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ACL

So I'm driving over to the state capital on Friday for the Austin City Limits music festival. Since I'm guessing (?) that I'll be the only AMer present, I thought I'd post the lineups to see if anyone has a recommendation.

The ones with an asterisk I'm definitely planning to see.

FRIDAY, OCT 2
Kings of Leon
Yeah Yeah Yeahs*
Thievery Corporation
John Legend
Them Crooked Vultures
Coheed and Cambria
Andrew Bird*
Phoenix
Bassnectar
Medeski, Martin & Wood
Avett Brothers
Reckless Kelly
Raphael Saadiq
Los Amigos Invisibles*
The Walkmen*
Asleep at the Wheel
Poi Dog Pondering
Dr. Dog
Blitzen Trapper
The Knux
Daniel Johnston* (that'll make Rune happy)
School of Seven Bells
Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3
Todd Snider
Walter "Wolfman" Washington
K'Naan
The Greencards
The Wood Brothers
Sara Watkins
The Parlor Mob
The Low Anthem
Mishka
Leatherbag
Prescott Curlywolf
Jonell Mosser
Sarah Siskind
Nelo
The Gospel Silvertones
Palm School/Barton Hills Choir
Stoosh
Paul Green's School of Rock All Stars
Telephone Company
Milkshake
Lunch Money

SATURDAY, OCT 3
Dave Matthews Band
The Levon Helm Band
Ghostland Observatory*
Mos Def
The Decemberists
Flogging Molly
Citizen Cope
STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9)
Bon Iver
Mute Math
!!!*
... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead*
DeVotchka
The Scabs
Grizzly Bear*
The Airborne Toxic Event
The Raveonettes*
Federico Aubele
The Felice Brothers
Eek-A-Mouse
Henry Butler
John Vanderslice*
Zac Brown Band
The Virgins
Alberta Cross
Sam Roberts Band
Bell X1
Deer Tick*
The Henry Clay People
Cotton Jones
Papa Mali
Jonathan Tyler & The Northern Lights
Mimicking Birds
Sarah Jaffe
The Soul Stirrers
Jeffrey Steele
Damien Horne
River City Christianettes
Quinn Sullivan
The Dexateens
Mr. Leebot
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo
Ralph's World

SUNDAY, OCT 4
Pearl Jam*
Ben Harper and Relentless7
The Dead Weather
Toadies
The B-52s
Arctic Monkeys*
Clutch
Michael Franti & Spearhead
Girl Talk
Passion Pit
Dirty Projectors*
Heartless Bastards
White Lies
Dan Auerbach
Raul Malo
Brett Dennen
The Dodos
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears
State Radio
Here We Go Magic
David Garza
Rodriguez
Rebirth Brass Band
Alela Diane
Mike Posner
Ben Sollee
L.A.X.
Suckers
Matt Morris
Sons of Bill
Jypsi
Danny Brooks
Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
The Durdens
Vince Mira
White Dress
Jesse Woods
Q Brothers

Re: ACL

No asterisk for Them Crooked Vultures, the "supergroup" that, by all accounts thus far, is one that actually earns that name? (For those who don't know, TCV consists of Dave Grohl, QotSA's Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones (!).)

Re: ACL

I enjoyed the Avett Brothers, but I can also see how they could be annoying. Their new album produced by Rick Rubin is supposed to be pretty good.

Re: ACL

I've seen Them Crooked Vultures and it was really great... but Josh and Dave being my personal deities, I'm not much objective.

The Dodos and Dan Auerbach are worth it live anyway.

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Raphael Saadiq! Dude can dance!

Re: ACL

Thanks to all. All of these guys fit into my (still-evolving) schedule, which is currently as follows:

FRIDAY
Avett Brothers
The Walkmen
Daniel Johnston
Raphael Saadiq
The Greencards
Them Crooked Vultures
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

SATURDAY
Deer Tick
Damien Horne
The Raveonettes
!!!
Grizzly Bear
Citizen Cope
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
John Vanderslice
Ghostland Observatory

SUNDAY
The Dodos
Rodriguez
Clutch
White Lies
Arctic Monkeys
Dirty Projectors
The Dead Weather
Dan Auerbach
Pearl Jam

(Actually, I may leave early and skip Pearl Jam. I'm kind of indifferent to them, and, more to the point, I have an important meeting at work--200 miles away--11 hours after they're *scheduled* to finish.)

And that's it--I'm off. I'll file a report next week.

Re: ACL

How were the shows?

Re: ACL

I didn't see this until now. Nice to see you want to make me happy :)

How was it?

Re: ACL

I promised a scouting report from the ACL festival more than two weeks ago now...apologies to Paul and Rune, who called me on it. Belatedly, here’s a selection of highlights and lowlights:


FRIDAY. By universal acclaim, the finest weather ever seen at ACL—sunny, high around 77. This may sound piggish, but there are more beautiful women per square foot in Austin than anywhere else on earth. No word of a lie.

AVETT BROTHERS. I caught the last couple of Blitzen Trapper’s songs, but this was the first full set I saw. Undeniably fun, and great songs—nothing wrong with people pogoing while playing banjo—although a friend thought they were just a little too pretty to be playing bluegrass.

THE WALKMEN. Serious disappointment. Played loud, but with little energy.

TODD SNIDER/DANIEL JOHNSTON. Played the same stage back-to-back, and Todd was the saddest burnout case I’ve ever seen onstage. Daniel was much more real, warmer, and played better.

PHOENIX. Not really an obscure band, but one of the major finds of the weekend for me. Just a killer, energetic, poppy set. More than anyone else I saw all weekend, they seemed really tickled to be there.

