LIVE REVIEW: MyVeronica at Chess Club
Photo Courtesy of Melissa Niles
AUSTIN, TX | CHESS CLUB | AUGUST 27, 2026 | BY ARLEEN ALCARAZ-CANO
New to Austin, I walked into Chess Club and saw the small stage in such an intimate setting, and it reminded me how insanely fun it is to go out and support local, smaller music acts. The night belonged to MyVeronica, who just dropped their first official album, I Hope There’s Music In Heaven. MyVeronica went on a little after midnight, a few stops into their summer tour. Alongside them, Huge Plane Crash, Stab, and Shuv filled out the bill and made sure the whole night was worth talking about.
Huge Plane Crash kicked things off, and I went in knowing almost nothing about them, no music on Spotify and fewer than 100 followers on Instagram. That made a lot more sense once they told us this was their first show ever, which, to my ears, you would have never guessed. Their sound lands somewhere between shoegaze and Midwest emo, loud but completely coherent, and their frontwoman sings soft and sweet enough to cut right through all that noise. With only four unreleased songs to work with, they filled the space between them with electronic tracks, and before closing their set they mixed in atmospheric synths and jump-style interludes that fit in better than they had any right to. For a first show, they held the room, with hardly anyone drawing their eyes from the stage.
Stab, an Austin-based rock band, followed shortly after. They eased in with an interlude while they warmed up, and it had a bit of a late-80s grunge feel. Early on, their frontman asked if anyone in the crowd had a shitty day at work, and the collective yes he got back set the tone for everything after it. That's the whole appeal of their set: watching someone hand their bad week to a room full of people having the same one, and getting it back as something loud enough to shake off. There was one riff in particular that was just insane, and the deeper they got, the more they leaned toward Hum and Title Fight's later stuff. If Current Joys is in your rotation, these guys are worth a listen. The set fought through some rough feedback issues, but it never took away from how much they were putting into it. If you want a place to start with them, "Paywall" and "Corporate Stooge" are the two I keep going back to.
Shuv, a two-man band, closed out the openers and ended up being the biggest surprise of the night for me. Their set ran on a post-punk cowboy streak with electronic elements sitting underneath it, which is exactly why it was so funny when they pulled out the Dairy Queen jingle, "That's What I Like About Texas," and somehow made it fit right in. They only have a couple of songs out officially so far, with their respective studio versions on the way.
Right after Stab's set, I stepped outside for a cigarette and ended up offering my pack to a few people standing around, who turned out to be members of MyVeronica. Super cool people, and they were generous enough to give me my first interview!
How has it felt to do your summer tour celebrating your new album?
“[The] tour has been awesome! It has been super special to play in new states and bring the new songs out into the world. We've met some really kind people too. We were working so hard to finish the album and get ready for the release, it feels surreal that the album is out now.”
What does this album signify for the group?
“This album really signifies growth for us, as a band and as people. It feels like the culmination of the past 3 years of our lives. The oldest song on the album was written in 2022, and the newest song was written earlier this year. To me, it also signifies so much love and friendship. This album was our first big time collaborating with others to record, mix and master our music. We got really lucky to work with some great people. We also collaborated more than ever as a band and I feel like it shows in the sound, everyone added their own touch to it. Music used to be a very solitary activity for me, so it’s been incredible to learn to collaborate in this way.”
Favorite song off the album and why? Different answers welcome!
Tristin: “Cross,” it’s a banger
Hov: “Cross,” it’s a lot of fun to play live.
Mia: It changes, but right now it’s “In This Endless Lifetime.”
Rah: “Sick Sad World,” the meaning behind it really resonates with me, and it is fun to play.
Jimmy: “Los Angeles,” quiet first half to huge second half is fire.
An hour later they were on stage, and after three openers their sound felt so dreamy in comparison from the very first note. We all knew it was late for a Thursday night, but the room was still packed, everyone waiting to hear the new album live. They opened with "Carousel," their most streamed song, and it made the wait worth it, with lines like "I am roadkill, try and hit me" landing over that signature shoegaze sound. Their transitions were seamless, especially moving into the newer material, and hearing the album in a room full of people instead of through my headphones changed it completely.
Between songs they thanked the openers and thanked all of us for sticking it out on a Thursday night, which felt like the right read of the room. Mia Lin's vocals were soft and airy when a song called for it, but on "Sick Sad World" you could hear the fervor and conviction she brings to a performance. They weren't scared to play their heavier stuff either, like "Cross" and "In This Endless Lifetime," my personal favorite off the album. In a venue as small as Chess Club, it would be easy for everything to blur into one wall of sound, but nothing got lost. Jimmy, filling in on drums for Rah on this tour, kept the whole thing anchored, with Hov's bass sitting right underneath and Tristin's guitar doing the heavy lifting on the louder tracks without ever burying Mia's vocals.
They closed just after midnight with the most emotional song of the set, which was the right call. It sent everyone back out onto the street of Red River still sitting in it.
For my first article and one of my first nights out in Austin, I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to the city's music scene.
