When Foster the People debuted their new live show at Coachella 2026 — their first appearance at the festival in 12 years — they unveiled something closer to visual spectacle than rock set: a production built around “a 1950s-inspired utopia that slowly unravels into a psychedelic dream,” a phrase that also happens to describe the emotional arc of Paradise State of Mind, their 2024 fourth album. That show, and that record, are now working through amphitheaters across North America. Austin gets it Friday, October 16 at Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park.
About the Show
Paradise State of Mind arrived in 2024 as Foster the People’s first full-length in seven years, and it doesn’t sound like what made the band famous. The group formed in Los Angeles in 2009 around front man Mark Foster; the 2011 debut Torches and the inescapable “Pumped Up Kicks” put them on festival stages as indie-pop fixtures. Paradise State of Mind turns away from that template, drawing from late-’70s and early-’80s funk, disco, gospel, and R&B, with the work of Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder, and Prince as clear reference points. The record debuted at No. 7 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, driven by physical and vinyl formats, their third Top 10 on that ranking, and drew notice from Billboard, NME, Forbes, and Consequence.
The Good Mourning Sunshine Tour spans roughly 30 North American dates from September 9 in Phoenix through October 23 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. Foster has been direct about what the record and the show are built toward: “People need hope. And when I think about what hope is, it’s having the courage to walk towards something that you think can be better, while fully acknowledging the darkness around you.” The utopia-to-psychedelia production concept makes that legible in real time rather than leaving it abstract.
Goth Babe opens. Griffin Washburn started the project in 2015, writing songs in a Nashville dorm room before relocating west, where he recorded music between surfing and climbing excursions out of a camper truck along the California and Oregon coast. The sound sits somewhere in the territory of raw, lo-fi surf pop. Lola, his 2024 debut on Mom + Pop Music, was his first full-length. He opens most dates on this run, Austin included.
Venue & Logistics
Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park, at 1401 Trinity St, is an outdoor room with the physical scale this production needs to work. Doors open at 7:00 p.m., show at 8:00 p.m.
Tickets
Tickets are on sale through Ticketmaster. Buy tickets