Marlee Foster peeked out at their soon-to-be-captivated crowd. The space was big, and it was pretty dark, except for a couple of dull purple-and-orange lights. Seeing the crowd, Foster felt a sense of anticipation, one that coursed through their conversation, as people waited for them to start. 

She stepped out onto the stage and became Merlin Foster (their chosen stage name). Soon, their voice resonated all across the room. The palpable energy and appreciation bubbled up as the music started to rise, and the dark room transformed into a live concert venue.

“Honestly, performing live was amazing,” Foster said. “I’ve been writing music for so long and finally getting to perform it in front of an audience was amazing!” 

Jay Mathias, Will Dooley, The Point, followed Foster as performers at the Micro-Moon Music Festival on Nov. 1. The doors opened at 9 p.m. at the Austin Film School. The cavernous space was filled with Mac students, and other Austinites who came just to see the show. The festival was put on by high school students, including one of the performers Jay Mathias.

“Alex has a production company called Micro-Moon,” Mathias said, “and one day we were kinda just sitting down, and he was like, ‘What if we threw a concert?”

Micro-Moon shared the stories of these musicians. All of them had been working with music and writing songs for quite a while; for most of them, however, Micro-Moon was their first real concert.

“My first time performing my songs in front of people was in a talent show in seventh grade,” Foster said, “but this was my first genuine gig where I got to perform my stuff and everyone in the audience was amazing.”

Throughout the show, people played original music and covers. Recently Foster came out with a song titled “Red Eyed Pt 2” on multiple music platforms. They played this original song at the festival and was surprised with the audience reaction,

“I’d say a great moment from the concert was singing my song, ‘Red Eyes pt 2’ and hearing people sing along,” Foster said. “I didn’t know it was gonna happen, and I loved it! And then people started moshing, and honestly it was just an amazing experience.”

Micro-Moon meant a lot to the students in it, because the concert was made, produced and set up by them. It was a complete student run event. 

“It felt amazing, seeing it pan out, how it did,” Mathias said. “I got there late after everyone had set up the space, and it was really cool seeing our whole concert space set up and seeing the crowd. It was awesome.”

Having a student-run show was a drastic change from seeing Post Malone or Billie Eilish live. Avery Miller, an audience member, described the show as being “different from a concert because I knew the people actually playing, but it was really cool to see how professional some of the songs sounded.”

Despite the familiarity of the performers, the crowd stayed engaged with the music. 

“The atmosphere was really encouraging,” Miller said. “Everyone was dancing and having a good time. It was super uplifting to see that everyone came together from different groups to appreciate the music.” 

When asked to describe the concert in three words, Jay Mathias said, “I think, actually just one word … carefree.”