I’m back from ACL Fest this past weekend which I managed to not only survive, but enjoy every minute of.

ACL Fest is a yearly music festival thrown by the city of Austin and the Austin City Limits live music show on PBS. The festival attracts 60,000-65,000 people each day of its three day running time. Apparently a few years ago, it ran even larger, but the city began limiting ticket sales to keep the festival enjoyable for the crowd. The festival is held in the beautiful Zilker Park just south of Town Lake in south Austin.

First the good and bad about the festival. I was amazed at how well run everything was. The shuttle buses from downtown Austin ran constantly - I never had to wait for a bus to get to the festival (though we did go early each day which probably helped). The entrance gates ran quickly and smoothly. The crowd was exceptionally well behaved especially considering the relative lack of visible security. The food was priced about average for festival fare, but was of better quality than most due to its being produced by some great Austin restaurants.

The only bad things were: The heat (which can’t be helped this time of year). The average high temperature was 95 F each day - which was pretty uncomfortable from 1:00 PM until 5:00 PM. The sound from the AT&T Blue Room stage was cranked up on Saturday and Sunday and overwhelmed the acts playing at the Austin Ventures stage - which was an annoyance since I usually preferred the acts at the Austin Ventures stage. A minor quibble was the length of the walk back to board buses, but given the size of the crowd, I understand the necessity of a larger staging area.

About the music. One of the tragedies of ACL Fest is that there is so much great music, you have to make choices about what to see. With eight stages going simultaneously, you will invariably have two or more acts you really want to see playing at the same time. Check out the lineup.

Friday:

Sound & the Jury Contest Winner: Homer Hiccolm & the Rocketboys

A well polished rock & roll band.

The Greyhounds

Very cool funk band.

Jesse Malin

NYC based rock & roll in the Bruce Springsteen mold. A solid band.

Heartless Bastards

We just caught a little of this show, but I was impressed. Great rock & roll - great vocalist and good songs.

Will Hoge

This was one of my favorites for the first day. Will Hoge writes great songs not too far off from Tom Petty and Roger Clyne. The band is tight and puts on a great show. Referring to the butane tank that exploded minutes earlier, Will said “I feel bad for the people whose trailer burned. I’m from Tennessee and I know what that’s like.” Will Hoge’s cd was one that I purchased at Waterloo records this weekend.

Big Sam’s Funky Nation

Another great funk band - led by a great trombone player.

Queens of the Stone Age

This was my other favorite of the day. They played a great set. I bought their latest cd also.

Revered Horton Heat

I really wanted to see this band, but we were getting pretty worn out already and couldn’t get close enough to the stage to hear well. What I could hear sounded good. Cool psychobilly music played with lots of attitude.

The Killers

This was the first and only disappointment for me. I like a few of The Killers songs, but I wasn’t crazy about their performance. Their vocalist had a lot of stage moves between various microphones and locations on the stage and I think all of the movement had a negative affect on his vocals. I would have preferred him to stay in one spot and focus on sounding good. We left after a few songs to go check out Bjork.

Bjork

I was curious to see what Bjork would do, so before leaving, we walked over to her stage. What we saw was just like if you were in a Star Trek episode, went to an alien planet and attended a concert there.

Saturday:

Dr. Dog

Good stuff.

Raul Malo

Cool mix of classic Texas dance hall country with latin influences. Very cool.

Back Door Slam

Fantastic electric blues. If you love Stevie Ray Vaughn, you’ll love this - reminiscent, but not derivative. Good vocals also. This was one of the good surprises of the day.

Steve Earle

I’d never seen Steve Earle before. He played his first half solo on a 12-string, then brought out a DJ with a turntable to spin beats while he played his newer stuff on top. I’ve never heard that combination before.

Blue October

Good rock and roll, but we didn’t want to press up into the crowd enough to get close.

Butch Walker and the Let’s Go Out Tonites!

This was a pleasant surprise. Butch Walker really knows how to get a crowd worked up. He had most of the crowd dancing as goofy as possible (on purpose) during one song. The band is a lot of fun with dancing backup singers. The show reminded me of both 50’s rock and 70’s glam with a little taste of Rocky Horror fun.

Jeffrey Steele

This was a great show - and apparently no one expected it. We were able to walk right up to the front of the stage and sit down. After the band began playing, a much larger crowd gathered. Excellent fun songs. Great song writing and performances. Jeffrey Steele has made a name as a songwriter for a lot of the top tier country acts. His music in person is more rock and roll with a country influence - kind of like Creedence. He somehow managed to throw in partial versions of “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, “Wild Thing”, “Black Dog”, and “Whole Lotta Love” into the middle of one of his songs.

Cross Canadian Ragweed

These guys are high energy country rock. Good stuff.

Muse

This is the show that blew me away. Apparently I’m entering the early stages of geezerdom because I hadn’t heard of this band (lousy San Antonio radio stations don’t help). Really cool rock/electronica with influences from Queen and Iron Maiden while sounding totally modern. Matt Bellamy is a great player on both keyboard and especially on guitar. I’ve been wearing out their latest CD: Black Holes and Revelations.

Sunday:

Yo La Tengo

These guys played a wide variety of music that was fun to hear. They ended with a 10 minute piece that started as loops built up on stage and ended as Sonic Youth style noise.

The National

The National was really good stuff. Kind of like rock and roll for adults.

Ben Kweller

Ben was one of the highlights of the day. Great songs and a really good band. I was especially impressed with the tight vocal harmonies.

Midlake

This band had a good sound, but were a little mellow for what we wanted at that point of the day.

Lucinda Williams

I’ve heard a lot about Lucinda (and had heard several of her songs), but somehow I was a little surprised at her delivery on stage. Good bar room country. It wasn’t our thing either, so we left after 3-4 songs.

Bloc Party

This was more like it. We were kind of far back to really get into the music, but Bloc Party was a lot of fun. I’d definitely go see them again.

Rose Hill Drive

This was another fun band. Riff oriented southern blues/rock. I got a kick out of their songs. During the show, the bassist was having trouble with his bass. He had to switch out basses twice and announced: “That’s ok, I’m going to persevere and after the show, I’m going to smash that f** bass!” A highlight for the crowd was seeing him come back on stage after the show and, true to his word, smash the bass to pieces and hand them out to the crowd.

Wilco

Wilco was good in a mellow jam band kind of way. A very tight band.

Ziggy Marley

I could hear a little of Ziggy in between other bands. Good rhythms - nice sound. I wish I had heard more.

The Decemberists

The Decemberists were the last band we heard. Not too much to say about them, but I liked their sound and I’ll have to look up some of their work on CD.

We left the park before Bob Dylan came on stage. I was pretty tired and a little leery of the size of the crowd around one stage and what the situation would be like trying to leave.

It was a great trip and I’m definitely going to try and go next year.