Beautiful weather, great company, and electrifying shows make ACL 2010 an unforgettable festival experience

Friday

After an adventurous ride through the lusciously green Austin, we arrived on our bikes to the 2010 Austin City Limits Festival held at Zilker Park. Marred by either Texas-style 100 degree plus weather or slushy, muddy rain in years past, we felt especially grateful for the beautiful, lightly breezed sunshine and mid 80’s temperature. Nothing beats October in Texas. Entering into the festival after parking our bikes and waiting in line (by the way—not hard to sneak in food and other goods!), our ears began soaking up all the intoxicating sounds. Where to?

Arriving at about 1:45pm, we decided to start with The Mountain Goats, a three-person band that prides themselves in their intense sounds and poignant lyrics. Their weirdness fit right in with Austin’s openness.

Next, we walked across the park to edge our way as close as possible to see Sweden’s own Miike Snow, an electronic rock group with poppy, melodious lyrics. In fact, the band even collaborated together to write Britney Spears’ “Toxic” before they made it big themselves. Wow. What a show. Outfitted in black silk shirts and silver masks, they began with quite the musical and fashion statement, opening with one of their star tracks, “Burial”. At one point, they unveiled their faces along with unleashing even more vibrant sounds.

Their live renditions of “Black and Blue”, “Silvia”, and “Animal” proved to be our favorites. An epic ACL moment occurred when Vampire Weekend’s lead singer shocked us by coming out and performing a cool, slicked-up version of “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” with Miike Snow. This was our single favorite song performance of the day. With our feet, eyes, and ears happy, we couldn’t tear ourselves away until after the show finally ended. Definitely worth it to get up front for this fave.

Unfortunately, since Miike Snow didn’t finish until 4pm, which was right when our next pick, The Black Keys, were starting, the crowd at this show was already packed as we made our way to towards the stage.  Instead of fighting it, we looked at the lineup again and decided to head over to the Austin Ventures stage for Band of Heathens at 4:45 pm.  We found a great spot for our blanket and took some time laying in the grass on a beautiful day as the folksy, upbeat tunes of this Austin-based indie band entertained the crowd.

Band of Heathens

Our next destination was Spoon, who are one of our favorites, and it’s great to see that they’ve made it big enough to be given an evening time slot.  We only stayed for three songs because we needed to get a spot at Vampire Weekend, which was our most anticipated band of the day.  Still, we enjoyed getting a snippet of Spoon, who sound great live.

One of the good and bad things about ACL is that it makes you practice your patience. So much time is spent walking behind thousands of others, standing in slow lines, waiting for shows to start, and then anticipating the upcoming shows. Sometimes, I catch myself enjoying a good show, but checking my watch, already gearing up for what to do to prepare for the next. Yet, every now and then there will be a show that makes time stop. Everything else fades away, and just this one experience exists – and I wish it could last forever. For us, that was the Vampire Weekend show. We’ve seen them before at Stubb’s, and were once again ecstatic to see one of our favorite bands melt away any other thoughts and just allow our dancin’ feet and singin’ hearts to take the lead. Every time, Vampire Weekend mesmerizes the audience with their vibrant, live energy.  If you get the chance, we totally recommend that you see them live.  You’ll fall in love immediately.

Vampire Weekend was like a finale for us.  We walked around a bit afterward to hear a few songs from Phish, although we weren’t all that into the legendary jam band at this point.  As we moved towards the exit, we also heard a couple of songs from the Strokes, and we were impressed.  We’ll definitely give them more attention when they come back to town.

Saturday

We got a bit of a late start on the second day of the ACL festival, and this was compounded by long lines at the entrance, where we waited about 30 minutes to get our bags screened and make it inside.  We immediately headed towards the Budweiser stage, where Gaslight Anthem was just getting started.  With a garage-rock sound fused with fluid vocals, we enjoyed them very much.  Some songs were better than others, as Gaslight’s still a bit of a work in progress.  We predict that in a few years they’ll smooth out their kinks and be an all-star band.  We definitely respect that they eschew the electronica trend and stick to the traditional rock instruments during a time when everyone seems to be incorporating digital beats into their sets.

We enjoyed Broken Bells with Taylor and Andrew!

Arriving an hour early to get as close as possible to the new, but already legendary, Broken Bells, we were pleasantly surprised to nab a spot fairly close and super center, as well as run right into some friends to wait with. With laughter and music in the air, the wait was over in a flash. Broken Bells, a joint concept group from the Shins’ James Mercer and electronic innovator Danger Mouse, this hauntingly beautiful electronica rock group has created one of the most unique albums of our time. Live, we loved their mix of uppin’ their tempo to rock out and including a melodious trumpet that accentuated their already addictive sound. Mercer’s voice mesmerized the audience with its cool, almost liquid resonance. They even treated us to a few new stellar songs. Can’t wait to see what’s next for these guys!

