Live Shots: Psyched! Fest blows minds with Peaches, Allah-Las, Provoker

Local music scored a win in 2021, when Guillermo Goyri—who a few years later, would become co-host of KEXP’s seminal Latin music show “El Sonido”—founded Psyched! Radio. And then another stroke of luck: the following year, the station gave birth to Psyched! Fest (runs through November 6), whose editions have now popped up in the Bay and Mexico City. This year, its wonderfully extensive run of live shows stretches out for nearly a full fall month, featuring artists whose sound runs the gamut from psychedelia to electronic frequencies and indie rock.

So far, it’s been a gas. Festival headliner Peaches took the stage at Great American Music Hall on October 13 amid her “No Lube So Rude” tour, churning through a menagerie of evocative vaginal get-ups amid body horror set pieces that evoked a very queer Cronenberg gone electroclash. (Though one suspects the filmmaker wouldn’t dream of crowdsurfing in the chunkiest of sneaker and bodysuit.)

GAMH is one of the primary venues for Psyched! Fest, hosting shows like an October 13 lineup of Topographies, Dalmatia, and DJ Yari, plus an October 20 gig with Provoker, backed by April Magazine and Elisse Locomotion. Crowds thrilled to a wealth of sound, brought to you by an entirely independent local booker.

A trip right? And it’s one you can still jump on—Psyched! Fest is going large nearly every night through November 6, with sets from Cuba’s seminal Buena Vista Orchestra, NYC sludgerockers Melts, Colombian cumbieros Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, and so many more on the docket. — text by Caitlin Donohue