Thursday night at Austin’s Moody Amphitheater, that feeling hung over the band’s “Keep the Party Going” tour as the sun set over a rowdy group of Parrotheads. The last time I saw the Coral Reefer Band, Buffett stood at center stage. This time, a microphone stood empty where he normally would have been.
The band’s sprawling 30-song set balanced celebration with remembrance. Hits like “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” “Come Monday” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” mixed with deeper cuts including “The Wino and I Know” and “Grapefruit—Juicy Fruit.” At times, the show felt like a tribute concert. At others, it resembled the happiest wake you’ve ever attended.
Mac McAnally, Buffett’s longtime friend and bandmate, guided a sweaty, Hawaiian-shirt-clad crowd through favorites, several covers — including a gut-wrenching rendition of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Southern Cross” — and stories about the man who made it all possible.
“I wouldn’t be on this or any other stage if not for Jimmy,” McAnally told the crowd. Later, he remembered Buffett’s smile as being “wider than his head.”
The little details made Buffett’s absence impossible to ignore. Some band members played barefoot, as Buffett always did. The bassist wore a neck fan to battle the Texas heat. Fans settled for buckets of Bud Light because, unfortunately, Moody Amphitheater doesn’t sell LandShark.
Austin has long occupied a special place in Buffett lore. The last time he played the city, he joked from the stage that he wrote “Margaritaville” in a “little tequila bar” here. The crowd was smaller than when Buffett played Moody Center in 2022, but even a few hundred Parrotheads know how to throw a party.
Despite the photos and videos of Buffett playing onscreen throughout the evening, the night never lingered in grief for long — because who can be sad when you’re listening to Jimmy Buffett?
The Coral Reefer Band isn’t trying to answer the impossible question of what a Jimmy Buffett concert looks like without the man himself.
Instead, they’re answering a much simpler one:
How do you keep the party going?
By remembering Buffett the way friends do: Telling stories, singing songs, laughing and raising a drink.