THEM CROOKED VULTURES. Did I say loud? These guys blasted the audience harder than any other band I have seen, ever. They had some great, hooky, hard-rock songs, which would have worked perfectly at four minutes; unfortunately, they tended to stretch out into seven- to ten-minute jams (I wonder if this might change once they’ve been together long enough to write more songs…). For those wondering what happens when you combine Led Zeppelin’s bassist, Nirvana’s drummer and QOTSA’s singer/lead guitarist…it sounds exactly like you think it does.

YEAH YEAH YEAHS. One of the ones I was really looking forward to, and they didn’t disappoint, although there were some slow stretches. Great stagecraft for those who like that sort of thing (elaborate eye motifs). Karen O was, of course, unforgettable, with her Bowie-esque costume changes, her voice (which alternated between singing sweetly and roaring furiously), her creepy smile, and her…very disturbing relationship with her microphone.

****

SATURDAY. The Day of the Deluge. It drizzled most of the morning, and was starting to rain seriously when I arrived.

!!!/AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT. Although they were on different stages and don’t sound anything alike, my experience of them was similar: I’m all in favor of strange time signatures and avant-garde noodling, but this was a day which called for furious energy to counteract the elements, and neither band provided it. Also, um, I was flirting with someone through most of both sets…

FLOGGING MOLLY. I arrived knowing nothing about them except that they’re Irish-punk. I’m kind of a sucker for the genre anyhow, and I decided that they’d be the best bet for the “furious energy” referenced above. I was right. The heavens absolutely opened just as their set began, and nobody cared. Rather more political than other bands in their genre. I’ve never had more fun stomping around in the mud…although I’ve downloaded a couple of their tunes since, and they don’t come close to conveying what they sound like live.

AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD. It was between them and Bon Iver; I went with Trail of Dead because: 1) a friend of mine in attendance knows the bassist and 2) Bon Iver was on the other side of the park, too far to hike in the mud. Awesome show by a local band made good, the attack of their songs was enhanced by the sheer number of musicians (they’re an eight-piece, I think) all playing as ferociously as possible. They destroyed one of their two drum sets at show’s end, and they’d earned it. Thumbs up.

EEK-A-MOUSE. I hadn’t planned to see them, but seemingly half of the crowd of 75,000, including me, had made for the only covered venue by this point…or at least the row of portable toilets behind it. Fun, functional reggae, most of the songs having to do with either ganja or how wonderful Eek-a-Mouse is. Or both.

JOHN VANDERSLICE. Some kind of neo-folky thing which a friend recommended. Nice enough.

THE DECEMBERISTS. I was very lukewarm about going to see them, but they were a very pleasant surprise. Their baroque songcraft translated amazingly well to a live show.

And with that, I left. I’m 41 years old and seven hours of standing in the rain is quite enough, thanks. The competing evening headliners I missed were Dave Matthews (uh uh) and Austin band Ghostland Observatory (whom everyone I saw Sunday insisted was a highlight of the weekend…ah well).

****

SUNDAY. The Day of the Mud. This was absolutely astonishing; there was literally not a dry patch of grass, or even dirt, anywhere. To avoid the dust storms that have traditionally plagued ACL in past years, the city of Austin spent $2.5 million re-sodding and planting grass throughout Zilker Park this year. By Sunday, it seemed clear that that money had gone down the drain. There’s no way I can convey just how smelly and filthy the whole park, and everyone in it, were at this point.

(Yes, smelly. The re-sodding referred to above was done with a product called “Dillo-Dirt.” In the great Austin tradition of recycling, a major ingredient of Dillo-Dirt is treated sewage. And you could tell.)

WHITE LIES. Very, very impressive live show by another band I knew nothing about. Very hooky and a little bit darker than what I think of as this decade’s indie British pop (Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys). I don’t make any great claims as a prognosticator, but I would guess this band has legs…anyone know anything about them?

ARCTIC MONKEYS. This was my second time seeing them, and their live show has improved to above-average. Alex Turner made some gestures in the direction of being a rock lead singer, which was a step up from the Oasisy/shoegazey inertia I’d seen from him before; can’t remember the drummer’s name, but he seems to be the most talented musician, or at least the best performer, in the band. Their live songs don’t differ noticeably from their recorded output, which irritated one of the people I was with. For me, this was the last real highlight of the festival.

DIRTY PROJECTORS. Seems to be a bit of a buzz around them, but perhaps a live show isn’t the best way to appreciate them for the first time.

DEAD WEATHER. Apologies to Dee, whom I see has been promoting Jack White’s latest project on the forum, but I found this kind of boring (although the lead singer was a serviceable, interesting rock girl). Jack’s clearly pushing farther in the direction of unadulterated electric blues, but neo-Zeppelin was never going to get my attention. The field was smelly, we were all filthy, the crowd was getting testy, and I left halfway through.

Had to drive back to Houston Sunday night (after walking 2 miles back to my car and shedding my mud-caked outergarments in the trunk) for an early-morning meeting on Monday, so I missed Pearl Jam. Would have been nice to say I’d seen them at least once, but I certainly felt like I got my money’s worth over the weekend. It was a great time, and I plan to go back next year; if any AMers plan to be in the Live Music Capital in early October 2010, look me up.

Re: ACL

Did you have a pair of wellies? They are an essential for music festivals here in Ireland, espically with the summers we've had recently.

Glad you had a great time. I,ve been to Austin a few times and I really love the place so ACL is definitely a festival I want to go to at some stage.

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Thanks for the great capsule reviews.

Re: ACL

schleuse
can’t remember the drummer’s name, but he seems to be the most talented musician, or at least the best performer, in the band


Agree with you, I saw Arctic Monkeys live a couple of years ago, and I was impressed by the drumming.
Btw, great reviews, schleuse