Playing in front of a packed Emo’s Austin crowd, SG Lewis put on a positively outstanding performance for the first time he’s been in Austin since 2018. From the foggy ambience of the venue to local Austin acts Flora & Fawna and TC Superstar as openers, the night flowed perfectly from start to finish. 

A blue and purple light show illuminated the stage as Lewis began with “Infatuation,” a song released last year. As he sang the opening lines, “You look beautiful tonight,” the crowd exploded with cheers and applause, reaching their hands up to Lewis on the elevated stage. 

The crowd’s energy heightened when touring member Alrie took the stage to provide vocals for “Sunsets, Pt. 2.” She provided exceptional vocals throughout the night and effortlessly matched the rest of the touring band’s stage presence to make for an exciting, danceable set.

The band took a quick break from the music and allowed Lewis to tell the crowd how much he’s missed Texas since he’s been gone. 

“Holy sh–t, this is really awesome,” Lewis said. “It’s so good to be back in Austin.”

Lewis said they would be playing some unreleased songs on their upcoming album “AudioLust & HigherLove”, releasing on Jan. 27, 2023. 

When the music started up once again, keyboardist and singer Tom Dunne took center stage and offered his sweeter-than-honey voice to “Aura,” the third track from Lewis’s 2018 EP “Dusk.” As Alrie joined him halfway through the track, the pair created an electric duet that had the crowd jumping up and down. During the same song, percussionist Nick Rothouse delivered a quick and vicious solo on the bongos. 

The driving beat of “Feed The Fire” kicked in, and the night quickly turned into one large dance party with Dunne holding the microphone out for the audience to sing, “One, you gotta have fun / Two, you gotta move / Three, can you do it with me? / Four, when the beat stops, baby, we can rock some more.” 

Since listeners often know Lewis for his remixes, the crowd cheered incessantly as the band performed their percussion-focused rendition of the Bee Gees’ “More Than a Woman,” and the crowd sang the song word-for-word as soon as they heard its opening chords. For “Vibe Like This,” the collective encouraged the crowd’s full participation, which wrapped up SG Lewis’s pre-encore set. Alrie and Dunn took turns with the crowd to exclaim the main motif of the song: “Been around the world, I did / Never felt a vibe like this.” 

The band didn’t waste the crowd’s time and quickly returned to the stage for an encore consisting of a groovy instrumentals before finally closing out the night with the trippy “Chemicals” and a parting message to the crowd, “If you stay / We could blame it on the chemicals / If you stay / I might be seeing double but I need you both.”