Austin360 blogs > ACL Festival
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (Sunday, 8:30 p.m. AT&T Stage)
A lot of Tom Petty fans were trying to run down a dream Sunday night: seeing the veteran rocker perform for the first time (and possibly the last) as the big-deal headliner of the fifth ACL Fest. But that dream was temporarily dampened by a deluge just 40 minutes into Petty’s intended hour-and-a-half set. After a half-hour wait, he got back onstage at 9:40 p.m., promising to play until 10:15 p.m., a performance that stretched past 10:30, plus an encore that included “Runnin’ Down a Dream.”
The fans who stayed - and they were a vocal, teeming horde - were treated to a set starting with “Listen to Her Heart,” chimey Rickenbacker guitar and all, then the greeting, “Hello, how are you? You look good out there!” before “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” The song’s line, “never slow down, never grow old” got special emphasis from one audience member who sang along – and it pretty much epitomized the rock ‘n’ roll vibe of this festival, at which fans of all ages congregated, no longer regarding rock with the prejudiced attitude that it’s only for the young.
“We’re having so much fun here in Austin, Texas,” Petty said in typical insert-town-name-here fashion before adding, “We’ve got quite a few songs to play for you here tonight. Hope you’re not in a hurry.” Apparently, plenty of people were not. They lustily sang along with “I Won’t Back Down,” thrilled to “Free Fallin’ ” and even seemed to get into the very ZZ Top-sounding “Saving Grace,” from his “Highway Companion” album. As the storm closed in, Petty launched into “a little British blues” – the tasty old Fleetwood Mac nugget “Oh Well,” on which Petty spiritedly shook maracas as Benmont Tench pounded the keys, Mike Campbell handled guitar, Ron Blair held down the bass and new Heartbreaker Steve Ferrone hit the drums. They managed to squeeze out a fine version of the Traveling Wilburys’ classic “Handle With Care” before the rains came. But a sizable audience waited for his return, and as the audience members rocked out to ’80s classic “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” they seemed to be enjoying a fine finish to another ACL.
(Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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The BoDeans (Sunday, 7:45 p.m. Austin Ventures Stage)
Tom Petty wasn’t the only grizzled rock veteran to play the ACL Festival on Sunday. The BoDeans were also making their ACL debut, 20 years after founding members Sam Llanas and Kurt Neumann began their ongoing love affair with big-chord, unapologetic, heartland rock ‘n’ roll (in the best and most affectionate sense of that grotesquely abused phrase).
That it took five years for the BoDeans to make the cut at ACL is something of a surprise, because their music is the kind of thing that the festival specifically, and Austin in general, is perfectly positioned to celebrate. Smart, vital, passionate, brawny and fun, the BoDeans’ music is the very distillation of music in the park in the summertime, as heat lightning flickers on the horizon and heaven is just one more cold beer away.
The band’s set seemed short - only half a dozen songs - but that was because they took their time and wrung all the changes to be had out of “Good Things,” “Closer to Free,” “Say About Love,” “Fadeaway,” “Feed the Fire” and “Naked,” which featured a beautiful vocal performance by Llanas.
The set was short, but it was hopping. At a couple of points, Neumann, Llanas and bassist Eric Holman were bouncing up and down in unison. Their fans were more than happy to follow suit.
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The Flaming Lips (Sunday, 6:30 p.m. AT&T Stage)
Envision a large, inflatable, transparent ball and frontman/bubble boy Wayne Coyne rolling around over the audience while trapped inside. If you can picture that, you’ll have a vision of one-tenth of the theatrics put on by the Flaming Lips.
Oklahoma City’s orchestral noise-pop rockers - drummer Kliph Scurlock, guitarist/keyboardist Steven Drozd, bassist Michael Ivins and vocalist Coyne – played an enthusiastic, “did they really just do that?” set that was perfect for the 30,000-plus audience.
Parts of the stage were full of young men clad in Santa Claus suits and young women wearing green alien masks and purple “Barbarella”-type outer-space skirts. Even the Lips’ guitar techs were dressed in inflatable Justice League of America outfits. And in the center of all that barely controlled chaos, conductor/vocalist Coyne and band rocked their fans’ favorites in steady succession.
“Race for the Prize,” “Free Radicals” and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1” had the audience doing assorted versions of the indie-rock bop. “She Don’t Use Jelly” and “Do You Realize?” closed out the set and proved that the Lips still can put a fresh spin on the band’s most popular, time-tested songs.
“It’s been an honor,” said Coyne during one of his infamous between-song banter sessions. “We’ve been able to play in the Austin music scene for many years because of the Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid and even the Hickoids. Thank you for having us.”
The show was one more example of how the band combines theatrical performance with continual innovation in rock ‘n’ roll to create something orchestral, raucous, wickedly psychedelic and, ultimately, something beautiful.
(photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Rain interrupts Tom Petty set
With Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers about a half-hour into their set, the rain that had doused the ACL Festival early Sunday returned in full effect, with many in the crowd bolting for the exits. The downpour forced a mid-set rain delay for the album-rock standard-bearers, but the band was back onstage by 9:35 p.m.
(photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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In the groove tent with Buddy Miles
A surprise guest joined the New Orleans Social Club on the Washington Mutual Stage on Sunday night: Buddy Miles, a member of Jimi Hendrix’s legendary band. Of course, the Social Club played one of Miles’ legendary tunes, “Them Changes.” Though members of the crowd seemed drugged in that superheated tent at the almost-end of a hard three days, they leapt to their feet and began to boogie with spirit. Of course, several were already on their feet, moved by the energy of the band formed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to make a recorded-in-Austin charity album that, sadly, never was able to raise any money for its cause.
“Remember, it’s times like these that we need to stand together for our own,” Miles said before hobbling off the stage on his cane. A good reminder.
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A year to top them all - with hats
Business at the retail stalls reportedly is up from last year.
Troy Wright, owner of the always popular Texas Headgear, said he moved more than 2,000 hats.
“It was a definite improvement over last year,” Wright said, adjusting a hat for a customer. “I think a lot of people were scared away last year by the threat of the uricemia and then the heat. This year was excellent weather, and Friday was my best-ever Friday here.”
Wright sells hats at many festivals, and he remains impressed by the event here. “After ACL every year, you think, ‘OK, that’s the peak. That’s the most I’m going to sell. There’s no way I can top that.’
“But I do.”
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No dust, just good vibrations
It was tough to find anyone who wasn’t having a good time Sunday evening. The brief storm in the early afternoon created some mud, but it also eliminated any chance of dust, which was a late-evening annoyance on Saturday but a far cry from last year’s choking dust problems.
This was the first ACL Festival for Todd Kimmel, 29, from San Diego, Calif., but it probably won’t be his last. “Today went really well,” he said while waiting in a beer line. “I heard there was some trouble with buses on Friday, but today was great.”
Austin resident Jason Robbins, 32, is an old hand at ACL Festivals. “I’ve been to every day of every year,” Robbins said, standing in a fast-moving line for food. “The first year was pretty horrible. It was hard to get in and out; getting food took forever. It’s 10 times better now than it was the first year.”
(photo by Ricardo Brazziell AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Austin mayor: ‘Better every year’
Austin Mayor Will Wynn came to the festival on Sunday, the only day he attended this year. “I was stuck in Santa Barbara, California, at a United States Conference of Mayors … meeting,” Wynn said, heading toward the main stage in a golf cart. “It was nice, but I wish I was here.”
Wynn, no stranger to the pleasures of live music, was effusive in his praise of festival organizers and their relationship to the city.
“I can’t speak highly enough of how professional they have been,” Wynn said. “The logistics get better every year, the money that comes into the parks department is excellent, it further promotes Austin as the world’s live-music capital. It’s very impressive.”
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The New Pornographers (Sunday 5:30 p.m., AT&T Blue Room)
Your songs have to be some kind of sturdy to withstand brutal festival sound mixes. But the New Pornographers’ tunes carry the load, and in spite of often atrocious sound, the Canadian septet knocked out nugget after golden nugget of perfect power pop.
When you could hear all of it, that is. A lousy mix meant the Pornographers’ songs were sometimes loud smudges, singer Neko Case’s sledgehammer belt pounding over the top. (Case got the brunt of the bad sound; her ear monitor clearly wasn’t working, and the wedge monitors in front of the band kept feeding back.) Drummer Kurt Dahle is lucky his hard-swinging pound is fun to listen to; it sure was turned up loud.
Things sounded a little better when ace songwriter Carl Newman (who quickly turned beet-red in the heat), Case and singer Kathryn Calder harmonized, their vocals far out front in the muddy mix.
For the most part, however, the sound was catch-as-catch-can, and the band eventually seemed to play its boisterous tunes at time and a half, perhaps the quicker to end the sonic distress.
But oh, do those tunes hold up. Opening with the explosive title track from last year’s excellent “Twin Cinema,” the band stuck to its strongest, chewiest material, such as the epic “The Laws Have Changed,” “The Bleeding Heart Show” (with its sublime “Hey-LAAAAAs”) and its first smash, the power-pop classic “Letter from an Occupant.”
As that monster song and wonderful finale “Sing Me Spanish Techno” headed out over the crowd, someone held up a bubble gun, and soap bubbles floated toward the stage. Perfect.
(photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Mobile Manor’s good Samaritans
While Barton Springs Road turned into a virtual swap meet of head shops and bottled-water merchants during ACL weekend, several residents of the Mobile Manor RV Park took it upon themselves to provide free water, food and a cooling station (a garden hose set to “mist”) to those attending the fest. “We were thinking of ways to make some money,” said David Sloan, who’s lived at Mobile Manor for 15 years, “but then we saw everybody else trying to capitalize and we thought, ‘Let’s just give stuff away.’ We’re having a ball, making lots of friends.”
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