2005 ACL Fest Home > Reports from the ACL Festival > Archives > 2005 > September
September 2005
Coldplay makes it all worthwhile
Despite the three days of heat, and despite the settling fog of headache-inducing dust (I suspect we’ll be bleeding dirt for weeks), a majority of festers still dragged themselves to Coldplay’s flashy event-ending set. Of course, being the final hour-and-a-half-long act gave Chris Martin’s quartet the right to be as theatrical as Cher and as self-righteous as U2’s Bono. The big-screen camera shots and negative-exposure effects didn’t help their music, but it sure didn’t hurt the experience.
“Politik,” “Yellow” and “The Scientist” were more than just crowd pleasers — their inspired singer, Martin, immersed himself in each song with a passion matching what his studio albums have captured. With the subtle addition of guitarist Jon Buckland and quaking bassist Guy Berryman, the songs adopted Coldplay’s most anthemlike sound yet.
Perhaps they were trying to prove themselves as ACL’s last act. Intimidated by an earlier headliner, the Arcade Fire, Martin gracefully admitted that bands like Fire, “should make you try all the more hard.” Another inspiration was Johnny Cash, to whom they paid homage with an English-accented “Ring of Fire.” (Does this mean that Trent Reznor is going to start to cover Coldplay?)
After encore songs “Clocks” and “Fix You,” the show came to an end. The soft piano melody on “Clocks” was as hauntingly loud as ever, and “Fix You” vibrated with an acoustic flutter. Gritty figures sifted out of the concert grounds with one thought in mind: If this kind of show keeps up, Martin’s crew could easily leave Dave Matthews and his cronies in the dust.
Nashville before Britpop with Dierks Bentley
Chalk it up as one of those “Nowhere-But-ACL” kind of moments. “This is the first time we’ve ever opened for Coldplay,” Dierks Bentley announced from the Austin Ventures stage on Sunday. “I was talking to Chris Martin backstage; we flipped a coin and I lost, so.”
Actually, it was Bentley, not the red-hot British trio that was the anomaly: Bentley was the only mainstream Nashville country act to play the 2005 edition of the festival. His past visits to Austin consisted of opening for George Strait’s sold-out show at the Erwin Center and his local debut for a couple of hundred folks at SXSW a couple of years ago. What a difference millions in record sales will make.
Bentley’s set was an abbreviated rendition of his headlining show, drawing largely from his second major-label release, “Modern Day Drifter.” Though he could probably coast on his lean good looks and curly mop of hair, Bentley obviously cares about more than the surface gloss of his aggressively commercial product (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The title track to “Modern Day Drifter,” for instance, owes more than a little bit to Waylon Jennings’ classic sound. And opening his show with a thrashing version of Rodney Crowell’s “Ain’t Living Long Like This,” followed shortly by a Buddy Miller song, “My Love Will Follow You,” seemed to show that Bentley is more than happy to tip his songwriter’s cap to his predecessors.
A couple of his ballads were crushed in the cacophony coming off adjacent stages, but the several thousand Bentley fans were there to hear his picaresque good ol’ boy tales such as “Cab of My Truck,” “Domestic, Light and Cold” and his breakout hit, “What Was I Thinking.” It wasn’t Coldplay — who, one might say, closed for Bentley — but it wasn’t bad.
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Black Keys a hard-core White Stripes
Because they’re a two-piece blues band, Akron’s Black Keys have been compared to Detroit’s White Stripes. But there are plenty of notable differences — Keys drummer Patrick Carney can actually play, for one thing, and guitarist Dan Auerbach’s style is far grittier and more elemental than Jack White’s. It’s simple, hard-core and full of Hendrix influences.
Carney and Auerbach quickly won over a huge Heineken stage crowd eager to experience the young pair’s raw musical prowess, delivered on such tunes as “Thickfreakness,” “The Breaks,” “Girl is on my Mind,” “Set You Free,” “The Moan” and “10 a.m. Automatic.”
Just when they threatened to get boring, however — there’s only so much Black Keys one can take before it starts to sound repetitious — they pulled out a cool “Grown So Ugly” and an even cooler, fuzz-guitar-filled finale, the Beatles “She Said, She Said.” John Lennon would have been proud of the treatment they gave it, and their fans loved it. And loved them. No question they were one of the big hits of ACL fest. It won’t be surprising if they wind up on a bigger stage next year.
Groveling is the new cockiness with Wilco
“I know you’ve been out in the sun all day,” Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy told a hot, dusty and nearly festivaled-out crowd late Sunday afternoon during his band’s Cingular stage set at ACL fest. “But you could help out more.
“Wilco doesn’t usually come begging,” he added. “But life’s too short. Please, show some enthusiasm!”
Just then, a much-needed breeze kicked up and the band launched into “A Shot in the Arm.” The combination worked. After the next tune, “War on War,” in which Tweedy led the newly responsive audience in hand claps as a feedback maelstrom built behind him, he said, “I like this groveling thing. Groveling. Groveling. It’s the new cockiness.”
Leave it to Tweedy to keep the quotes coming, along with such fine melodies as “Jesus, Etc.,” “I’m the Man Who Loves You,” “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” and “I’m Always in Love” — a cut from “Summer Teeth,” an album he said the band doesn’t visit often in concert. They also performed a new song he said was written “just for you, Austin.” He didn’t offer a title for the funky tune, which featured guitarist Nels Cline on dobro. But it was clear Tweedy and the band were having fun and working hard to entertain. They didn’t have to grovel. Fortunately, the audience finally noticed.
Innocuous Franz Ferdinand gets the kids dancing
You have to go back to, I don’t know, maybe the Stray Cats and Duran Duran to find a band so committed to its innocuousness as Scotland’s Franz Ferdinand, who are about as original as wearing a “Vote For Pedro” T-shirt, but kick it out like they’re the saviors of rock. The band’s in such heavy “new album promotion” mode that they did their big hit, “Take Me Out,” which welds a Strokes intro onto Gang Of Four guitar and MTV ‘83 melody, early on.
Drummer Paul Johnson stepped to the front on “Walk Away,” a pastiche of new wave cliches, from the Oct. 4 release, “You Could Have It So Much Better,” as a helicopter with a cameraman leaning dangerously close to the edge, circled around. No doubt this will be for an upcoming video. No doubt it will sell a ton. No doubt critics will hate it.
But a non-caffeinated version of Franz Duran is not an option. They eat up the spotlight. They get the kids dancing. Don’t hate them just because you can’t wipe the stupid grin off their Shaun Cassidy faces. Then again …
Up a ‘Dry River’ with Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men
Near the end of his perfectly timed 45 minute set in the multiset bleed zone known as the Austin Ventures stage, Dave Alvin sang “Ashgrove,” a song about how he longed to return to a dark nightclub of his youth. Choked in the dust and baked in the sun, many in the respectful, yet not entirely enthused, audience were no doubt begging to be brought along.
Backed by the Guilty Men, Austinites Chris Miller on guitar, drummer Darren Hess and New Orleans exile Dale Spalding on harmonica, plus way too loud bassist Gregory Boaz, Alvin seemed out of sorts in the heat and had to cut his set short when his amp gave out during “American Music,” from his old Blasters band.
