The sights and sounds of Austin City Limits
The Austin City Limits Music Festival, held annually in Austin's Zilker Park, has always been an event for hardcore music lovers. In the past, festival-goers have braved dehydration, September heat and the dust kicked up by thousands of feet bustling to the next stage. Fortunately, ACL's bigwigs decided both of these problems could be fixed: This year, the three-day event was pushed into October in hopes of cooler weather and the city of Austin spent $2 million to cover the historically-dusty Zilker Park in a layer of fresh green grass.As I'd never been to ACL before, the entire concept, to say nothing of the new changes, sounded fantastic. I had heard my friends recount horror stories of the dust clouds and witnessed their horrible coughs upon their return to school.
The grass may have melted into mud when it rained Saturday, but this was a minor inconvenience, set amidst a sea of the best live music money could buy. Austin claims the title "Live Music Capital of the World," and fittingly, its music festival boasted over 130 live bands. As an amateur music lover, I was unfamiliar with most of the bands, and while it wasn't possible to attend every show, the smattering I caught was more than enough to get a fill of new music.
When I first arrived at the festival on Friday, I headed straight to the Dell stage to get a good standing spot for the Dr. Dog concert. The Philadelphia band, formed in 2001, channels their pop-rock '60s sound into something that wouldn't sound out of place on a Beatles album. The band calmly churned harmonies and happy melodies into the air, kicking my ACL experience off to a great start. However, the band chose not to interact with the audience much, and its early scheduling - unfortunately undeserved - didn't draw nearly the crowd it could have.
French band Phoenix followed Dr. Dog's performance, lighting up the AMD stage. Unfamiliar with their music, I thoroughly enjoyed watching drummer Thomas Hedlund and keyboardist Robin Coudert rocking out as Thomas Mars, the lead singer, belted lyrics. The light show may have been lost in the afternoon sunlight, but the music was more than enough to keep me entranced.
I overheard Andrew Bird, an eclectic one-man-band from Chicago, as I shuffled across the festival grounds to Friday's headliner, Kings of Leon, a band I was actually familiar with - and had enjoyed in the past. Yet, in the end, I enjoyed Bird's signature whistling just as much, if not more, than I did the Kings of Leon's set. The latter wasn't bad, but the live setting failed to add much to the appreciation of their music. Not to mention the camera crew only shot the lead singer, Caleb Followill, instead of drifting between different members of the band. I enjoy seeing each band member up on the big screen, not just the lead-singer crush of the zillion other girls in attendance.
On Saturday, I trooped back down to Zilker Park for the night's headliner, the Dave Matthews Band. Improvising solos for the fiddle, guitar, saxophone and drums in every song - which included saxophonist Jeff Coffin playing two tenor saxes at the same time - turned the concert into a festival in its own right. Matthews visibly got into the music, dancing with so much energy his shirt was drenched after two songs. The joy of the band translated into every note, making their live performance a fun and exciting experience.
On Sunday, I squeezed up close to the AMD stage for my most-anticipated show of the weekend: the B-52's. Their biggest hits, "Love Shack," "Rock Lobster" and "Roam," have been with me since childhood, so putting faces to the familiar voices was a treat in and of itself, even if those faces were more aged than I'd expected.
The band led the crowd through a mix of old favorites and new songs off their latest CD, Funplex, in a way that kept both young and old members of the crowd engaged. I loved hearing the band's sound effects live; I now truly appreciate the unique voices that can belt out verses and make narwhal and alien noises alike.
Pearl Jam closed out the festival with the final performance of the night, coming on as soon as Girl Talk let out across the park. The band worked hard to make its performance worth the sufferings of the tight, stuffy, mud-caked crowd. ACL was the group's first live show since the Sept. 20 release of its new album Backspacer, but that didn't keep old staples like "Alive" and "Even Flow" from the set list. I had just as much fun watching the crowd rock out to each song as I did the band, but I could never look away from the stage for long.
When the band wasn't letting loose, frontman Eddie Vedder entertained the audience with comments about the nearby University of Texas, stories of his rocker life and an impromptu slide through the mud during the band's last song. For those unaware, Vedder is not just another selfish rocker; earlier in the week, when the band taped a performance for PBS' long-running "Austin City Limits" television show, he bought all the tickets and gave them to disabled veterans. The knowledge of Pearl Jam's own charity effort helped me appreciate their passionate music even more and made it clear they were a great pick for the festival's conclusion.
As mentioned before, ACL is for hardcore music lovers. The full experience requires guests to brave both hot and rainy weather, mud, cigarette and pot smoke, and suffocating crowds of hipsters and tuned-in parents alike. If one can brave the elements, hours of fantastic music, unforgettable people-watching and surprisingly good food await.
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