ACL Festival Weekend

As I mentioned, I attended the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend down at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. It’s funny, at a music festival like this you can pretty much directly correlate the lameness of the band with how many times they shout out or work the name of the host city into the lyrics of their songs (I’m talking to you Xavier Rudd). It’s also funny that crowds never cease to respond to this transparent ploy with a hearty “Woooo! That’s where I live!!”

Anyway, I went to the festival with my lady, Holley, and we saw a handful of fairly diverse acts this weekend. Some were good, some weren’t so good, and others defied description. Here’s a recap of what I saw.

FRIDAY

The first couple of bands we saw were Mates of State and Jenny Lewis. Mates of State played a lot of stuff from their new album that wasn’t nearly as bouncy and obnoxiously keyboard-tastic as their older stuff. They also incorporated a violin and cello which gave some much needed warmth to their music. All in all, a nice little surprise to start the festival.

The always adorable Jenny Lewis impressed me with her vocals. I had no idea her voice was that spot-on live. She had just the right amount of twang to shine over her band’s authentic but somewhat generic brand of Americana.

We only caught two full sets, but they came from polar opposite ends of the spectrum. The Swell Season is the band that formed out of the movie Once, which if you haven’t seen I highly recommend. Glen Hansard is a ham and he writes nice soaring ballads that everyone can sing along to. That led to some cheesiness during the set, but overall it was good.

The Mars Volta on the other hand avoided cheesiness in favor or total awesomeness interspersed with random acts of extended wankery. Watching Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala work their magic is like watching a more avant garde version of Page & Plant in their prime. Their chemistry allows them to feed off each other and steer the band off course on a whim. The Volta play with outstanding energy, which allowed them enough momentum to propel through ten minute pools of saxophone and drum solos back into perfect chaos several times throughout the night. Rodriguez-Lopez is a phenomenal guitarist, but chances are 95% of you reading this would hate this band.

SATURDAY

We had to get up "early" on Saturday to go see Fleet Foxes play at 12:30 pm, but they definitely made it worth our while. Not only did they play their excellent folksy Appalachian music well, the lush harmonies were excellent live, and they provided a comedy show in between songs as well. This was probably the highlight of my weekend. I can’t recommend Fleet Foxes enough.

After Fleet Foxes there was a lot of waiting around in the hot hot sun waiting for another act we wanted to see. We heard a little Drive-By Truckers while knocking down some barbecue from the Salt Lick. I have a soft spot in my heart for southern guitar rock (especially while consuming brisket), so I sort of like Patterson Hood’s outfit. But the Truckers, who have multiple songwriters, can veer off into the lame zone quickly when not performing Hood’s songs.

We also accidentally caught a couple songs from Man Man’s set while walking over to get a spot for Erykah Badu. Man Man was easily the worst band I heard all weekend long. I don’t even know how to describe their music other than just to tell you to look at this picture and imagine what kind of ridiculous music a tool like that would play. Sometimes I wonder if hipsters even listen to the bands they hype?

Erykah Badu put on a great show. Her hair was as huge as ever and she even gave a shout out to My Morning Jacket before playing “Tyrone”, a song that MMJ covered. Badu’s confidence and stage presence is second to none, and we were treated to a new song called “Soldier” that was as good as anything else she played. At 36 she’s still got it.

To cap the night I took in the always reliable Black Keys. Patrick and Dan put on a great show full of raw energy Saturday night. For some reason they only got a 45 minute set though, so it felt like they were just getting started when the final fuzzed out riff of “I Got Mine” sounded and they walked off stage.

SUNDAY

We took some time off in the morning to recharge the batteries (and do a little studying) for the final day of the festival. The first band we saw was Silversun Pickups at 4:30 pm. The Pickups aren’t good live. Singer Brian Aubert’s penchant for screaming during the choruses can be glossed over in the studio, but live it’s impossible to control. From afar you may have thought somebody was getting beaten to a bloody pulp on stage. Not pretty.

Gnarles Barkley was great. This is a band that can put on a great live show with a lot of diversity. In their one hour they covered more styles and tempos of music than most bands could hope to accomplish in a career. They even closed the set with a cover of Radiohead’s “Reckoner”, which fit in so comfortably that it took me a moment to realize it wasn’t a song of their own.

To close out the night we took in back to back performances by Band of Horses and Foo Fighters. Band of Horses is a personal favorite of mine so there was little they could do to not be good. They played their songs well and Ben Bridwell’s tenor sounded every bit as comforting live as it does recorded. I particularly enjoyed him shouting “WOOO!!” in between every song. You could tell the guy was enjoying himself up there playing for all us “kind folks”.

The Foo Fighters were as expected. Dave Grohl is a born performer so it’s really no surprise he has now been in two bands of this magnitude. The band played all their hit songs and thrashed about the stage enthusiastically enough to send the crowd home in a good mood. And now we're all addicted to Sweet Leaf Tea...

All photos courtesy of the ACL Festival official website.