But on “Out of Control,” with its gutbucket wordplay, and “Dry River,” featuring Miller on otherwordly steel guitar, Alvin and Co. put it all together and for a few moments there even drown out a band that should’ve been called the Septemberists in the insane heat.
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Naked in the sun with Jason Mraz
When Jason Mraz introduced his drummer, Adam King, during their ACL Fest performance Sunday, Mraz said, “He hasn’t seen this many naked people since Glastonbury.”
I have news for him: Maybe being naked helped at that U.K. festival, but it sure wouldn’t have made a difference in the afternoon heat at Zilker Park — unless those naked people were skinny-dipping. If this weekend’s weather proved anything, it’s that Austin’s festival needs to move back even further. October would have to be cooler. Otherwise, it needs to go back to two days. As it is now, the event is just too much of an endurance test. Mraz wound up playing to an audience that might have been far more enthusiastic — screaming girls notwithstanding — if they’d been able to do much more than try to keep from sweating to death.
Mraz’s performance also lacked the spontaneity and witty repartee that endeared him to a boatload of critics during a special South By Southwest performance in March. The funniest moment of his performance — screaming girls notwithstanding — was when he stopped in the middle of his big hit, “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry),” and said, “In case you guys missed it,” then launched into a verse of “Wonderwall,” by Oasis, who played Saturday night. His songs were pleasant enough, however, and when he hit a little reggae groove in “I’m Yours,” swaying his hips and singing in his highest falsetto, he drew another round of screams.
Mraz is lite pop, lite funk, lite jazz, lite Jack Johnson. But hey, when he unleashes his witty wordplay, as he finally did in “The Remedy,” even big girls — and guys — seem to like him fine.
Ruthie Foster brings balm to Gilead
It might have seemed counterintuitive to invoke heaven on a day that was hotter than hell, but that’s just what Ruthie Foster did when she opened her set at the Capital Metro stage with a soulful version of Sister Rosetta Tharp’s “Music In the Air.”
“Y’all ready for some church?” she asked the sweltering crowd, as hands rose in affirmation and shouts of “Amen!” rang forth. As anyone who has seen Foster (especially those who caught her ACL performance last year) knows, Foster’s robust fusion of blues, soul, folk and gospel could make a holy roller out of a coma victim.
Abetted by a tight and versatile rhythm section and an accompanist who alternated between dobro and lap steel, Foster debuted a new song, “Mama Said,” full of maternal homilies (“Tell your feet not to be in such a hurry…”), and a lilting, yearning version of Terri Hendrix’s “Hole In My Pocket.”
But it wasn’t until her sinewy version of her reggae-tinged “Real Love” that she found a spark that ignited the audience; one searing, galvanizing, seemingly endless high note proved to be the tipping point that transformed the Cap Metro tent into church for real.
After that, it was all gravy. The old Gullah gospel song “Traveling Shoes,” with its sirening steel guitar, elicited a rapturous response, as did “Ocean of Tears” and an extended vamp built around one of her signature covers, “Walk On.” Her voice alternating between falsetto and a low gospel moan. Her pleasing natural register and infectious enthusiasm made Foster an ideal preacher on a day when everyone could use a little balm of Gilead … or at least a nice cold beer.
Arcade Fire already flaming at just 2 years old
Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, Richard Parry, Tim Kingsbury, and Win’s younger brother William formed the Arcade Fire in 2003 in Montreal. In 2004, they released the album “Funeral” on respected U.S. indie label Merge. By the end of the year, it was a sleeper smash, moving more than 100,000 units so far.
Earlier this year, they sold out Emo’s. Friday night, they sold out Stubb’s. Sunday, the played in front of tens of thousands on the headliner-worthy Cingular stage at ACL fest. Not too shabby for a band that just turned 2.
All nine of them (the core five plus a few hired guns) marched onto the stage carrying red flags, dressed in their customary black suits and dresses, as if they were on their way to, well, a funeral. But their detailed, kitchen-sink music is anything but depressive. It’s a powerful, anthemic wall of organ melody, bass, drums, guitar, dueling violins, French horn and accordian. They opened with the wailing “Wake Up,” all howling the melody into whatever microphone was in front of them. “Somethin’/filled up/my heart/with nothin’” singer Win Butler sang in a slightly melodramatic voice straight out of the British New Wave, a thrift shop Robert Smith.”Someone/told me/not to cry.”
On “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)” the band switched off instruments, which continued throughout the set, while Chassagne took the mike from her husband, Win, for the moving “Haiti.” They juggled instruments, they hurled joyful melodies at the crowd, they raged against melancholia while acknowledging its power, they looked impeccable doing it. Let’s hear it for Canada.
A sweaty embrace for the Kaiser Chiefs
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it/I’ve never been this far away from home,” chanted the crowd during the Kaiser Chiefs most involving song, “Oh My God.”
The truth was, unless there was an entourage from China, few were as far away from home as lead singer Ricky Wilson and his four British blokes from Leeds. In a scorching 105 degrees (Fahrenheit not Celsius, sorry Wilson), no wonder they feel far from home.
In a puddle of onstage sweat, the Chiefs punched out some of their catchiest tunes from “Employment.” Despite any heat exhaustion, the schizophrenic punk-pop wasn’t about to let you stand still. From “I Predict a Riot” to “Modern Way,” Wilson and his skinny counterparts proved that they were more than just a reminder of The Clash.
Drummer Nick Hodgson spurted out a dance-inducing rhythm. Guitarist Andrew White fired his guitar in an unpredictable riot. Wilson graced the crowd with his up-close presence and climbed the light tower for a mere wail during “God.” Though Hot Hot Heat might have been a more appropriate name for the act, and it’s almost impossible to follow last night’s Britpop gambits, Bloc Party, the enthusiasm of the Kaiser Chiefs destined to be embraced by ACL, if sweatily.
Burning up the stage
After an introduction from Austin City Limits producer Terry Likona, who declared Sunday “the hottest day of the year,” Rilo Kiley took the massive SBC stage at what felt like hottest moment of the day.
Rilo Kiley lead singer/chanteuse/crush-worthy frontwoman Jenny Lewis is an interesting combination of things. At its base, her persona is that of the plucky indie gal with the alto of gold. But she’s also a former child actress — remember her in “Troop Beverly Hills” — who has a bit of Hollywood about her. She’s also a songwriter unafraid of classic rock tropes straight out of the Springsteen playbook.
And then there’s her torch singer persona. She strolled across the stage like it was a smoky nightclub — hard to pull off at a festival — during the other-woman anthem “Does He Love You?” Come on, Jenny, any child of L.A. knows not to mess with a married man.
She brings all these things to bear when they play live. In the blazing heat of the SBC stage, Lewis and company ran through a hour’s worth of these contradictions. She started on organ for the countryish “I Never” and “Pull Me in Tighter” with its Springsteen-like horns and twin guitar harmonies that Thin Lizzy would either be proud of or demand back. She strapped on a guitar for the hamfisted political song “It’s a Hit” (“Any chimp can play human for a day/Use his opposable thumbs to iron his uniform and run for office on Election Day/fancy himself a real decision maker/and deploy more troops than salt in a shaker”) and the compelling “Love and War.”
