Acoustic Maestro Jose Gonzalez Brings Folk to Austin
Show Review ★ Danny Pedraza★ @jaydpedraza★ 2 Minutes
Walking down the iron steps into the pit of the open-air venue named "Mohawk", tucked in the bustling downtown Austin. The crowd was sparse about an hour out from the concert's 8pm showtime, but as the duo openers for the night, Abby Sage, took their seats to perform their intimate short set, a heavy layer of night heat had seemed to find itself blanketed over the quickly-filling pit. What was a pit crowd that could stretch their arms out and not touch another person turned into a mob linked by their shoulders. Night had come over Austin and with a marvelous stripped-back cover of Dido's White Flag, the duo walked off stage to applause.
Then all that awaited Jose Gonzalez was a night-lit crowd, only visible from the stage lights in front of them. In between sets, new faces filled the crowd returning from inside the venue, either tending to themselves at the bar or bathroom — a mob of sweat was slowly building as the minutes passed. The socially-preserving thoughts of maintaining a dry face, or dry clothes for that matter, soon left the minds of all.
In praise of the Mohawk staff and Austin EMS, the show went on, as they tended to multiple unfortunate incidents over the course of the night with swift response. Jose Gonzalez stepped onto the stage and what followed was about an hour and a half of an artist showcasing a full command of his instrument. With only an acoustic guitar in his hands and a pedal board at his feet, Gonzalez tempered the warm crowd with a flurry of finger-plucked songs and the tasteful accompanying stomp from his board.
The new 2026 track Losing Game (Sick) left the crowd in awe after witnessing the impressive musical balancing act, which included hammering guitar note changes while maintaining a thunderous foot stomp, all while delivering soft and contemplative lyrics. Beyond the crowd's participation, the environment around Mohawk played a factor in the night's performance, as groups of people cheering and booming Reggaeton music could be heard from clubs only blocks away. Gonzalez even played into it, during the track Tjomme, he seamlessly shifted his plucking rhythm to match the echoing club music in the distance, and the crowd had a good laugh.
Fan favorites Heartbeats and Crosses transported the audience back to 2003 through a performance faithful to their studio versions and drawing the night's biggest singalongs. The real heart of the set came through in the covers Gonzalez made entirely his own. His rendition of Massive Attack's Teardrop shook the crowd — suddenly all the noise from Austin's additional nightlife faded under the weight of it.
He closed the night with The Beatles' Blackbird. The eternally joyful tune hovered over Mohawk as the crowd sang every word back to him. With only a voice and his guitar, Jose Gonzalez held the crowd in his palm throughout all the unexpected moments — proving why, even after a 20-plus year career, he remains held in the highest regard in folk music today.