Broken Bells was so great that we had to stay until the end, which meant that we couldn’t get to our next selection, The xx, until they were already about 15 minutes into their set.  The xx is relatively new on the scene, but you sure wouldn’t know it by the size of the crowd at the mid-sized Zync stage!  After fighting through a packed lawn for about 10 minutes to find the restrooms, Shannon and I decided to give up on trying to get close enough to enjoy them.  Plus, they sounded almost exactly like their album.  As previously mentioned, one of the keys to having a blast at ACL is being able to adapt your expectations, and we decided to move on to LCD Soundsystem, who are one of Chris’ faves.

As we arrived at the stage, we heard Shannon’s sister, Shelby, yell towards us.  It’s such a treat to find friends and loved ones when you’re not going through the pain of trying to look for them in a park full of 75,000 people.  We related some ACL stories with Shelby and her roomie, Andi, before moving up towards the front a bit as LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy entered the stage.  With his first song, “Dance Yrself Clean,” Murphy lures the crowd in, as the track gradually moves from a soft, harmonious tempo, to a fast, vibrant beat.  Murphy chose to put on a live performance of the first six or seven tracks of his new album, “This is Happening,” before moving on to some classic favorites.  It was a great choice, as Chris has been in love with this album since its release.  Murphy also showed his eccentricities between songs, remarking about how he must look like a “jerk” for still having his sunglasses on.  But the sun was setting right in front of his field of vision, so we all understood.  His relatability was a breath of fresh air in a time when rock stars often boast larger-than-life personas.

James Murphy rocks! (even with sunglasses)

We met up with another group of friends, Jamie Lee, Thomas, and Taylor for M.I.A., where we danced the rest of the night away. Fused with craziness and pumped with personality, M.I.A. couldn’t have been a more fun way to end a wonderful day.

Sunday

With Shannon writing a paper due Monday and both of us being a tad bit “festivalled out,” we decided to make Sunday our lightest day.  This meant missing one of Shannon’s faves, Devendra Banhart, and we heard that he put on a great show.  Arriving at about 3pm, we thought we might be able to catch some of Gayngs’ set, but Shelby informed us that ACL announced their cancellation due to the Gayngs’ bus being stolen the previous evening, along with all of their instruments!  After a little research, I found out that the Gayngs may have exaggerated when they reported their bus as stolen, since it turned up in Nashville today in the owner’s lot.  Check out the article here.  The Gayngs really missed a great opportunity at exposure with this fiasco, so it’ll be interesting to see how this blame-game unfolds.

After meeting up with Sheridan, we were fortunate to find a great spot for Yeasayer, who’s relatively new on the scene and features a unique lyrical sound amidst a strong combo of digital and instrumental beats.  They’re a dynamic band, but they move to the next level when Anand Wilder takes over the microphone from usual frontman Chris Keating.  Melodious, falsetto notes drip from Wilder’s golden throat, as tracks like “O.N.E.” take the audience to another dimension.  If Yeasayer focuses on songs featuring Wilder, they’re going to be huge in the next few years.

Wilder (left) and Keating (center) perform for Yeasayer

We next tried to catch a few songs from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at the Zync stage, but it was so packed that it was hardly enjoyable.  The very few negative moments at this year’s ACL happened at this Zync stage, which was foolishly situated so that it faced the main Budweiser stage, causing the crowds from both areas to spill into one another, which left very little room for navigating to find a spot.  The festival planners put popular acts on this Zync stage (Vampire Weekend, The xx, Edward Sharpe, and Norah Jones) when they probably should have reserved it for bands who draw smaller crowds.  Hopefully, they’ll resolve this issue next year.

Our final show was The Flaming Lips, who put on quite the circus act.  Beginning with a video clip of a digitized naked woman dancing, the image zooms in on a flashing vagina, and then lead singer Wayne Coyne walks out from it.  Coyne next proceeded to zip himself into a large plastic bubble and surfed the crowd.

That's lead singer Coyne in the bubble to the right in this pic

After that, he launched confetti guns, grabbed a megaphone, shouted from atop a stuffed dancing bear, and encouraged the crowd to scream.  Unfortunately, the Flaming Lips didn’t play many of the tracks that we recognized, and Coyne seemed more interested in playing overly extravagant games with the crowd than putting on a musical show (for example, whenever he said an animal’s name, he wanted us to become it).  About halfway through, we grew a bit weary of this act and left to catch the end of Band of Horses at the opposite end of the festival.  We arrived just at the start of our favorite song of theirs, “Funeral,” so we were pleased with our decision.

With beautiful weather and great music, ACL 2010 was an awesome experience.  If you have any festival stories, please comment!