Month: September 2006

I got worn out the 2nd and 3rd days of ACL Fest, and didn’t get around to blogging it in a timely manner. It was, overall, a good time.

Saturday
* I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness – I think we decided we had to see them based on the name of the band and the 30-second clip on aclfest.com . Turned out to be pretty good
* Ben Kweller – heard him at a previous ACLF, but this time he had to quit early due to an unstoppable nosebleed
* Nada Surf – good stuff, but I only listened for a while before getting light-headed and realizing I should probably eat something.
* The Shins – I was looking forward to these guys .. turned out alright, but nothing special .. I think the heat was keeping me from getting too excited about any of the bands.
* What Made Milwaukee Famous – another local band with a semi-long name, another band I’m glad to have discovered at the festival .
we kinda split up after eating .. I wandered around and caught parts of
* Iron and Wine – didn’t stick around very long, even though I like all of the studio stuff I’ve heard
* Explosions in the Sky – great to finally hear them live .. never realized just how loud their songs are supposed to be 🙂 seemed like the perfect setting for this band, too: outside at night
* Brazillian Girls – heard while waiting in the port-a-potty line. sounded cool, may have to check out more.
* Willie Nelson – of course. never seen him in concert before, sounded great. I’m not a huge fan, but I did know most of the songs I heard.
* Massive Attack – sounded good, backdrop on the stage looked cool (some kind of enormous spectrum analyzer type thing), but I think I was just to tired by this point to really get into it. Or I didn’t have enough drugs in my system. 😛

Sunday
* Damien “Jr Gong” Marley – caught the tail end as we got to the park, sounded cool
* Jose Gonzalez – very cool, but very quiet and relaxing. guy in front of us left cause he didn’t want to fall asleep. He played that one song (the name of which I still don’t know) they used in the Sony Bravia commercial with all the bouncy balls ..
* Matisyahu – a Hasidic reggae band. good stuff, but we were really there to get a good spot for the Flaming Lips 😉
* Son Volt – as people left when Matisyahu was done, we moved up closer to the AT&T stage (and ran into some more friends) in preparation for lip flamage. Since the Heineken stage was opposite the AT&T, we just turned around and listened from there.
* The Flaming Lips’ lived up to their reputation as one of the best live bands – easily the best of the weekend! Confetti everywhere, giant inflatable puppet things, aliens and santa clauses living together .. Mass hysteria! If you ever have the chance, go see them! 😀 I’m sure we will next time they’re in Austin
* G. Love & Special Sauce – again, just turned around to listen. I think I’ve seen them at every ACL Fest I’ve been to
* Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – started off good and strong, but then the Flaming Lips curse took effect and the sky opened up (Wayne Coyne claimed whenever the Flaming Lips played outdoors, the rain would stop just before they played and then continue when they were done). So the band left the stage while the crowd stood around (or went home) in ponchos and umbrellas . They finally came back and played a half-four past the original end-time of 10pm, and then a 3-song encore after that. More good stuff, knew almost all the songs but were tire *and* soaked at this point, so it was hard to get real excited.

I guess I keep mentally comparing this year’s festival to 3 years ago, when REM closed out day 3 with a completely awesome show. Also, 2003 had much better weather – mostly overcast, but not much actual rain. Still, it was mostly a good weekend.

Natalie was at home, sick on Saturday 🙁 , but felt good enough on Sunday to come back 🙂

I took today off work (as planned), but still didn’t post Sunday’s pictures on flickr. Instead, I dug through the Live Music Archive looking for artists whose sets we had to skip. Don’t see any of this weekends’ shows on archive.org, but I did find a taping of Guster’s set on etree

Howdy! Long time, no blog! How the heck are ya?

Just a quick post about the first day of the festival in case I don’t remember later which bands we saw.

• Benevento Russo Duo – hadn’t heard of these guys but they were pretty good
• Asleep at the Wheel – stayed in the shade of the wine tent for these guys, but they sounded great
• Ted Leo + the Pharmacists – not as good as I was expecting, but still ok .. seemed like the heat was getting to Ted. They did play “Me and Mia”, which was nifty.
• deadboy and the Elephantmen – another band I’d never heard before that turned out to be really cool
• Stars – we just kinda hung out in the shade for this one too, but
• Gnarls Barkley – sounded good, but things were so crowded by this point that it was hard to see much
• Gomez – sounded alright, again from the shade of the trees, next to the VH1 “Confessional Booth”
• Sara Hickman – cute stuff at the kiddy stage .. some song about Radiation Man, and Iolana and here llama, but I think we missed the Cantalope song
• Thievery Corporation – different that what I expected, but really cool .. very eastern sounding with the sitar and stuff. The only song I’d heard previously was Lebanese Blonde, but the rest of their stuff was great too. Also, it’s apparently pronounced Teevery Corporation (ya mon!) 😉
• Van Morrison – good stuff, but we were pretty tired by this point .. I didn’t stand up so I didn’t see much, but they sounded great

Other notes:

It was hot. I almost know how it feels to be a whelk in a supernova. Some rain would be great, but it keeps raining at our house up north but not on Zilker Park. Also, I’m apparently not so good at applying sunscreen — I got sunburned on my left hand (minus the wristband), my knees, and the back of my right leg (?!).

Hot and crunchy chicken cones from Hudson’s on the Bend were tasty. Also popcorn from Children of the Kettle Corn.

Today: The Shins, Calexico, Iron and Wine, Explosions in the Sky, Willie Nelson, Massive Attack, Nada Surf, I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness, and more sunscreen and liquids