eTown Taping with José González and Eliza Gilkyson

Doors: 6 p.m.
Show: 7 p.m.

All Ages Welcome
No Refunds or Exchanges

We are committed to making eTown accessible to all. If you have ADA needs or require accommodations, please contact us in advance, and we will gladly work with you to ensure a comfortable experience.

With every eTown ticket purchase, you're supporting the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. eTown donates $1 per ticket to Conscious Alliance, aiding hunger relief, youth programs and sustainable solutions for the Oglala Lakota Nation.

More than just a regular concert, eTown Radio Tapings are a unique live experience! The show includes performances and interviews with both of our visiting artists, and an interviewsegment with changemakers from our local and national community who are doing their part to make the world a better place. As an attendee, you serve as a vital part of our eTown show, which will be broadcast across the country on our affiliate radio stations and all streaming platforms. Listen for your cheers on the radio, and to hear how it all comes together, in just a few weeks following the night!

Cell phone use, photos (from phones and professional cameras), and audio and video recording are all strictly prohibited during the radio taping. Thanks for your understanding, and for your help in allowing the artists and audience to be present for this special evening together!

About José González: 

“Forces from the sidelines pushing for a race against time, tempting us to deplete only to face a certain defeat,” sings José González in “A Perfect Storm,” the opening track of his fifth album. Safe to say, he’s deeply concerned about the future. Not his own, necessarily, but that of humankind. Specifically, he sees the galloping advancement of AI as the greatest threat we face as a species, which is why it’s a salient theme of Against The Dying Of The Light. But as that title suggests, José is no doomsayer resigned to fate. Not only is he a man of science and reason well on his way to reach a PhD in biochemistry when his music career took off, but he also recognises the enormous benefits of AI if used responsibly. He’s also a humanist with hope and compassion in his heart who, via his music, advocates for action to re-examine our aeons-old thought patterns and modify the behaviours that impede our growth. 

This messaging isn’t a first for the Swedish artist, internationally acclaimed for his intimate, folk-rooted compositions, classically inclined fingerpicking and softly expressive vocals. 2021’s Local Valley, for example, espoused effective altruism, ecomodernism and secular humanism. “Tell me why it may be, tell me which way you are going, tell me where we are from,” was his existential question in the opener, while in “Head On” José urged listeners to consciously engage pronto. But five years on, the dramatic darkening of shadows across the global landscape demands blunter truth-telling carried by a more forceful, often frustrated and even angry expression. 

With its focus on technological fears alongside wider issues like the need to identify unhelpful thinking and refuse non-inclusive ideologies, Against The Dying Of The Light was born out of deep conviction as much as artistic choices. As its maker explains, “For 20 years I’ve been doing music, and for most of that time I’ve been trying to do stuff that doesn’t rub the right way. There needs to be some friction, and I feel like this album is where it’s become more obvious.” 

At the album’s conceptual heart sit two songs. The first is the title track, in which a lilting melody and warm resonant strumming press home the need to keep striving for enlightenment against forces that deny human flourishing. The second is “A Perfect Storm,” which underlines its warning against tech optimism’s “race to lose control” with insistent rhythmic fingerpicking that builds to a distorted peak in contrast to José’s vocal overdubs. 

Musical diversity rules across Against The Dying Of The Light. Connections to early influences like The Beatles and Paul Simon remain. For the forlorn “Ay Querida,” he turns to Camarón de la Isla, while “Gymnasten” draws from artists like Bill Callahan. The palette expands further with choral elements inspired by Argentina’s Misa Criolla and Swedish Saint Lucia traditions. 

As is characteristic, José’s lyrics are underpinned by philosophical, ethical and geopolitical inquiry. In the title track, he urges: “Disconnect from every algorithm, every perverse incentive that drags you down.” It’s frustration with tech’s unchecked momentum that fuels songs like “Losing Game,” where he reflects, “Thought we were the ones in control, no not even close.” 

Yet even amid darker themes, moments of light break through. “You & We” offers a call for inclusivity and shared humanity, while closer “Joy” builds toward celebration. As José puts it, even as we try to understand everything, we remain “primates who can’t help but sing.”

About Eliza Gilkyson: 

Eliza Gilkyson is a twice Grammy-nominated (2006/2014) singer-songwriter and activist who is one of the most respected musicians in folk, roots and Americana circles. Her songs have been covered by Joan Baez, Bob Geldof, Chris Smither, the world renowned Conspirare Choir, Tom Rush and Rosanne Cash and have appeared in films, PBS specials and on primetime TV.

A member of the Austin Music Hall of Fame, and an inductee into the Austin Songwriter Hall of Fame, she has won countless Folk Alliance and Austin Music awards, including 2014’s Songwriter of the Year and the “Song of the Year” Award at the Folk Alliance International Conference in 2021.

Eliza’s current release Dark Ages is a surprisingly upbeat collection of songs, although she pulls no punches in terms of the times in which we find ourselves and her sentiments regarding the current dismantling of the US constitution by the president.

Working in collaboration with Don Richmond, her producer/accompanist for the last two records, and calling on some of her Austin compadres and fellow New Mexicans to join her, the album showcases Eliza in her strongest and most compelling voice.

She remains true to the convictions and sensibilities for which she is known, covering the wide range of human experience from political to personal, following the threads of darkness and light, reminding us of the hope and beauty still to be found even in the frightening scenarios of today’s current events. Honest, stark, musically moving and stubbornly hopeful, Dark Ages is a roadmap and a soundtrack for our time.