Sunday was rough. I woke up with a bad head cold. I doped myself up on Nyquil and off we went!

The Music:

• KT Tunstall – pretty good. That “cherry tree” song didn’t even bother me that much.
• Jack Ingram – I’m guessing is from Texas and is even worse that Corey Morrow or Pat Green – too country, not enough country music.
• Matisyahu – all the songs kind of sounded alike but were good. Fun show.
• The New Pornographers – almost ruined my weekend and quite possibly could have driven me to rip my ears off my head if it weren’t for me leaving to get a snow cone.
• Ben Harper– good every time. The Marley’s went up and sang for the finale – what a great memory to have.
• MUSE – was excellent. Didn’t fit in with the rest of all this hippie music but woke everyone up. Loved it.
• Tom Petty – we got great seats – and he played 4 songs.

Then the rain came. About half the crowd left. We walked slow, the rain slowed, and sure enough he made it back out for another hour of music. Some a little slow, but that was tolerable – I just watched snippy dance. Like Van Morrison, another classic I can check off my list…but no where near as thrilling as some past ACL headliners.

The Festival:

• was humid
• MK found a dollar – so he had a good time
• we got free (albeit nasty) pizza for dinner
• skirts are better than shorts
• I was happy it was over when it was over!!

Saturday we got to go to KD’s for breakfast before we hit the festival. Excellent.

Got down to the park to see:

• Murder by Death – pretty rockin’
• I Love you but I’ve Chosen Darkness
• Ben Kweller – read here for snippy’s account – I’ve known Ben Kweller for a while and didn’t quite see him as the tampon type…
• Nada Surf – yes, the band that sings “Popular” – they have some other good stuff too…
• The Shins
• The Raconteurs – awesome.
• Massive Attack!!! – we got to sit in the very front. If you know me, you know there are many reasons this band resonates with me. It has been the soundtrack of my life in Texas. So no pressure for them to be incredible or anything…

We got right in front and the first thing that happens is an announcement that one of the guys isn’t there ‘cuz his wife had a baby last night. So they don’t get to songs with him I really like, but other than that it was a great time. That music goes THROUGH you. You wanna hear it? I’ll BUY you “Mezzanine”. That’s how good they are.

The Other Stuff:

• Bands think it’s cool to reference other bands – why? As in “Oh, hey, we’re Nada Surf. We see you leaving for TV on the Radio, they’re great. Wish we could go”. All night this went on. Lame.
• Stop talking. You didn’t pay $200 for your little wristband to come see all these bands you like and talk through the entire show. I didn’t pay to listen to YOU.
• STOP SMOKING you disgusting dirty people. IT’S GROSS.

Friday – Snippy and I ran our errands. We made it down to the park at about 2:30.

The Music:

• Deadboy and the Elephantmen. Only saw two songs – but excellent.
• We passed by Tristan Prettyman – too pretty to sing, should find an acting job.
• Wolf Parade – never heard of them before, just passed by. Really liked them and will be checking them out.
• Matt Nathanson – Snippy’s suggestion – funny guy. The only person we saw all weekend with a stage presence that we didn’t want to throw something at when they talked.
• Gnarls Barkley. Didn’t make me “crazy”.
• We ate then got to see Thievery Corporation – my favorite show of the day. Didn’t know them before, will also be checking out.
• We were told to go check out a band called The Tragically Hip – totally not for me. Just loud yelling. “Loud noises – loud NOISES“.
• Finally, John Mayer – I’ve heard endless conversations about how good John Mayer is live, but to me exactly the same as on the CD isn’t extraordinary.
• Van Morrison ended the night. Apparently, Van Morrison is 852 years old and is sick of singing the songs everyone knows.

The Festival:

• Ran out of pizza
• Had pretty clean toilets
• Wasn’t TOO hot
• People dance funny
• We shared our hand sanitizer
• Fell asleep as soon as we got home to be ready for tomorrow!!

Since last night is now know as “The night I’d prefer to never talk about again and so help me DO NOT even TALK about football”, like any night when the Longhorns lose, let’s move on to a happier discussion:

Austin City Limits.

In my dream world, SC, MK, and I will neither be iffy nor sleepy nor too thirsty nor need to use the port-o-potty hardly ever. We WILL, however, make it to all the shows we want to see and the bands we like will play all our favorite songs and we will dance and snippy will take amazing photos and everything will be perfect.


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Here’s hoping!

I love music. Blues on the Green last night got me excited. I can’t wait for ACL! The lineup came out today. I’ve got a highlighter and tape to self laminate the color printed maps and schedules I’ve printed.

Blues on the Green is a concert series they set up at Zilker Park downtown. I’ve never been to a concert where I was able to pay less attention to the music. There were way more people than I had expected and I’m surprised this is the first time I went (and that it was Velvet’s idea). They had a great setup going – vendors and that sort of stuff – and the night cooled down perfectly.

I’ve made the improvement to my ACL plan to actually bring stuff this time and stop trying to tough out three days in the sun sans luggage. Mike, my husband, is a great concert companion since he does not actually care what we listen to, as it all sounds like “hippie crap” to him. At least he doesn’t whine.


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