Feels Good to Feel Good

STRFKR, Austin Psych Fest 2025

I am still recovering from a weekend worth of music as well as the traveling to and from the Austin Psych Fest music festival. It is a rather perplexing ordeal, really, how ignoring age can hold such a dynamic impact when you're forced to realize how much of it is a part of you.

But, that is a different notion altogether that is only tangentially related to the real topic I wanted to touch upon this eve.

For years now, it feels as thought he things I've enjoyed in my life are slipping through my fingers the way sand from a beach may upon spreading your fingers while holding a handful of the tiny grains. It feels as though, at first, it was almost imperceptibly so, but that one day I awoke to find all the enjoyment I once knew was gone - eviscerated from my existence in a way I didn't think was even possible.

Now, over the past six months or so I have really been trying to grasp that enjoyment back. I've been attempting to find pleasure in so much of the things I used to enjoy, to all sorts of varying degrees. Video games, for example, really don't hit much at all anymore. I will still play some Gran Turismo, maybe bust out some Call of Duty if I really want to go mindless as fuck, but it is a twenty to thirty minute affair before I'm bored of it.

Playing an instrument, until the past few weeks, felt like I was pulling teeth just to get something beyond running through a scale out of my finger tips. Thinking about trying to be creative with it felt more akin to torture than anything fun.

Listening to music was the one really low energy thing that I could rely on. Every Friday, I'm still sifting through the new releases as a means to find new and interesting music. Putting on an old favorite through my sound system can be the most relaxing thing I could imagine experiencing after a work day. It is low energy, low effort enjoyment.

Which, that brings me back to the music festival my old ass is still recovering from. It took me eight hours of drive time to get to the festival and I pretty much just changed clothes and immediately went to it on Friday so I could see Godspeed You Black Emperor. It was worth it. Saturday, I explored the city a bit then went to the festival again. I was feeling pretty beat by the time Kim Gordon started her set, but damn did that invigorate me. It got me through the rest of that day's festival events that I cared to stay for. Then on Sunday, I got there earlier than Saturday so I could see La Luz, Yo La Tengo, and Dinosaur Jr. And all three of those bands fucking killed it, with Yo La Tengo easily being my favorite of the bunch. The experimental noise rock was just the right kind of vibe in the mid evening, before it got dark.

And the thing is, I enjoyed the fuck out of it. It may very well be the last music festival that I go and do the entire event, but the entire drive back home yesterday had me loving the fact that I got to see all those bands live the way I did. All of them, in their own ways, were phenomenal.

I also left the event knowing that, at some point, I will need to see Godspeed You Black Emperor headline a show. Another thing - I will forever be trying to convince every single person I know to see Kim Gordon live before she retires from doing live shows. That shit was one of the most powerful performances I have ever seen in my life.

I feel sorry for the girl who I met on Sunday who told me she only got that day's ticket because she didn't know anyone on the other days, and then when I mentioned Kim Gordon being from Sonic Youth, her response was that they are one of her favorite bands and she has just never dug into who the members were. She missed the fuck out. I feel even more sorry for her sister who was there with her, and clearly psychedelic rock was not her fucking thing at all. She looked like she had no idea what the fuck was going on during Yo La Tengo, and then we went our separate ways as I'm almost positive they left after the following band (which was who her sister was there to see).

It does hold a bit of an odd feeling, though, considering that a younger me would have been there for every band. The festival was set up in such a way that there were five minute breaks between each set. There were two different stages and after the five minute break, the stage that wasn't being used previously comes alive. The smaller stage only did half hour sets, while the bigger stage offered a little over an hour per band. Day number one, I bounced back and forth. That went out the window for the rest of the weekend. That helped me enjoy it a lot more, reserve the energy for who I really wanted to see as opposed to over exerting myself because music is life.

All of this is to say, it really felt good to be driving home yesterday and to continually be reminded that I fucking enjoyed something again. It felt really fucking good.

-Dustin S. Stover