Keep Austin Hot

I realize the slogan is "Keep Austin Weird" but based on my experience, "hot" was much more prevalent than "weird." Two weekends ago I wrapped up my summer of festivals with a trip to Austin and a day at ACL. Here's what I left thinking: for a music festival that brings out 60 thousand people daily, I was a little surprised by the lack of shade when it's 110 degrees, plus. Lolla's Grant Park offered plenty of trees, Bonnaroo pitched a fair amount of tented stages, yet ACL, the hottest of them all, expected us to man up, take the heat, and eat our BBQ without crying. Lemme tell ya, I just barely accomplished it. As a result, I don’t think I received the “true experience”for this one, but I can still comment on a few highlights and observations. And don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it and would actually consider going back... but maybe that’s just because I saw the festival is later in September next year!


I attended Friday, only. I am almost sure Jesse Malin was on my flight from Chicago! He is a short little guy, but the dudes with the guitars hovering near him gave him away. I only saw two full sets up close. The first was PB&J. I wasn’t expecting much. I like them, but I was so tired of “Young Folks” I started my own personal backlash. So surprisingly, I liked them. Granted I was dizzy and near-faint from the heat but the fact that young Peter (or was it Bjorn?) was in a long sleeved button down shirt and was dancing around the stage like it was 60 degrees out, was an impressive effort. The funniest part to the set, though, took place while waiting. Pete Yorn was finishing up on a nearby stage. I’d forgotten from Lolla, but he covers “Young Folks”! So here Mr. Yorn is, rocking out his version and slowly, PB&J crew and band would come out to the front of their stage to look over incredulously. Perhaps they were honored by the homage or else horrified by the garage-rock take on their song, I'm not sure. Anyway, the band had a great energy and tore through their set, so they get decent marks for effort and stage presence.

My favorite set was Spoon, coming back home to a fairly large stage, and bringing along their horn section! The horns pumped up the new songs tremendously, as they bounded through "Underdog" and produced a haunting version of “the ghost of you lingers.”
What I did not love was the crowd. Singer-along’ers are a pet-peeve of mine when they’re so loud I have to struggle to hear the band. That, coupled along with a bunch of loud talkers, means the band gets an A, the crowd, a big fat D.

Other notes, I liked the Kaiser Chiefs! I learned I’m not much of a fan of LCD Soundsystem. For what it’s worth, I had some friends at the fest go all three days, and they said by far the best set was the Arcade Fire. No kidding. I think perhaps had I seen that it may have single handedly turned my opinion on ACL. As for Austin, I dug it. It seemed cool, charming downtown, campus life, again I must borrow from a friend who called it “Madison in Texas.” I believe that’s about right… but I still say as cool as Austin was, it is still Texas. I'm going to try to go back in spring for SXSW so maybe Austin & I will reconnect...they won't be so hot, I won't be so crabby.