The fanning drone of M83
Drones are beautiful things. They can envelop you, hypnotize you and lull you into deep listening and deeper concentration. But drones can also become mighty oppressive, which is what happened during M83’s often powerful, often maddening set.
The French electronica band lost founding member Nicholas Fromageau in 2003, leaving Anthony Gonzalez the sole remaining founder. He’s taken the band in a distinctly more “rock” direction, with a guitar set on “blast,” muscular drumming and, yes, massive drones.
Opening with the expansive “Moonchild,” Gonzalez, looking mighty French in his sport shirt and jeans, leaned on his keyboard while the full-on rock band blazed behind him.
But in the 103 degree heat — which he sure wasn’t dressed for; does it even get that hot in France? — M83’s king-sized drones amplified and seemed to enhance the soul-melting temps. Wave after wave the mostly instrumental songs came, heavier and heavier as the set wore on. In a club, it might have been magnificent (it was sort of sad when the lights flashed in what was supposed to be a dramatic display; the sun simply drowned them). Some seemed to love it. But for some of us, the drones just made the day seem that much hotter.
Backstage bliss, on-field blisters
A wise man once wrote that heaven is merely backstage at hell. Where conditions at Zilker Park were brutally hot and dusty for fans, who crowded aboard the precious few feet of shade like shipwrecked passengers on a raft and tied neckerchieves over their faces like kids playing stagecoach robbers, the accomodations for artists were relaxing and luxurious. The Artists Lounge, where bartenders seemingly on loan from Hooters served free drinks until late in the night, was a hub of hangout.
John Bell of Widespread Panic said one of the best things about his band’s first appearance at the ACL Fest was the way artists were able to interact and see the other performers onstage. “In other festivals you’re stuck in your dressing room all day,” he said Saturday. ACL’s fenced concourse and fleet of golf carts and trams allowed the acts to see whomever they wanted during down time
The schmoozing also had good results for fans, especially when Robert Randolph joined Panic on Saturday night for an utterly scorching version of Robert Johnson’s “Stop Breaking Down.” The two acts had worked out the jam earlier in the day. It was so good that, even though I could hear Oasis going into “My Generation” from my spot in the midpoint between the two main stages, I opted to chase after Randolph’s searing pedal steel.
The most-frequently-asked question of the weekend had to be why CSE would schedule another festival in September after last year’s broilathon. The fest doesn’t want to compete with Texas-OU on the second Saturday of October or any home football games, when hotel rooms are snapped up by Texas exes. Still, organizers had the option to host the event Sept. 30-Oct. 2.
Lining up for a fiesty Bloc Party
If you blinked at South by Southwest, you missed them. If you overlooked their debut album, “Silent Alarm,� at the record store you missed out. But if you caught Bloc Party at ACL on Saturday you witnessed one of the feistiest sets in the festival’s four-year history. Singer Kele Oreke and guitarist Russell Lissack tried to revive the 1980s snarling punk sound, while shirtless drummer Matt Tong sweated out beats that the Cure would readily adopt in their songs about boredom, arrogance, and sex.
Despite the fact that they played nearly every song from “Alarmâ€? with a spiky friction that had even the security officers jumping up with tension, the set still seemed far too short — I really wish they had shown their softer side with “Compliments.â€? Still, I can’t complain. After all, if you really love something, you have to set it free.
If the sharp “Like Eating Glass,� the luminous “Blue Light� and the newest “Two More Years� are the future wave of British punk music, I’ll gladly migrate to Her Majesty’s homeland. Those of you who were there know what I mean. Those of weren’t, I feel sorry for you. After making a name for themselves at SXSW and forming a widespread fan base with a song on the “Wedding Crashers� soundtrack, it’s going to be hard to get this close to them again.
Oasis answers your questions
When ACL announced it had booked Oasis, questions rose like flies in August.
Would they sample songs from their new album, “Don’t Believe the Truth,� and show the skeptics that they still rocked liked it was 1995? Or would they resuscitate their greatest hits from the lineup that earned them self-acclaimed Beatles status? And most importantly, would there be any obvious tension between Noel and Liam Gallager after their threatened breakups?
Despite the massive cloud of dust that was kicked up during the day, a crowd nearly a third of the population of the United Kingdom shuffled their way to the Cingular stage for the answers.
Yep, they played “Lylaâ€? and “Turn Up the Sunâ€? and proved that they sound more like the Who than ever before — they even covered “My Generation.” Yep, they played “Champagne Supernova,â€? “Wonderwallâ€? and “Don’t Look Back in Anger,â€? so there was no reason for anyone to go home unhappy.
And when two brothers restore British rock ‘n’ roll to this degree, does anyone even care that they threatened to break up for good?
Reverently irreverent Drive-By Truckers
Drive-By Truckers more or less proudly wear a Southern rock mantle borrowed from their greatest inspiration, Lynyrd Skynyrd. But they wear it in an almost Southern gothic style — all creepy and spooky and dark and heavy, like the musty curtains in a decaying mansion. They plumb the dirty South, all right — at least, they did Saturday night at their ACL Fest performance, with several tunes from “The Dirty South” album: “The Day John Henry Died,” “Cottonseed” and “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac” among them.
DBT always has offered an interesting perspective on the human condition — particularly as lived in the South. With both reverence and irreverence, respect and clear-eyed skepticism, they layer story after story into each song. Gritty, grainy, Dust Bowl-dry at times — like Zilker Park was as the sun went down Saturday — DBT delivered well-received commentary on a variety of issues, always told in the context of the double- or triple-guitar attack (in time-honored Southern rock tradition) of Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and/or Jason Isbell, and the deep, ominous bass of Shonna Tucker, along with propulsive drumming by Brad Morgan.
Perhaps the best statement about what DBT stands for can be summed up in an icon found on the drum riser: a velvet Elvis painting. Reverence and irreverence, indeed.
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Roky resurrected
If you can’t get behind the fact that “I’ve been working in the Kremlin with a two-headed dog” is one of the five hands-down coolest lyrics in rock ’n’ roll, then the fact that Roky Erickson played his first full-length concert on the Austin Ventures stage Saturday night might not mean a great deal.
But to those who recognize Roky and his band, the 13th Floor Elevators, as among the original pioneers of acid rock (they are credited with being the first to use “psychedelic” in a musical context and their 1966 sojourn in San Francisco impacted scores of musicians there), his appearance represented the musical equivalent of touching a saint’s bone. More significantly, for those who have observed Erickson’s decades-long struggle with drugs and mental illness, his performance of a baker’s-dozen of his hits and shoulda-been hits marked a literal resurrection.
Backed up by his longtime collaborators the Explosives (themselves veterans of the heyday of Austin’s punk scene), Erickson played (played!) and sang (sang!) and even joked with a crowd that included the single largest contingent of grey hair at the festival. Let’s face it, the folks who bought the Elevators’ and Erickson’s albums in their first pressings tend to be Fans of A Certain Age — there was a smattering of lovingly faded Armadillo World Headquarters and Eeyore’s Birthday T-shirts, and tie-dye was not necessarily regarded as an ironic retro fashion statement.
