ACL: Part I

So I'm going to do a report on this years Austin City Limits Festival in three parts, each part covering a separate day of the festival. There is no guarantee that these installations will occur in three consecutive days, or even in three consecutive months, but they should all be out by 2009. With that said, I'd like to now say that Austin City Limits is the greatest music festival out there, and I will be tallying up points for ACL throughout the post to show you.

Friday

My lady friend (Maggie) and I began the day with some breakfast tacos at Juanitas (Breakfast tacos: 1 point ACL). If you ever find yourself in Austin, make the journey down fifth street to this charming joint that operates out of a trailer. From there we booked it over to Zilker Park (which features a spring to take a dip in: 2 points ACL) to begin this years festival. We were late for Sahara Smith, an Austin local that I wanted to catch, getting there a little after 12:30 to catch…

Jesse Malin (12:30-1:30): I hate to say it, but I wasn’t impressed. I do like a few of his songs (Brooklyn, for instance) but the others just seem to blend together. I thought I really was going to like him, after hearing how Bruce guested on the album, and how he has an “Americana” vibe, which I dig, but to me, Malin ended up sounding like a bunch of other artists out there; nothing that really separated him from the pack. Plus he went on this ill-advised rant about our technology driven culture in which he kept repeating “I’ve gotta have my myspace, I’ve gotta have my youtube,” and he ended up making no sense. However, it was a gorgeous day and I was feeling good. Except of course for the fact that I was drenched with sweat 10 minutes in, and would remain drenched for the duration of the festival (readers note: I am legendary for my ability to sweat; so it’s awkward that I live in Texas). So after Jesse, we headed to…

Joseph Arthur (1:30-2:30): Joseph Arthur’s new album is a more rockin affair than his past efforts of ballads that make their way onto many a movie soundtrack. However, because he was playing tunes off this new “rockin” album, he ended up sounding exactly like Jesse Malin. I swear I thought Malin had just switched stages. And so it was that I started my day with a collection of mediocre 4-chord rock songs. So then, for a change of pace, we went to…

Pete Yorn (2:30-3:30): Who played more four-chord rock songs. Only his were good. Nothing really of note to report, other than Pete wearing a t-shirt that said “Clancy’s” and Maggie yelling, “We have a drug store named Clancy’s,” thinking that the drug store made t-shirts and Pete was a fan of said drug store. Also, just as he did at Lollalapalooza, Pete covered Peter, Bjorn, and John’s hit “Young Folks.” Which is kind of weird because next we went to…

Peter Bjorn and John (3:30-4:30): Now I thought it odd, and bad etiquette, that Yorn would play a song from a band who was at the same festival, not to mention following his show 200 yards away. So, I thought that maybe the bands knew each other, were friends, and it was cool. Apparently it wasn’t. PB and J spent a cool 2 minutes on stage kind of ripping on Yorn in their own Swedish way, seeming a little miffed that he played their song…you know, when they were about to play it 15 minutes later. All in all, the show was good ("Paris 2004" was a highpoint), but not that good. It seemed like they couldn’t really produce the wall of sound they had on their album in a live outdoor show. One notable part of the show was when they brought out Mel Draisey of The Clientele to sing “Young Folks,” and she was a very pretty lady with a great voice. Besides that, nothing of note besides a discussion about how they definitely ordered their names so it went in the order PBJ, rather than naming the band Bjorn John and Peter.

From there we took a little break to grab some food and some Sweat Leaf Sweet Tea (3 points ACL) before catching…

LCD Soundsystem (5:30-6:30): All I heard before the show was how sweet they were in concert, and it was a good show, but I’m not completely sold on their tunes. Their lead singer, James Murphy, seemed like a cool guy, especially when he invited the entire crowd to his wife's birthday party that night. But while their aggressive rock/electronic/dance sound worked brilliantly at times, at other times Murphy sounded like the devil that Will Farrell played in the SNL skit when he tries to teach Garth Brooks a hit song ("I said the guitar was out of tune!"). Apparently I was not the only one who thought so; another person who did was…

James Hunter (6:30-7:15): Hunter started his show with a friendly jibe at LCD. LCD ended their show with a tune in which lead-man Murphy kept repeating “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” The tune went a little over LCD’s time-limit, causing Hunter to awkwardly mill around stage in his vest and tie before starting his show. So when it was time, Hunter said, “And as one great poet once said, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Classic middle-aged-man-listening-to-LCD Soundsystem-joke…my dad would have made the same one. Anyway, I really enjoy James Hunter. He sings tunes reminiscent of Sam Cooke in a silky smooth voice and plays a mean blues guitar. And when I say he plays Sam Cooke reminiscent tunes, I mean Sam Cooke could have actually sung these songs; Hunter is very throwback. This was evident in the fact that Maggie and I were BY FAR the youngest folks there. Everyone else was 50 plus and it was clear that all the ladies had a serious crush on Mr. Hunter. Seeing James Hunter was probably our boldest move of the festival, because we missed Spoon to see him. We missed Spoon partly because James Hunter is awesome, and partly because we saw them at Lollapalooza and weren’t that impressed. And from talking to people who went to the ACL show, they weren’t too impressive in their home city either. And while we’re talking about Spoon, I would like to say that I do usually enjoy Spoon and I did enjoy their latest record Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, but I definitely don’t respect them. Have you seen the track-list for this album? It includes tracks named “Rhthm and Soul” and “Don’t You Evah.” Are they 7th grade girls trying to be hip? Are they writing text messages? Until I hear valid explanations for the misspellings, I withhold my respect…which I’m sure they care about. However, I do respect…

The Killers (8:15-9:30): After walking around for a while and catching a bit of the Gotan Project, whose Argentinian/Parisian jams are intriguing if nothing else, we found our way to The Killers show, who were sharing headlining duties with Bjork. We were really far away for The Killers, but it was still a good show. I think they are a great band, built for playing festivals. And I really dig the anthemic rock they threw our way in Sam’s Town, even though it received mixed reviews. Anyway, we took off 15 minutes early to beat the crowds and hit up 6th street (4 points Austin) before heading to bed early for another day of tunes on Saturday…

(Authors Note: I just realized that maybe I didn't think that the bands Friday were all that sweet. But Saturday and Sunday more than made up for it. You'll see when I post about those days in December.)

Post-Script. In case you haven't heard some of the bands mentioned above, here are links to their myspace and some recommended tracks (RT) in case you want to sample on itunes.

Jesse Malin RT: Brooklyn

Pete Yorn RTs: The Man, Murray, Life on a Chain

Peter Bjorn and John RTs: Paris 2004, Young Folks, Against the Wall

James Hunter RTs: People Gonna Talk, Mollena