This Week in Texas Music History, an iconic Austin venue makes a Van Morrison anthem its swan song.
Episodes written by Jason Mellard, Alan Schaefer, and Avery Armstrong
Liberty Lunch Gloriathon
Jason Mellard from the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State Universit
On July 23, 1999, a cross-section of Austin’s music scene played the song “Gloria” for twenty-four hours straight to say goodbye to the beloved venue Liberty Lunch. The club had opened in 1975 with a Caribbean theme at a time when Jimmy Buffett, Extreme Heat, and Beto y los Fairlanes defined a slice of laid-back Austin.
In 1983 Mark Pratz and Jeanette Ward took over, and Liberty Lunch became a home for national alternative artists from the Dead Kennedys to Sonic Youth to early Nirvana. It nurtured indie sounds in town, too. Daniel Johnston’s first national audience was a 1985 MTV performance filmed on the Liberty Lunch stage. But as the 90s came to a close, real estate development caught up with Liberty Lunch as Austin made new plans for the blocks around city hall. As part of the club’s big send-off, musician Michael Hall launched a so-crazy-it-just-might-work plan to play Van Morrison’s 60s anthem “Gloria” for twenty-four hours straight. Hall said he chose the song because it “is one of the primeval documents of rock and roll, one of the songs every kid with a guitar learns to play, a celebration of youth, simplicity, and the power of three chords.” His band the Brooders kicked off the Gloriathon at 9:00 pm.


And it wasn’t just him. This was an open invitation for the scene to take the stage, a celebration of musical community. Some groups took three-hour shifts, while others jumped on the mic just for one rousing shout of the chorus.
eep into the “Gloriathon,” at 3:45 pm the next day, Van Morrison himself phoned from a stage in England to contribute a verse. But, as the late, great author Michael Corcoran wrote, the “superstar cameo was a deviation of what was really happening.” The lines between audiences and performers, rockstars and superfans, blurred, even into the rousing finale where Flatlander Joe Ely sung alongside Joe King Carrasco and Carrasco’s dog.
Following the 1999 Gloriathon, Liberty Lunch still had a few more days and a Toadies concert to go. The twentieth century still had a few months, too, but this was the close to a rich chapter in the Austin scene.

Sources:
Greg Beets and Richard Whymark. A Curious Mix of People: The Underground Scene of ‘90s Austin. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2023.
Rosie Ninesling, “A Look Back at Liberty Lunch’s ‘Gloriathon’,” Austin Monthly, July/August 2022. https://www.austinmonthly.com/a-look-back-at-liberty-lunchs-gloriathon/
Michael Corcoran, “G-L-O-R-I-A-T-H-O-N!”, March 2020. https://www.michaelcorcoran.net/g-l-o-r-i-a-thon/
Michael Corcoran, “Liberty Lunch Was the Armadillo in the Trousers of 80s/90s Austin,” December 2021. https://michaelcorcoran.substack.com/p/liberty-lunch-was-the-armadillo-in
Michael Hall, “G-L-O-R-I-A,” Texas Monthly, August 2009. https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/g-l-o-r-i-a/
Media:
Farewell to Liberty Lunch with footage of a lull in the Gloriathon
Daniel Johnston at Liberty Lunch, 1985