That having been said, Erickson’s music remains fresh and compelling today (Hey, the guy’s credited with influencing everyone from Janis Joplin to Henry Rollins.) Listening to him was to realize anew how solidly crafted is his body of work. “Don’t Shake Me Lucifer” and “Bermuda” are hook-heavy rockers with an early-Stones/Chuck Berry appeal. “The Beast” is a lumbering vintage blues shot through with horror movie and Book of Revelations imager. “You’re Gonna Miss Me” is one of the great kiss-off songs in the rock canon, while its polar opposite, “Starry Eyes,” is as perfectly crafted a pop confection as any Roy Orbison or Buddy Holly ever minted.
“Now I’m home to stay,” Erickson sang in “Splash 1.” The fans that have been with him for the whole of the long, strange ride, along with the ones getting their initiation on Saturday might devoutly hope it is so.
Don’t detract from frontmen of John Butler Trio
They call themselves the John Butler Trio, but it sounded like double that number on the Austin Ventures stage Saturday — Butler alone has the intensity of two or three people, and bassist Shannon Birchall and drummer/percussionist Nicky Bomba could convince anyone within earshot that they’re multiples as well.
A dreadlocked Butler, playing a Weissenborn slide and a couple of what looked like custom-made 11-string acoustics, plugged through a pedal-driven effects board, brought to mind both Ben Harper and even, perhaps, the late Michael Hedges. Even if his the nails on his right hand weren’t filed to acrylic-reinforced points, he’d still be scarily virtuosic. Though his 45-minute set contained only seven songs, there was no meandering. If there was a tighter trio performing at ACL this weekend, I sure missed it.
But the true highlight of Butler’s set had to be his solo “Ocean,” a tune dedicated to those in Florida, New Orleans, Alabama and parts of Texas who have suffered the both hurricanes’ wrath and “feeling abandoned by their government.” The instrumental was absolutely beautiful.
Aside from the sound problems faced by all artists on that particular stage (lyrics were particularly difficult to decipher), the only other jarring aspect of Butler’s set was the lighting engineer’s attempt to get wild and crazy. Somebody should have told him or her that such efforts were pointless (and distracting) at 5:45 p.m., well before the sun went down. Note to all lighting people: like Keith Richards said, a sideman’s job is to support the front man. If people don’t notice you, you’re doing it right.
Fortunately, the music more than offset such annoyances. Perhaps next year, Butler will be on a bigger stage — where lighting will matter.
The Dirty Dozen resound with New Orleans culture
The Dirty Dozen Social and Pleasure Club provided the 1977 genesis for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, the pioneers in the revival of New Orleans’ historic, though moribund, brass-band tradition. And indeed, their Saturday set at the Capital Metro stage was both sociable (the joint was packed) and pleasurable (if the throngs of dancers and hankie-waving second liners is any indication).
But underneath the gaiety, there seemed to be an undercurrent of anger and injury. The New Orleans musicians who are playing the ACL festival (the Dirty Dozen, Kermit Ruffins, the Iguanas) are in pain — and the fact that the city was flooding again even as the band took the stage had the recurrent quality of a nightmare.
To these ears, the Dirty Dozen’s set was a roar of defiance from nine throats — a back-atcha riposte to the malicious forces of nature. Oh, sure, the show fell into discrete songs — the funk vamp that opened the set, the NOLA standard “Junko Partner,” a call-and-response carnival take of Dave Bartholomew’s “The Monkey Speaks His Mind,” a roof-raising excursion that used “When the Saints Go Marching In” as its jumping-off point (with founding member Efrem Towns in a Saints jersey serving as head cheerleader), and a thunderous take on Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.”
But as a whole, the Dirty Dozen’s show was the sound of a city shouting back in the face of loss and despair. The band, for a moment, was in fact a city in microcosm — there was the blare of car horns, the wail of a cop’s siren, the rumble of the streetcar, the jive and rebop of the street hustlers, the eternal, irresistible groove that might be the sound a river makes if a river could set itself to music. For just a little while, it was all there — the Crescent City, whole and inviolate and destined to rise once more. That’s a gift not only to the rest of us, but to all the musicians of New Orleans itself.
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Tech glitches don’t slow down Death Cab
Sure, it’s hot. Sure, it’s not raining when it was scheduled to. Sure, you’re sweltering in Zilker’s 15-acre field as much as you were this time last year. But is that really going to stop you from mellowing out to the festival’s favorite indie-rock band?
Death Cab For Cutie played during one of the sweatiest time slots — nearly 4:30 — but that didn’t stop fans from pitching blanket to their finest classics — “Title and Resignation,” “Sound of Settling” and “New Year” almost allowed you to forget about the heat — and their trendiest selections from their newest album, “Plans.”
The heat may have stifled the volume, or maybe its because the Cingular stage is cursed with technical problems. But when you’re listening to “Resignation” while lead singer Ben Gibbard wails away like Meg White on a simplistic snare drum riff or noticing how much they have improved upon that song with their latest single, “Where Soul Meets Body,” who really cares about technical problems?
Cuts and scrapes, not much more
As of 5 p.m. Saturday, emergency medical technicians have treated approximately 60 case of heat-related exhaustion, 20 eye injuries related to blowing dust, more than 100 blisters, cuts and scrapes, four alcohol- and drug-related illnesses. There were no ambulance transports out of Zilker Park, down from 11 transports on Friday.
Southwest Emergency Action Team president Tannifer Ayers, a presence at ACL Fest since the first year, said there was no particular explanation for the rash of transports on Friday. “They were mostly medical,” she said. “Those can happen at any time,” citing broken bones, a cardiac event and a diabetic emergency.
Ayers also added that she expected injuries to rise before the end of the evening. “We often see some drug- and alcohol-related events after Widespread Panic,” she said.
There have been no arrests today.
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Missing Aussie and backstage vibe
Missy Higgins was crossed off the ACL gig list because her flight from Houston canceled.
Members of the acts, Widespread Panic and Blues Traveler, talked cool backstage vibe with musicians interacting.
“The people have their ears on here,” said John Popper of Blues Traveler of the ACL mobs.
Our Buddy
One never knows which Buddy Guy is going to show for any given performance — the one who phones it in or the one who means it. Fortunately, Guy decided this ACL Fest crowd was worth cranking it out for — at least part of the time — and so he did.
“I know it’s kinda hot. I’m hot, too.” Guy told the crowd Saturday. “Let’s get it on!”
The intensity of his performance eventually got as hot as the beating midday sun. Though he’s about to reach 70, he had no problem hitting high notes as easily with his voice as he did with his brown Fender Telecaster, which he played before switching to his more familiar polka-dotted Strat.
Guy delivered “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember” and “What Kind of Woman is This” from his new album, “Bring ’Em In,” (out this Tuesday) a collection of classics done as duets with fellow guitar greats, and some others not on the album (a snippet of “Fever,” another of “Feels Like Rain,”) before slipping into his unnecessary renditions of other guitarists, including Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton (he chose the Cream tune, “Strange Brew,” perhaps because those guys are heading stateside for three reunion shows).
