2005 ACL Fest Home > Reports from the ACL Festival > Archives > 2005 > September > 23
Friday, September 23, 2005
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.
