By Olivia Turner | Arts & Life Editor
A gaggle of festival-goers stood and chattered among each other in front of Beatbox Stage, some leaning against the shaded metal barricade, awaiting one of the first bands of the last day of Austin City Limits festival. The stage, secluded from the rest of the festival by a road running through the park and a row of towering trees, seemed private, almost peaceful, with only the faint sounds of bass and singing from stages in the distance.
Around 1:45 p.m. Sunday, guitarist Jack Montesinos, keyboardist Joe Roddy and drummer Nico Leophonte casually walked on, accruing a collection of cheers and claps from the crowd. Despite this performance being their first at Austin City Limits, they looked relaxed, as if they’d done this a thousand times before. The three wasted no time, jumping right into the first song of their set, “Maquina Pura,” which Montesinos said is his favorite to play live, with all its string-y complexity.
Interestingly, Montesinos wasn’t always the band’s guitarist.
“Me and Joe started playing together in his dad’s garage,” Montesinos said. “I was playing drums and he was playing guitar, and now that’s not the instrumentation we hold. We just shared a love for rock and roll, blues and old surf music.”
The Point. has a new album on the way, which will be released next year. In the meantime, they are currently touring Texas and the U.S., and love to play local Austin venues, such as The Sahara Lounge, The Continental Club and Radio/East.
However, The Point. also wasn’t always “The Point.,” Montesinos said. First started by Roddy and Monetsinos, the band was initially called “The Airliners.” From there, it morphed into “One Eye of Villanova,” a reference to the Jimi Hendrix song and then eventually landed on “The Point.” once the two reached high school. Leophonte, a French drummer, was added to the mix later down the line in 2023.
Leophonte described his own love story with music as one of admiration for a band that would soon come to resemble the group and style the three have today.
“I saw a band — a trio — and they made me want to play,” Leophonte said. “They were playing all kinds of music like us. … I just found a way to get some drums.”
As the band burned through songs, Montesinos shredded vigorously on his guitar, beads of sweat trickling down his face, courtesy of the Austin afternoon heat, though his face showed no signs of toil. Despite the alarming speed of his fingers pressing, plucking and sliding across the strings, anyone watching closely could tell Montesinos, along with his bandmates, was thoroughly enjoying every moment of their set.
According to Roddy, this ability to find enjoyment amid the difficulties of playing live comes from his own experiences of watching live music and seeing the synergy play out in other groups.
“We really prioritize playing the music with each other,” Roddy said. “There’s no telling where we go within that journey. … That’s one of my favorite things about seeing live music, like the joy onstage and seeing people playing with each other.”
The 45 minutes of play time showcased a variety of different sounds, tunes and styles, making each song unique from the next. Leophonte said the group draws inspiration internationally, ranging from African music to South American, American to European, especially in their album, “Maldito Animal.”
“It comes from everything we listen to,” Leophonte said. “Pretty much everything we can get our ears on … and I think it appears in what we do, because we like it.”
Leophonte said their songwriting process usually starts with a riff from Roddy or Montesinos, and the song begins to assemble itself naturally without much thought or logic, more so based on feeling.
Roddy said this same emotion it takes to create instrumental songs like theirs shines through during the listening experience, as well.
“Instrumental music is great because it’s something that’s really easy to connect to,” Roddy said. “Lyrics — sometimes you understand them, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes that’s the best part of the song, but I really find instrumental music to be really comforting that way, where there’s no one telling you anything, there’s no story, it’s what you make of it.”
While instrumental music historically has been far from popular with Generation Z, Montesinos said he has enjoyed seeing the younger generations begin to gravitate toward more instrumental styles, a large part due to the rise in EDM and beat-making in recent years.
Leophonte said he feels instrumental music provides a clarity that lyrical pieces can’t.
“Sometimes when you hear a song, it tells you something — it directs your attention somewhere,” he said. “When there’s no words, you’re free to feel it. You know, you’re free to just, like, bathe in it.”
He continued, saying that instrumental music has a quiet impact that often is only noticed once it is gone, giving the example of the power of movie soundtracks.
“If you remove the music to a movie, the movie loses at least 50% of its impact,” he said. “And I think when we play our music, it’s kind of the same. … We write music for you to create images in your head, that way you can be with us.”
