Every morning, we send you a free email packed with Austin news, business, and entertainment. Join 16,000+ readers who wake up to Austonia's newsletter.
Featured
austonia newsletter
Most viewed
Gary Clark Jr. played the inaugural show for the Moody Amphitheater, which has in progress since 2017. (Laura Figi/Austonia)
The Moody Amphitheatre's grand opening kicked off with a big capital-of-Texas bang: a concert by two home-grown musical performances, Gary Clark Jr. and Blackillac.
The 5,000-seat venue debuted its long-awaited Clark concert on Friday evening complete with big, sold-out crowds. The music went on as scheduled after it was announced in June 2020, with seats packed all the way over the lawn.
Although Moody Amphitheater said it would require masks at all times except when eating or drinking, almost none were worn in the open-air venue. (Laura Figi/Austonia)
Many attendees enjoyed a live music ambience for the first time in over a year. Austinites Lauren Clary, Doug Nguyen and Trent Castleberry said it was their first concert since COVID-19 began other than Blues on the Green.
Clary, Nguyen and Castleberry they are looking forward to seeing more live music, like ACL, this year. (Laura Figi/Austonia)
"I love (Clark) because he's a local," Clary said, noting that she appreciates that Clark is involved in putting community events together like Blues on the Green.
Opening rap duo Blackillac is comprised of 36-year-old Valin Zamarron, whose stage name is Zeale, and 35-year-old J.J. Shaw, whose stage name is Phranchyze. The pair started making music in 2018 with guidance from Clark, who lovingly shouted them out in his opening remarks.
Blackillac has been climbing the ranks in Austin's music scene for a while—the two have performed at ACL Festival in 2019 and were named "Best Hip Hop/Rap" group at the 2020 Austin Music Awards. (Laura Figi/Austonia)
Blackillac had the crowd standing by the second song.
Blackillac played a 30-minute set before passing the stage on to Clark. (Laura Figi/Austonia)
Concert-goers Brad and Rhonda Davidson said they used to frequent concerts at Waterloo Park before it was revitalized. The couple said they were enjoying the new park just the same and were excited to see Clark again after seeing him at Blues on the Green in July.
Brad and Laura Davidson were happy to be back at Waterloo Park for a concert once more. (Laura Figi)
"(This concert is) the inaugural thing in this park and it's part of Austin," Brad said. "I used to see (Clark) walking downtown carrying his guitar into a venue. He's been part of Austin for the last 30 years; Gary is Austin."
Clark took the stage in his signature brimmed hat and opened with a guitar solo.
Just seconds before Clark starts the first song... (Laura Figi/Austonia)
During his set, Clark played "Bright Lights" and "Cold Blooded" to open up the show in front of a thrilled crowd.
A lifelong Austinite, Clark is also a Grammy award-winner and a seasoned musician who started playing when he was just 12 years old. (Laura Figi/Austonia)
Clark is playing the Moody Amphitheater again Saturday at 6 p.m. with opener Kydd Jones. The next show will play on Sept. 9, bringing reggae-rock band Rebelution to the stage
- COVID halts long-awaited opening of Waterloo Greenway - austonia ›
- Live music is back! Here are 5 venues that are holding shows this ... ›
- Austin vs. Nashville: How the growing Southern capitals compare ... ›
- Waterloo Park to open Aug. 14 with Gary Clark Jr. concert Aug. 21 ... ›
- George Strait, Willie Nelson sing at Moody Center grand opening - austonia ›
Popular
UT is developing technology targeted at power, steel, cement and other industrial plants to lower emissions. (UT Austin)
The ruling was brought after a challenge to a lower court opinion brought by Texas and more than a dozen other states.
Vaibhav Bahadur, an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin called the SCOTUS decision significant, noting that Texas is the biggest energy producer in the U.S., and produces more energy than the United Kingdom.
“Power generation accounts for a significant fraction of U.S. carbon emissions, and the EPA loses its ability to control what's happening in about half of that sector,” Bahadur said. “And it's not just the U.S., I think people and environmentalists on pretty much anywhere on the planet will be disappointed because this is going in the wrong direction. We know we want to be decarbonizing, and this is essentially putting a roadblock on progress toward decarbonization.”
So, we’re going to need some insurance, Bahadur says. He’s carrying out work that’ll act as such through his research on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the process of sucking carbon from the air and burying it.
For the past five years, he’s been working on a novel approach to storing carbon. It involves supercharging the formation of carbon dioxide-based crystal structures and storing billions of tons of carbon under the ocean floor.
“If all of this is successful, then we will have another option for safely and responsibly storing carbon at the bottom of the seabed for essentially eternity,” Bahadur said.
Still, Bahadur talked about a different approach to responsibly cutting down emissions in the next decade, and doing so in a meaningful and substantial way, then the environment will eventually heal itself and we might not need CCS.
But that’s not the path we’re headed down.
“We're already starting to see temperature records being shattered this year, and we're still to hit peak summer,” Bahadur said. “All of this just makes me think that we need CCS to a larger extent, and possibly sooner than what a lot of scientists anticipate, especially if we can't keep our emissions in check.”
Gary Rochelle, a professor in the department of chemical engineering at UT, thinks CCS was ready to be deployed in 2010 and those 12 years have made a difference.
“But now we've emitted all that CO2,” Rochelle said. “And unfortunately, unlike other pollutants, when you emit CO2, it's there. It's not going away.”
Gary Rochelle and Vaibhav Bahadur are both researching technology to address carbon emissions. (UT)
Still, the delay is good in that now researchers like him have had time to learn about and improve the technology, allowing for fewer problems once it's deployed.
In December, UT announced a licensing agreement with advanced technology company Honeywell. The technology from that is targeted at power, steel, cement and other industrial plants to lower emissions.
Rochelle has been working on the technology since 2000 as part of an international collaborative effort. When he talked to Austonia on Thursday, he had just had calls with collaborators in Germany and Norway. Currently, he’s working with some Ph.D. students on addressing a chemical reaction that can happen with the technology known as oxidation that could lead to ammonia emissions and cause problems for a large-scale commercial unit.
Rochelle says he’s driven to this work because he wants to make a contribution.
“We're trying to develop this technology so that we can make a difference,” Rochelle said. “It's a nice problem to work on. The students are motivated and those are the primary things which drive us.”
Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated the high court’s decision which acted as a blow to President Joe Biden’s plan to reduce emissions.
“Today’s landmark victory against an out-of-control administration is also a big win for Americans who worry about skyrocketing energy costs due to expensive federal regulations that threaten our energy industry,” Abbott said. “President Biden cannot keep attacking the energy industry and the hardworking men and women who power our nation.”
- UT reports three students bitten by raccoons - austonia ›
- UT athletes racked up over $2 million in NIL deals in first year ... ›
- UT-Austin's 'Frack King' has a vision for clean, geothermal energy ›
- UT Austin debuts new hologram program amid pandemic - austonia ›
- UT admits the most diverse class in the school's history - austonia ›
- A peek inside UT's new $338 million Moody Center - austonia ›