He nearly let his sax player steal the show several times, but when Guy decided he still had something to prove, he went for it — taking his also-familiar stroll through the audience (so to speak; he had an empty aisle straight to the soundboard) and wowing the crowd with a few vicious licks. He was playing a song from “Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues, ” but as he sashayed toward the board, his gold watch, gold rings and gold teeth gleaming, he wore a huge “No-I-don’t-really-have-the-blues-at-all!” grin. By the time he was done, neither did anyone who was listening.
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Sonny Ortiz back on his old stomping grounds
It’s been a long time since Domingo (“Sonny”) Ortiz opened for Christopher Cross at Steamboat on Sixth Street and this ain’t no Aquafest. Ortiz plays percussion for Widespread Panic, one of the top concert draws in the country, and Saturday’s co-headliner (with Oasis).
“This is a special show for us,” said Ortiz, who moved to Austin from his native Waco in 1975 and played in various local outfits until moving to Athens, Ga., in 1986. “We’ve heard good things about the festival and when there was some question about whether the hurricane would hit Austin, we were really concerned that we might miss the opportunity.”
Later he played for surely his largest-ever Austin crowd, an estimated 28,000.
Ortiz spent his last three years in Austin living at the New Manor, the infamous “clothing optional” apartment complex on Manor Road. “I got in a lot of trouble there,” he said, with a laugh. “My buddy had just opened a club in Georgia and he said, ‘you should check out the scene.’ ” Ortiz met the other members of Panic, as all their fans call them, when they played Athens’ Uptown Lounge every Monday. He was soon sitting in and eventually became an official member.
Asked which Austin restaurant he most misses, Ortiz said “Tamale House No. 2. You have to understand that I was a starving musician. Back then, that was the most food for the least money in town.”
Some things haven’t changed, Sonny.
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Move over Wilco, Death Cab, it’s time for Built to Spill
Some music is made for festivals, some isn’t. Hip-hop doesn’t work all that well in the blazing sun, but guitar epics sound just perfect.
Built to Spill hasn’t released an album in four years, but they sounded right at home on the Cingular stage Saturday afternoon and drew a massive crowd. Of course, some of that crowd might have been there to get good seats for Death Cab for Cutie, which was the next band on the Cingular stage. The irony is that Death Cab often wascalled Built to Spill, Jr., but now the younger Death Cabbers have a hyped-to-the-hills album, plugs on “the O.C.” and a better time slot than the band Spill jacked its sound from.
With the bald spot on his head looking awfully red on the Jumbotron, guitarist/singer/leader Doug Martsch filled the band’s hour with his high, reedy, Neil Young-ish voice and reams of interlocking guitar, bass and drums steady and rolling. The band stuck largely to hits (such as they are; the band has never really broken out of college radio). Songs such as “The Plan,” “In Your Mind” and the giant “I Would Hurt A Fly” were pulled and stretched like taffy. For those of us who worship the sound of an amp feeding back, Built to Spill set standard for the weekend, with Martsch leaning into his amp while his two hired gun six-stringers soloed away. It was an excellent set all around, but for some of us who grow weary of roots rock and sunscreen, the best part were the reams of guitar noise, shapely and shuddering in the hot, dusty afternoon. Wilco, it’s your move.
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Of wind and cabs
While Chicago blues ambassador Buddy Guy played slow, sticky blues in the midday heat, Zilker Park turned into a Windy City of its own, with gusts measuring an estimated 20 mph. The parched fields turned into a dust bowl. It was a bad day for contact lenses.
On hearing that cab drivers were gouging desperate concertgoers, festival promoter Charlie Jones said, “That really (ticks) me off. We meet with all the cab companies and work on the situation, but there are always going to be rebels that we have no control over.”
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Worst-case ACL scenarios turn sunny
Matthew Seiler, owner of Maine Root Handcrafted Beverages, drove down to Austin from Portland, Maine, early in the week with his radio tuned to news stations. In the back of his truck were 20 pallets, 1,200 cases of root beer earmarked for sale at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. But as the dire reports about Hurricane Rita filtered in, so did news that four of his employees had to bail out because their flights through Houston had been canceled. Saturday afternoon, shorthanded Seiler was slammed by thirsty festgoers, but he couldn’t have been happier. “I thought ‘worst case scenario’ all the way down,” he said. “I woke up this morning and the sun was shining and I’ve been in a great mood ever since.”
Transportation out of the festival remained a headache for many. “There was no sign outside our exit to tell us to go right to get cabs,” said Nate Douglas of Atlanta. “Everyone who walked to the left — and there were hundreds of us — were going where there were no cabs.” A few drivers were offering their cabs to the highest bidder. “One guy was charging $60,” said Douglas, who went back to catch a shuttle bus to 15th and San Jacinto streets. “It was so crazy and confused at 15th Street,” he said. “Nobody knew where to go or what to do when they got there.” It took him more than two hours to get to his friend’s house at 45th Street and Burnet Road.
Charlie Jones of CSE says promoters will address refund requests for fans who couldn’t make it to Austin on a case by case basis.
The tour manager from Oasis waited for an hour at his hotel downtown for a cab before deciding to take a shuttle bus. “He was on a bus in two minutes and at the front gate in 10.
Eleven transports to the hospital Friday. “There were a couple of broken bones, one cardiac arrest and some people with asthma complained about all the dust,” said Mark Higgins of CSE. There was one arrest Friday night for marijuana possession with intent to distribute.
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Squeezing Cory Morrow’s muscular Texas music
Out of state visitors to the ACL Festival wishing to sample the latest iteration of Texas’ long-running fusion of country, rock and singer-songwriter acumen would have done well to park themselves by the SBC stage early Saturday afternoon, the better to sample Cory Morrow’s muscular, energetic take on what is referred to, shorthand-style as “Texas Music” (there’s lots more to the story, of course, but that’s another review).
One of the grandchildren of “Willie, Waylon and the boys,” Austin native Morrow until the last couple of years had trouble breaking out of a crowded pack that included the likes of Pat Green, Kevin Fowler (who also played on Saturday), Roger Creager and others. But with his latest album, “Nothing Left To Hide,” Morrow has found a distinctive voice and a singular artistic identity. Ironically, a whole mess of recent legal troubles have seemingly focused Morrow’s attention in a way that is already paying musical dividends.
Onstage, Morrow is voluble, and as frisky as a kid on the first day of summer. His band’s music is deceptively unadorned, as straightforward as Morrow’s uniform of unadorned T-shirt, non-designer jeans and (yep) bare feet. Songs such as the anthemic “Heart of Fire,” Light On the Stage” and his current single, “Beat of Your Heart” are solidly entertaining without ever condescending to the audience’s most easily-fulfilled expectations.
Whether soft-shoeing across the stage during Allen Toussaint’s “Southern Nights” (one of Morrow’s few covers) or unabashedly and good-naturedly soliciting rounds of applause from the audience (hey, he said, it’s cheap validation), Morrow’s onstage persona is sunny and inclusive. Those may not be the most resonant qualities on which to build an artistic career, but the crowd sitting in the hot sun and sipping the first beer of the day appeared to be in his pocket, out of towners and all.
