Now that we've given you a little background, it's a good time to go a little backwards. Here's my wrap-up of our trip to Austin and the ACL Music Festival this year.
The music was generally good, although the sound was inconsistent. The weather was about as good as you can expect in Austin in mid-September -- high temperatures in the low 90s, with a good amount of little clowds and an occasional breeze. We even had a few monster raindrops late on day 1 that felt great. The crowd, staff and atmosphere were mostly positive -- they all get B+/B grades. Looks like we'll be back for 2008, unless something funny happens with the line-up.
Day 1 (Friday 9/14)
Flew in on Thursday, and didn't have time to do much more than enjoy a little fried chicken at Tony's Southern Comfort. Nice, lite batter and a big piece of moist chicken. Catfish was tasty as well, but it doesn't take much to get "fried out." Drink lots of lemonade!
Friday was the first day of the festival. One of our goals this year was to catch some acts that are new or relatively new to us. Most of the past two years we spent catching artists we knew well -- and got to see many bands we had never seen live before, like Spoon, Arcade Fire, the Walkmen, Wolf Parade, Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, Willie Nelson, Bob Mould, Lucinda Williams, Coldplay -- you name it/him/her. But this year there were some good gaps in the schedule, so we figured we'd get a good opportunity for some sonic experimentation.
We started by catching a little bit of Blonde Redhead's set. The crowd was pretty light. It was fairly early Friday on a second-tier stage, so the festival throng had yet to build. We sat for a few songs, which sounded a little like a mellow Sonic Youth or Velvet Underground. I thought they were pretty good, but we left to catch a bit of Peter Bjorn and John, who were playing at the same time across the park. Its always a little more fun to see a band that's buzzing a bit -- and PB&J has been. Even the notoriously picky Pitchfork gave their CD, Writer's Block, an 8.5/10. We had already missed them open with one of my favorites, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" (<-- download from inSound.com). We still got to see Peter whistle (or fake-whistle?) as the band launched into one of their bigger hits, "Young Folks." Rachel and I both thought they were good, not great, and probably not among the strongest acts at taking their recorded music to the stage. Below are some pictures I took.
Blonde Readhead (above). Peter of Peter Bjorn and John (below).
We moved on to one of the big stages next to see some of the Crowded House set. Neil Finn sounded great, and the band was very professional and tight. As might be expected, "Don't Dream Its Over" was a big highlight for both the crowd and us. It was pretty surprising how many people in their teens and twenties knew words to the songs. We stayed to the end, then headed to see M.I.A. The house was crowded at Crowded House, but maybe even more so for M.I.A. Her style was flamboyand, like her loud outfit (see below). She and her back-up singer moved and jumped with the beat throughout. The music, unfortunately, sounded too much like a mixed-tape version of her two discs. Overall, good but not great. Spoon played next at the main stage, right behind us. I thought the sound was most inconsistent here, perhaps because of the need to pump the amps up pretty high to accommodate the large crowds. We'd seen them play a few times before, always in much more intimate settings. This time around was not all that exciting, albeit a solid set and performance.
The sun started to go down, which is a consistent highlight. The weather cools off, the atmosphere grows, and the audience often hits its peak and lets loose a little. Kaiser Chiefs played a short, punchy set that energized the crowd. After that, Rachel and I were pretty spent, but managed to stick around for the beginning of Björk's show, which headlined on the main stage. The crowd was reasonable on account of the Killers' concurrent set across the vast festival grounds. She and her large backing ensemble looked wacky, had a groovy lazer show, and sounded great. They started with some great cuts -- “Hunter,” “Pagan Poetry,” “Hidden Place” -- but kept it all at one, low tempo. After a long day standing up in the sun and hot air, it was enough to put sleeping on our brains. We had already seen tons of great stuff, so we called a night.
A few more shots from day one: M.I.A. (top). Kaiser Chiefs (bottom).
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