Quote:
|
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
|
ACL Saturday recap:
Saturday began much easier than Friday for me, though I have gathered that this was far from the universal experience. An out-of-towner and I were able to make it to ACL bright (very bright, and again very hot) and early (okay, 1:00 seemed early). Occasional clouds and breezes helped with the heat somewhat, but it often felt like the inside of a toaster oven after heating up that second bagel. Another sellout day, the crowds started arriving early as well.
We first went to
Cat Power but it's hard to get into suicide music on such a bright, shiny day. Fortunately, we made our way across the park in time to catch most of
The Soundtrack of Our Lives. TSoOL staged a blistering set of Swedish psychedelic post-punk driven by catchy guitar riffs. Fully-bearded, tunic-wearing lead singer Ebbot Lundberg raced his Friar Tuck physique around the stage and quickly became a crowd favorite. An undergrad passing by us stumbled to the ground just behind us, becoming the first heat casualty of the day. We turned to make sure she was tended to, then quickly turned our attention back to Lundberg & Co. They experienced technical difficulties when Lundberg materialized on the sound and light scaffolding without a working microphone. Lundberg managed the situation and the crowd masterfully, and the set lost nothing from the glitch and probably gained from the necessary interaction with the crowd. This set was one of my personal faves of the festival and probably would have been one of the most talked about had it been later in the day.
We were able to meet up with RT, who had been delayed by a slight misunderstanding, on our way to catch
Josh Rouse, probably the best thing to come out of Nashville since the early days of Hee Haw. To me, Nashville has come to embody what is wrong with "country" music, and it's good to see something coming out of Nashville other than soulless line dance-ready crap. Josh delivered a set of well-written, finely crafted, and innovative pop songs. And the chicks seem to dig him. But, alas, he also announced that this was his last show and he wouldn't tour again for another 6 months.
After JR, we found a shady place under an oak tree to enjoy bbq from the legendary Giddings Meat Market that RT had smuggled in. We spread RT's serape and settled down to enjoy an Atkins-friendly feast of handmade sausage and smoked pork butt. If you find yourself in Giddings, go to the Meat Market.
Cell phones were completely nonfunctional by this point and the throngs of people were thronging. We abandoned any hope of meeting other lawtalkers and thronged our way to a midpoint between the stages for
Modest Mouse and
My Morning Jacket. There were sound problems with Modest Mouse, but that didn't prevent RT from dancing and singing along through the entire set. Whether it was the drugs, the heat, the beer, or the meat, I'll never know. MMJ played a rather mellow, atmospheric set that I have to admit to talking through, but enjoyed nevertheless.
MMJ started picking up the intesity level towards the end of the set, but we had to start making our way across the park for
Trey Anastasio's first set. Judging from the spinning chicks, abundant second-hand smoke, and short lines at the beer hut, the act was certainly popular among the hippie set. I've never been a big fan of jam bands, but the set was phenomenal. The music was interesting and complex, improvisational and yet focused. I would guess that the prominence of the horn section (hi, SD!) forces a little structure and discipline on the band that keeps it from lapsing into the spacey and sometimes endless tangents that so often afflict jam bands. Oh, and there were melodies, the songs were exceedingly danceable, and the crowd was friendly. I turned down an offer from the guy standing next to us for him to blow the smoke from his pipe into my ear for $1 a hit, preferring to be environmentally friendly and recycle the cloud of smoke they were generating to filter it through my lungs.
We decided to forego The Neville Brothers in order to secure a decent spot for
The Pixies. I suspect people had camped out in front of the stage since Cat Power in order to secure a good spot, but we were able to muscle through pretty well. We expected great things and we were not disappointed. They don't really have new material, but the set didn't feel retro at all. The music sounded fresh and relevant, like a new act, but where the 18-year-olds and 30-somethings alike knew all the words. Jack Black's older brother, Frank, still has one of the greatest voices in rock. Kim Deal seemed almost overwhelmed by the sincere adulation shown her during her vocal numbers. The Pixies set has been almost universally desribed as the high point of the festival and that would be a difficult point to argue. If their tour comes anywhere near your area, don't miss 'em.
Because a large group never really convened at Saturday's show, it would be hard to say the group splintered that night. I can say that the party continued into the late hours at the Casa de Shifter. We haven't yet installed the inversion swing in the Sex Room, but we managed to have fun with bottles of 1995 Lancaster Reserve fortified by Atkins bars, and someone managed to restrain me from doing something terrible with a pickax to my neighbor's damn barking fucking dogs.