Seeing New Orleans with the Jones Family Singers
Alice Spoonts closed her eyes Saturday minutes before noon and saw New Orleans. “We’ve been going to Jazz Fest for 15 years, and, I’ll tell ya, we’ve never seen a group in the gospel tent there better than this one,” she said. Yes, the Jones Family Singers, from Bay City, were that good, with lead singer Alexis Jones Roberts matching the Staple sisters, the wail of Mavis and the growl of Cleotha, in intensity.
They were five women of various age and hairstyles, in lime green T-shirts and jean skirts, whipping up a smallish audience of maybe 50 (though it grew as the set went on) like they were playing a jampacked Baptist Church on a Sunday morning.
“Now you’ve all heard about that Hurricane Rita, bearing down on Texas, but we’re all here, safe and happy,” said Roberts, a master of call-and-response, slowing down a Holy Ghost stomper. “Now how many people think Jesus worked it out?” Hands shot up.
The hour flew by, with 12-year-old drummer Ian Wade never dropping the beat and the Rev. Fred Jones coming out for some Julius Cheeks-styled exalting to give Roberts a break. Guitarist Fred Jones Jr. did an impossibly high falsetto lead on one number and Velma Davis took the lead on Motown-like “Going Over Yonder” to put a little break, a little more melody in the hard gospel fire. But the group was at its best on “Rock and Roll With Jesus,” when little pockets of fervor broke out and the lime-topped five swayed and rolled their arms and pointed in approval to fans who had cut lose from inhibitions.
Amid the day’s sweat, you can be sure a few tears welled up. It just didn’t seem possible that music could be more passionate, more joyful, more of a reason to come out on a hot and windy morning.
Bare Jr. set added; more cancellations
Breaking news of the popularity kind: Bobby Bare Jr. is playing a second set today at 4:40 p.m. at the BMI stage. Bare is the son of country songster Bobby Bare, and Junior’s Friday set was one of that morning’s most popular.
Also looks like Los Aterciopelados and Naturally 7 have cancelled too for their Sunday spots, according the the ACL Web site.
Lyle puts the ‘ACL’ in ACL fest
Looking as sartorially out of place as a group of Amish at a Sturgis biker rally, Lyle Lovett & His Large Band made their ACL Festival debut on the Cingular stage Friday. Lovett’s presence, though deferred, was more than appropriate, given that one of the festival’s missions is to celebrate the television show that served as its inspiration. Lovett hung around the ACL set at KLRU as a fan long before he took center stage as a performer. Thus, his show Friday night marked a homecoming of sorts.
Buoyed by his marvelously elastic Large Band (who kept their neckties but got to doff their suitcoats in deference to the heat), Lovett performed a set whose musical parameters ranged from small jazz combo to full-on gospel/R&B show band to folk chamber group and open-throttle rock band. Anchored by the hitmaking L.A. rhythm section of Leland Sklarr and Russ Kunkel, abetted by Austin guitarist Mitch Watkin and fiddler Gene Elders, Lovett’s band gave him the widest possible canvas on which to paint.
After moving efficiently through the standard “The Blues Walk/What Do You Do” tandem opening , Lovett began to stretch things out considerably, jumping feet first into the rocking swing track of “Cute As A Bug,” bringing up longtime compadre Robert Earl Keen to duet on their “The Front Porch Song,” rhapsodizing about romance’s rocky path (“We fellows want to do the right thing/ We just have absolutely no idea what that is”) in “My Baby Don’t Tolerate,” and popping the clutch for an extended workout on “Wallisville Road.”
His contemporary take on a classic gospel vamp, “I’m Gonna Wait,” brought the set to a close, followed by what sounded suspiciously like an encore (supposedly verboten at the festival) of “Church.” “It’s time for dinner, now let’s go eat,” Lyle sang, when in fact a nightcap would have been more in order. He and the Large Band had earned one.
Haynes has the Allman genes
I’m absolutely convinced that Warren Haynes is a government-issued clone of Duane and Greg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band. Haynes is the replacement guitarist for the late Duane and he filled his position without a shred of noticeable difference. Well, maybe Haynes did add a bit of length with his epic solos that seemed to fret (so to speak) on every musical possibility. Maybe that was because he was competing with another guitar legend — Dickey Betts. But Haynes put up a good fight. Not only did his maverick guitar skills in “Midnight Riderâ€? and “One Way Outâ€? sound the same Friday as they did on the albums in the 1970s, but Haynes’s die-hard voice was nearly identical to founding brother Gregg’s. And his mane of grey hair certainly didn’t hurt in helping Haynes fit in with the rustic look of the most archetypal southern rock band in history.
Black Crowes and brotherly love
Rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to bring people together — even siblings who can’t get along find themselves unable to stay apart, as brothers Chris and Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes and Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis have both discovered. In the case of the Black Crowes, who headlined the first night of ACL Fest (Oasis plays Saturday), absence might even have made their hearts grow fonder of one another. They rocked like they’ve never been separated — Chris’ vocals sounded as raw and soulful as ever, and Rich’s guitar-playing is so solid, he could have stood in with the Allman Brothers, who preceded them onstage. They pulled out a score of classic Crowes: “She Talks to Angels,” “Thorn in My Pride,” “Sting Me,” “Hard to Handle,” “Jealous Again,” “Remedy” and did an extended jam on “Soul Singing” that was loaded with churchy gospel, aided by a couple of backing vocalists and that ever holy-sounding Hammond. Unlike the Allmans, however, it didn’t sound like a stroll through a set of classic rock hits. It sounded earthy and dangerous — as the Crowes always have, and, we hope, will remain.
Day 1 had several highs, a couple of lows
The day was full with cancellations and last minute replacements. Kathleen Edwards dropped out, which meant only one chance to hear Lucinda Williams. Mindy Smith, so charming at last year’s fest, couldn’t make it, so the Texiles, an aggregate of New Orleans players including four-fifths of the Iguanas and a top-flight horn section, were tapped for fill-in duty. When they did a bittersweet “When I Get Home,” after thanking their new home of Austin for some serious hospitality, the crowd responded with warmth. But the band never really lifted the throngs into the stratosphere where they were begging to be taken. Too much trumpet and not enough second line beat.
The stages seemed to bleed onto each other more than in recent fests, with the mid-field Austin Ventures stage especially vulnerable. Too bad for Nic Armstrong & the Thieves, a four-piece from Nottingham, England, who have taken the Austin club scene by storm the past two months. Their set did not validate fevered new fans who’ve called the band the second coming of Saturday’s headliners Oasis. They kinda sounded like the Waterboys in leather jackets.
South Carolina-based singer-songwriter Patrick Davis made the best out of a bad situation. When the generators of the BMI stage cut out temporarily, he went into the crowd with an acoustic guitar and led an audience sing-along on an old spiritual. It was the highlight of his set.
Who says there’s no hip-hop at the ACL Fest? Thievery Corporation got the hands in the air, like they just don’t care, for a seriously bottom-heavy set that had hips shaking for about as far as Michael Vick can throw a football. “Vibes” is a corny word, but T.C. just stoked up the good vibes with conscious party jams. And Old Poi Dog Pondering fans were treated with a set-ending lead vocal from Frank Orrall, who’d been playing percussion all set long.
The breezes were nice and the fest seemed to ride on fumes of righteousness. I wasn’t as miserable as I’d prepared myself to be. One down, two to go.
