley began their set in darkness, and their light show was something to behold. They had edited together an interesting video to accompany their set, and the strobe lights made it feel like something amazing was going on on stage. Their music was similarly darker in tone, and similar to a low budget Incubus show. I was really amused by their video though. Somehow they had parts of the faces of the band members stitched together in black and white, and I wondered if they were doing it live somehow, or if they had pre-recorded all their songs and had to stay in time with the video for the effect to work. From a technical aspect, their music was very entertaining. But if you took away all the lights and video, I doubt the crowd would have payed much attention to them.

The Bubbles, who look like they are all 12 years old, played a lighthearted set with a surprisingly catchy groove. Think Eisley but with boys and a better beat. I talked with them before their set, and they seem like genuinely fun-loving and dedicated guys. The crowd loved them, and if they would have had a merch table set up, I likely would have purchased a CD. I hope to see these guys around more frequently.

Then it was time for the band that brought a competitively large crowd and had been awarded the last time slot. The Bright Light Social Hour took the stage and with precision, played their songs to a crowd that had come to cheer them to victory. Wielding tambourines and maracas, their fans gathered in front of the stage as A.J. Vincent led the band in muse-like tunes. The majority of fans that came to support other bands stood a little further back and watched with discerning eyes. Bright Light's rock/pop styling's were energetic and powerful. After A.J. started sweating all over his pearl snap shirt, he resembled Russell Brand from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. These guys had the image. They had their crowd, and they seemed to have the judges too. Their last song was Beatlesesque, (maybe even a cover), and when I looked up at the judges there were two women singing along. (It is important to note that the judges consisted of mostly Austin locals.)

The crowd went wild, and it was hard for the emcee to quiet down the different groups of fans all chanting the names of their favorite bands. Mr. Chicago announced that voting would be ending shortly, and urged people to go vote, then gave some more tickets away for ACL. Katie Arterburn, a UNT graduate and friend, won the last pair of ACL tickets. She was there to support Bright Light Social Hour, and was one of the tambourine shakers in the audience.

The crowd anxiously awaited the judges deliberation. It wasn't clear if Bright Light Social Hour or Andrew Tinker had brought the biggest crowd. Bright Light put on a powerful and tight show. But Andrew Tinker's crowd was certainly the most energetic, and they also put on a really energetic and exciting show.

"There's one band that stood out," announced the emcee. "They acted like headliners, they commanded the crowd like headliners, they had stage presence like headliners, musicianship like headliners ..." Drum roll please. "Make some noise for The Bright Light Social Hour!"

OK. So Andrew Tinker didn't win. Denton didn't beat Austin. But seriously, look what we accomplished. We were really close at winning when all the odds were all against us. This is clearly what Michal Garcia was talking about in his MyDentonMusic article, "When Local Becomes Global." It is events like these that make Austin bands want to come play in Denton, and Austin venues and fans want to hear Denton music.

After the show, we all made our way back to the bus, but now there were significantly more people than seats on the bus. We had gained a few more followers during our adventure, and Andrew Tinker made a speech on the bus's PA, "The cumulative result of everyone's participation, friend and stranger alike, was a collective lift in consciousness, and that is, as it will always be, the real grand prize."

Later in an email to fans, Tinker wrote, "Watching Richard drift over the crowd, I was lifted to a new level. As Julia, Jeff, and Kelyn felt me kick it into high gear, their energy output skyrocketed. The audience was lifted by the overwhelming energetic surge on stage, and people yelled louder, they clapped harder, and they lifted up their hands."

So here's a toast to a victory for Denton, on the day we almost took Austin.