ACL up close and personal

Are any of you familiar with Austin City Limits?

I got to experience it up close this past week when I journeyed to Austin, Texas for the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival. ACL is a long running live music show on PBS. I’ve tivoed it for a couple years now and it provides me with intimate well directed performances of my favorite artists. For the past 5 years my husband and I have been trying to get to their music festival. And this year we started planning early—6 months early. 65,000 people daily attend the fest and it gets a bit crazy. So we booked flight, hotel and car in March! The effort was worth it.

3 days, 8 stages and 60 bands, seriously, 60 acts LIVE on stage- It was crazy! And the best part every act was filmed and a live show directed on large screen. I assume they had the ACL camera people employed as every shot was well thought out and beautifully composed. When I wasn’t glued to the stage my eyes would wander to the jumbo screen and sometime it seemed much more interesting than what saw on stage.

And just if you are curious, our hotel was fabulous- stayed at the Grand Hyatt on Town Lake. We had a room looking over the lake and downtown Austin. The food at the fest was amazing, all local restaurants- most gourmet- contributed to the food options. And there was all these fun chill out areas like Zilka Beach where you could get cooled off with fans and lay out on sand. There was a grove of trees sponsored by Heineken where you could sit and see two stages. Then a tent labeled the BAR where you could see another stage and sit in comfy reclining chairs. Water was available FREE, you just had to fill up your own or you could buy it at $2 a bottle (take that Coachella!) And there were a lot of mister areas where you could you know mist your body.

Lastly I’ll add that it was blazing HOT, you know that kind of humidity at 92 degrees where your body just pours out with sweat. That’s my only complaint – really—it’s hard to complain when you’re treated to amazing music for 3 straight days.

Here’s a taste of what I got to see every day! I’ve added some of my commentary…I’ll get back to real TV and my belated EMMY opinions tomorrow.

FRIDAY
» Pete Yorn- Good start to a very busy day.
» Queens of the Stone Age- Angry and Lovely
» Crowded House- Good ole classic.
» Kaiser Chiefs—Loved them. Never really paid much attention to this band until now. Very pop inspired, good beats, kind of like a British Weezer.
» Blonde Redhead—Relaxed and Imaginative.
» The Killers- Very disappointing. They don’t live up to their studio album. The sound was off and everything was way too staged, very unlike ACL.
» Bjork—she’s a freak and I love it. Neon colors, electronica, a gold bird costume (was that what it was??!?) and a fire started in a speaker when things really got out of control.

SATURDAY
» Steve Earle- Solid sound and presence.
» Clap Your Hands Say Yeah- Can’t remember this one, sorry to say. I think I may have been overwhelmed.
» Andrew Bird- Little disappointing but he did redeem himself by showing up the next day with My Morning Jacket.
» Damien Rice—His set made me go buy his new album. As we were watching the craziest sunset occurred and it made the experience surreal.
» Indigo Girls- Cruised by this stage. Saw these ladies many moons ago. Same playlist and set, I was dancing all the way to Arcade Fire.
» Arcade Fire- FABULOUS, although I saw them a couple months ago at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley (the greatest venue on earth) and it was the same playlist and set so I made my way over to the Muse stage.
» Muse- My favorite set! Unbelievable. Presentation was amazing. Music was stellar. A+++++


SUNDAY
» The National- First time for this band. Was pretty impressed.
» Yo La Tengo- Fun band.
» Ben Kweller- Not too eventful but he did seem talented.
» Amos Lee- As a cowboy said it at the portolets while I was waiting in line, “Who’s that guy putting that shit down over there!” AMAZING. Soulful and lovely.
» My Morning Jacket= AMAZING, came in as a close second as my favorite. The band was amazingly tight and they just ROCKED hard!
» Wilco- Loved it. Everytime I see Wilco it’s like home. Sounds cheesy but I love this band. Had a great time jamming to their set.
» The Decemberists- Little immature but a young band with much promise.
» Bob Dylan & His Band- Can I just say no comment on this one? I know I’ll get railed if I say my true comments which are….HE DIDN’T SOUND GOOD. But he’s a legend….