A friend of mine from Chicago, who’d tour managed bands at Lollapalooza, Coachella and other festivals, took notes for no other reason except that she was impressed by all the little details that went into the ACL Fest. She was blown away by the interior design touches of Maryleigh Dejernett, who transformed backstage trailers into plush pads of red velvet and zen waterfalls. “Brilliant idea,” my friend wrote of the Zilker Store, where such easily, stupidly forgotten essentials — sunscreen, Band Aids, lighters — were on sale at prices that didn’t gouge. She noted the info duos — teams of two that would plant their “information” flags in the midst of all the craziness to answer questions, like where the heck is the Austin Ventures stage.
Something she didn’t like: tired, weary, she kicked off her sandals at the Austin Kiddie Limits giant sandbox and was told that she couldn’t stay there without kids. As a childless 42-year-old looking to procreate — tick tock, tick tock — that especially stung.
Worst rumor of the day was that Sunday’s headliner Coldplay, which canceled its show Thursday in Houston, would similarly bow out of ACL. Chris Martin, wife Gwyneth Paltrow and little 1-year-old Apple were poolside at the Four Seasons on Friday. Also spotted was Gwyn-ex Luke Wilson.
Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.’s deSol
Big outdoor music festivals are not where I’m at — spiritually, musically, skin tone-wise — but I had a good feeling about the fourth annual Austin City Limits Music Festival when I arrived just after noon Friday to hear Bobby Bare Jr. play a lilting, almost nursery rhyme-like “I’ll Be Around” that dissolved into blasts of white noise from guitarist Mike Grimes, while Deanna Varagona played a baritone sax about the size of a teenaged son.
There it was, the fest in a microcosm, so gentle and, at times, boring one moment and then, boom, like a palm slap to the head.
Bare Jr. was fine, but the first band of the day to really get me going was deSol, a Latin rock group from Asbury Park, N.J. Even though the heavily percussive band was wholly derivative — think Santana at Woodstock, or Del Castillo at Antone’s, for that matter — singer Albie Monterosa packed plenty of charisma and guitarist Rich Soto was a soaring menace of shrill sustain. They got the crowd dancing salsa (or a reasonable facsimile) on “Blanco y Negro” and fanned the fervor with “Chango.” But when they closed with a cover of Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va” (the Santana version), they chose a crowd pleasing moment instead of one that would establish them as a creative force. But, you know, in the heat, the crush of people, the inclination to search for something else, an old favorite was probably the right choice.
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The lighter side of Keane
Maybe it was the juxtaposition of the numerous hard rock bands that I saw (Gov’t. Mule, Allman Brothers, Spoon) that made Keane look like Friday’s subtlest yawn, or maybe it was because the English pop trio from Sussex played at the end of the day and I was just plain tired. Either way, Keane was not the liveliest of the lineup, despite how loud they tried to make it.
However, when a headliner band like Coldplay shows up on Sunday, their moody pop and sensational piano is going to seem like sweet nostalgia. Who knows? Some patrons might even find comfort in a pillowy band after a rough day. Soft melodies like “Everybody’s Changing� and “This is the Last Time� from their debut studio album, “Hopes and Fears� could be the perfect sunset ending to the first day of an epic rock fest.
John Prine still in his prime
As countless songwriters have discovered, it’s amazingly hard to write like John Prine. He is one of the finest songwriters of his generation, a Zen master of American vernacular who constructs remarkable beauty out of the disappointments and joys of everyday life. He makes it look easy, but these sorts of songs slip into corn in a lesser writer’s hand. Heck, they slip into corn in his — one of these days “Sam Stone” will be retired as a Vietnam vet anthem — but the way the whole crowd sang along with Prine at the headliner-sized Cingular stage on Friday night, it won’t be any time soon. Prine’s hard-core fans will forgive him almost anything (and frankly, many of them are in it for the corn).
Kicking off with his back-to-the-woods anthem “Spanish Pipedream,” Prine took the stage with a stand-up bassist and electric guitarist, both impeccable dressed in suits. In fact, everything was impeccable about them, from guitarist Jason Wilbur’s flawlesly tasteful Telecaster solos to bassist Dan Jakes’ understated, mama’s-heartbeat thump. Prine’s voice took a little while to warm up, but that didn’t stop him from preaching to the anti-war choir. “I retired this next song in 1978,” Prine said to introduce “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore.” “I thought it had outlived it’s usefulness. The president made a liar out of me.”
Chestnuts such as “Fish and Whistle” and the rockbilly rave “Bear Creek Blues” sat next to new songs such as the excellent marriage odes “Glory of True Love” and “She Is My Everything.” But everday melancholy brings out the craftsman in him — “Some Humans Ain’t Human,” the fabulous “Angel From Montgomery” and the dust-‘n’-bones ballad “Souvenirs” show Prine as the man who truly understand the old phrase “happiness is an occasion.” He knows that to articulate both joy and sorrow with equal vigor is the best way to keeps us humans human.
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New gems from Lucinda Williams
Unlike year before last, when a lyric sheet malfunction sent Lucinda Williams into a tailspin, this year’s performance by the once and perhaps future (who knows?) Austinite was blissfully free of incident. Not only did Williams look as if she were having a devil of a good time wowing the scorched crowd in front of the SBC stage, but she also treated the audience to that rarest of gems at a Lucinda show — new material.
Kicking off with deceptively downbeat back-to-back renditions of “Drunken Angel” and “Pineola,” Williams ranged across the breadth of her career, from “Crescent City” (dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina) to the bleak-yet-beautiful “Out of Touch” and “Real Live Bleeding Fingers (And Broken Guitar Strings),” a song Bob Dylan wouldn’t eschew from his repertoire.
But it was the new stuff that proved enthralling. “Jailhouse Tears” revealed a rarely seen playful side of Williams the writer; a country spoof with lines like “They locked me up … you locked me out” and “I used to be a user … You’re a three-time loser,” the song might have been a throwaway, but it will be playing on the radio in your head after one listen. Her other debut, “Un-Suffer Me,” was another kettle of fish entirely. Similar in intensity though totally a polar opposite in mood to “Hot Blood,” the dirgelike blues was a nakedly raw plea for emotional rescue: “Unlock my love, undo my fear…Unlock my love and set me free,” she sang in a slightly raspy voice. It was a riveting performance that seemed to darken the sunny afternoon.
Williams’ show ended on a roller coaster peak, not a trough, however. “Get Right With God” sounded tentative when she first began performing it, but it has metamorphosed into a showstopper, with snake-handling guitar, snare-popping drums and Williams shimmying across the stage like Little Egypt, clapping hands and flashing her horse-laugh grin. Hey, even blues-singin’ girls just wanna have fun.
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Earle relays his politics in song
Early on in his afternoon show on the Cingular Stage, Steve Earle announced the parameters of his set list: “Today, I’m playing songs of mine that offend people the most.” That being the case, his performance could have stretched far beyond its alloted hour. Earle’s evolution from country storyteller to agitprop folk-rocker has spun off a host of songs that use the Powers That Be as so many clay pigeons. And as far as Earle is concerned, the current administration offers what the military folks call “a target-rich environment.”
