It was a Wednesday night in Austin, and a group of around one hundred fans evenly filled the space of Empire Control Room’s inside stage, eager to see the band Transviolet live. Being new to the band, I came because multiple people had recommended I attend this indie-rock show. As the lightsturned down to wash the stage in a purple glow, lead singer Sarah McTaggart entered through the crowd with wedding flowers in hand, and I knew I was in for a treat.
Easily diving into the catchy rhythms, McTaggart’s voice was reminiscent of Halsey, soaring through the emotional parts of each song. Haunting melodies gave way to hard drum breaks. Bandmembers Judah McCarthy, Michael Panek, and Jon Garcia back McTaggart, and their joy at playing the music was evident onstage. Psychedelic colors mixed with vintage animated video clips on each side of the stage. Fans of a band like Phantogram would have loved the emulative playful rock. During one chorus she asked for a dance, the audience obliged, and she taught a simple two-step. Her songs swung from danceable, to moshable, to ballads that pulled at your heartstrings.
The maturity in their sound, I suspected, arose from McTaggart’s consistent dedication to her artistic aspirations, writing and playing songs since the age of 17. Mctaggart also described the effect her evangelical religious upbringing had on her in a 2016 article with Authority Magazine. She stated “for better or worse, Christianity had a big impact on me”. For the night in Austin, which they dubbed “White Wedding,” McTaggart chose her “hot weather wedding look” – a lacy, transparent white dress with tulle sleeves perfect for dramatic flourishes. The band’s early success is in part from McTaggart sending a sample to Katy Perry, a former member of her evangelical church, who then tweeted it to her followers.
The band released their latest album, Softcore, in February 2025, and I felt lucky to have seen this discography performed live. McTaggart explained onstage that Softcore is a love letter to a boy she met and had to move away from. The boy was now her husband. The new album opens with “Chapel Hill”, a layered track filled with harp, harmonies, and very little band backing. The next track, “Stockholm”, settles the album into it’s incredibly infectious and sing/yell along-able lyrics. It elicited a very fun whistle-along from the audience during the show. Other standouts included “All My Love”, a track that builds to crescendo and was beautiful in-person, “No Hate like Christian Love” (not performed live), and the poppy, optimistic/realistic song “Life is Good”.
Transviolet took their name from Charles Bukowski’s poem ‘When The Violets Roar At The Sun’. The poem contains a line that reads, “They’ve got us in a cage, ruined of grace and senses, and the heart roars like a lion at what they’ve done to us…”. McTaggart explained the inspiration in a 2016 ID Magazine article, “It spoke to me so plainly about how we (the band) felt about the world”. She continued, “We want to be active in designing our future. We believe that our generation can learn to live mindfully, and peacefully and evolve, thus ‘trans’ as in short for ‘transcendence’. To sum it up, Transviolet is transcendence into a new, violet awareness.” The optimism for a brighter future was evident. Onstage, awash in a violet glow, she urged the audience to consider her show a safe space from bigotry.
After their show, I discovered a Nylon interview from 2016 where McTaggart describes their SXSW run as playing “nine shows…12 interviews and five photo shoots in four days”. She went on, “By the end, we were sweaty, sleep-deprived zombies, but so inspired by all the amazing artists we played with and the die-hard fans who were so passionate about discovering new music”. I sensed the enduring gratitude for their fanbase built through years of touring in cities like Austin. During the show, she asks the audience what number Transviolet performance this is for them, and she elicits giggles of joy as people share “show four, five, six,” and she recognizes them. I left with the overwhelming feeling that they could be playing a much bigger festival stage, and I hope to see them somewhere like Austin City Limits in the future.
Photos by Lena Wright