Earle’s politics are more overt, as documented in songs like “The Revolution Starts Now” (which opened the set following a recorded snippet of Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”) and “Rich Man’s War” (which he dedicated to anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan), but they did not manifest themselves overnight. As Earle noted from the stage in introducing “Copperhead Road,” “Anyone who heard this song in 1988 and didn’t think was political wasn’t listening.”
A natural storyteller, Earle seldom allows the polemic to overwhelm the human dimension of his characters (the brittle, reggae-flavored “Condi, Condi” and the R-rated rant “F the CC” are unfortunate exceptions). The good-ol’-boy trucker dodging IEDs and ATMs on the Basra Highway in “Home To Houston” and the protagonist yearning for peace in “Jerusalem” ring true no matter where the listener falls on the red-blue spectrum.
Earle’s wife, singer Allison Moorer, joined him on the chorus of “Conspiracy Theory,” but it was their one-mike duet on “Comin’ Around” (the only overt love song of the set) was a lovely standout, and a leavening bit of sweetness in a tart and tight performance.
Nic Armstrong & the Thieves don’t quite steal show
Nic Armstrong & the Thieves have a great rep as a hot UK property, but their performance Friday at ACL fest was more notable for the band’s frequent mentions of how physically hot they were than the heat of their stage presence. Their short set — even less than the 45 allotted minutes — was full of the fuzzy guitars, raw chords and attitude that earned them such renown, but really gave more than a hint of their potential than their actuality as the next-generation early-Stones/Beatles/Dave Clark Five/Kinks.
As garage rockers, they show a lot of depth — all four members sing, including drummer Jonny Aitken, who knows how to inspire audience participation — get out from behind the skins whenever possible. And Armstrong, guitarist Glynn Wedgewood and bassist Shane Lawlor are all able frontmen. But slight lyrical muddiness made it hard to discern one song from another, and they tried out several that aren’t yet recorded; they’ve been in Austin two months working on the successor to “Greatest White Liar.” With luck, that onstage potential will show up on the new disc.
Mates of State sate crowd
Stable, public couplehood is such a rarity in rock ‘n’ roll — heck, in popular culture in general — that to see it on display is to be reinspired by the possibilities of marriage. Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel are Mates of States, and indeed, they are mates. Straight out of Lawrence, Kan., she takes keyboards, he plays drums, they both harmonize of tight, sharp pop songs. No wonder they’re one of the hottest indie rock acts around and no wonder the large crowd at the AMD stage seemed thrilled to see them. Or maybe they were screaming from the heat. It was hard to tell at 3:30 in the afternoon. Beet-red behind her keyboard, a lock of blond hair hanging in her face like she was bird who flew from A Flock of Seagulls, Gardner swayed in time to the zippy tunes, her voice shining like a girl with her first crush. Hammel’s striped-shirt, bowlish hair and wrap-around shades made him look like a mod who stepped out of “Quadrophenia” and right onto stage. The demi-hit “Fluke” — with Hammel’s drums finding the sweet spot between indie rock’s thump and disco’s shake — got the large crowd moving. Again and again, the Mates demonstrated that their songs didn’t need anything more than what they brought with them: killer melodies on that organ and lithe, swinging drums. It’s the two of them against the world, baby and that’s more than enough.
Get a beer fast; water even faster
Lines? What lines?
At 4:30 p.m. it took Austin City Limits ticket-holders about 20 minutes to get through the line at the front gate. Wristband wearers got by in about 5 minutes.
Beer, “30 seconds;” water “2 seconds,” according to festivial goers.
Andy Lack, an evacuee from Port O’Connor, Texas, said he got his VIP pass after meeting a couple guys in a hotel bar Thursday night. On his way here he met two guys from New York who had been to the festival in years past and offered to show him around.
“Just true Austin hospitality,” he said.
Jason George, one of the New York hosts, said the festival was going “just perfect.”
“Weathers great, no lines, we’re having a great time,” he said.
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Heat is taking its toll
As of 3:30 p.m. four people had been transported to local hospitals, according to emergency medical staff at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Transfers involved one cardiac arrest, one seizure and two heat-related patients, medical staff said. At that time 67 patients had been seen overall, said Tannifer Ayres, of the South West Emergency Action Team, which was handling medical emergencies at the event.
The majority of patients medics were seeing were victims of heat-related aliments. She recommended concert-goers not forget asthma inhalers and bring eye-lubricant and glasses to protect their eyes from dust being kicked up the wind. Of course, people should plan to drink lots of water, and dress appropriately, she added.
Despite fears that Hurricane Rita would hamper ambulance service, Ayres said there had been at least one parked nearby waiting to transport patients.
Festival organizers said 100 kids had been tagged, meaning they were given identification so that they would easily find there parents. One child who was lost, ended up being found soon after. As of 5 p.m. no arrests had been made.
Hip-hop and heat
Hip-hop can be a tough sell at noon. A few minutes before Austin hip-hop artist KJAE (pronounced “Kay-jay”) took the stage, you could count the ACL patrons in the crowd on the fingers of one hand. By the time he finished his half-hour set, a good 50 people grooved, sweated and applied sunscreen to his beats and rhymes.
“Y’all real sexy out there,” KJAE said, and the crowd seemed to buy it. “Come on, let’s roll.” The Austin Music Foundation Incubator award winner knew it was an uphill battle, both in terms of time slot and venue. ACL is not known for its hip-hop, but KJAE is the only rapper here this year. “We like the Bee Gees/just tryin’ to stay alive,” he rapped and you bought it.
Hip-hop shows are supposed to be sweaty because a packed crowd in a dark club is getting crunk (as KJAE urged us to get). It’s not supposed to be sweaty because the sun is straight overhead and the outdoor temp is creeping to more than 90 degrees. The Double’s set, coming from the AMD stage, blended in with KJAE’s break beats and gave his songs a bead of vague noise that served them well. At the end of the set, KJAE clearly seemed happy to rock the crowd, so happy he gave out his phone number (832-741-8045) and his e-mail address (kjae04@hotmail.com). If he can rock a crowd before lunch in sweltering heat, no doubt he’s down for your wedding or bar mitzvah.
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It begins
Patrons started lining up around 10:30 a.m. in the increasingly blazing heat. Many of them carried portable folding chairs, umbrellas, blankets and soft coolers and immediately started setting up camp in the shade or near the stages.
Last-minute replacements the Double took the AMD stage at 11:45, subbing for the Ditty Bops. Gerard Cosloy, co-owner of Matador Records, the Double’s label, was in the crowd. “I thought they would be playing in front of nobody,” he said, looking at the small crowd of earlier arrivals. “But this is certainly more than nobody.”
The AMD stage comes with a powerful sound system, the better to carry the Brooklyn band’s fractured pop songs across the field. The peals of feedback and waves of distortion made for a bracing, palate-cleansing start to what was shaping up to be a long, hot day. Singer/bassist David Greenhill’s everyman tenor sailed across the field as he drew on songs from “Loose in the Air,” the band’s new album, and “Palm Fronds,” from 2004. Ending the set with a rumble and wail, the band treated early arrivals to the kind of hip indie rock that there was precious little of at last year’s fest.
Sometimes it pays to show up early, no matter how hot it gets.
