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Sunday, September 16, 2007
ACL: Bob Dylan
“I respect him and all, but he sounds like a dying goat.” — overheard in the crowd at ACL.
Sunday night, 10:15, the Austin City Limits Music Festival over and done with, and all one can think is, “Well, that was unfortunate.”
Where to start?
The “evil old dude” voice, enjoyable (to some of us) in an intimate setting yet totally baffling to the casual fan? The giant screen that never showed close-ups or even panned over to musicians taking solos? The nuanced music, so completely inappropriate to a field of thousands who responded by, well, leaving in droves (As a colleague put it, “Getting up front was like fighting the tide.”)
Things looked and sounded grim from the first song, the awful crowd pleaser “Rainy Day Women No. 12 and 35.”
The mix was muddy, and it was impossible to tell what was going on if you were in the back, thanks to a giant screen that switched between a full band shot and a half-band shot of Dylan’s side. A lack of close-ups was bad enough, but not panning over to the mighty Denny Freeman while he took any of his gorgeous solos was just rude.
It’s this simple: People started leaving two songs in because they couldn’t see the band. That’s not exactly good customer relations from Dylan’s camp.
Even if you’re charitable about his voice, this music just isn’t built for the big finish. “It Ain’t Me Babe,” fun at Stubb’s, sounded flat and pat from a distance. “Spirit on the Water,” moving in a smaller setting, was a snooze at Zilker.
The band was excellent, of course. These guys are rock solid, and Freeman is a wonder.
The gripping “Levee’s Gonna Break” and the nasty groove on “Things Have Changed” injected much-needed energy. “Highway 61” showed a little burn, and the journalist kiss-off “Ballad of a Thin Man” was appropriately sharp.
But too often, they sounded like what they looked like: a quaint dance band, displaced in time. It’s sad when you hear the amazingly mean “Like a Rolling Stone” and wonder whether Dylan knows how completely “Now you don’t look so proud” applies to himself. Hey, man, you wanna come back and do five nights at the Paramount, you have my money. You wanna come back to Stubb’s, I’ll give you a chance. But in a field at ACL? Never again.
(Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL: The Decemberists
The poetic “The Crane Wife 3” kicked off the Decemberists super-rocking show during the 7:30 p.m. sunset slot on the Dell stage with more vigor than to be expected from band that can be so sedate on record.
The audience grew and grew to the point that even the band’s die-hard fans were shocked that so many people were gathering together to watch the soft-spoken, hyper-literate and erstwhile indie rock band.
Undaunted by the sounds of Ghostland Observatory’s dance party bleeding over the hill, the Decemberists of Portland, Ore., played the majority of their 2006 Capitol Records release, “The Crane Wife” including the would-be-a-hit-in-a-perfect-world, “O Valencia” and a sampling of their older and more accessible songs.
The Decemberists — lead singer/guitarist Colin Meloy, guitarist Chris Funk, keyboardist, multi-instrumentalist Jenny Conlee, bassist Nate Query and drummer Jon Moen — were nothing short of spectacular in the festival environment. Meloy appeared completely at ease with their Dell stage headlining performance. Feet firmly planted on center stage, Meloy displayed poise in his vocal performance and prowess on his guitar. With more perforamances like this one, don’t be surprised if the band transcends the indie rock genre and becomes known as a rock ‘n’ roll band for the masses.
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ACL: Ghostland Observatory
Laser shows are usually overrated, like fireworks displays and Quentin Tarrantino movies, but it was cool to see Ghostland Observatory sink their ACL guarantee into a light show that celebrated the year they’ve had.
Last year’s ACL was a coming out for the Austin techo-rock sensations, Aaron Behrens, a pigtailed Dorothy to his Wizard of Oz, Thomas Turner. Since then they’ve become Austin’s biggest rock stars, so why not blow it all on a big hometown thank you. Even as ACL Fest moves away from local performers in favor of overseas hipsters and bearded songwriters from the northwest, it was great to see an Austin act put on perhaps the greatest show of all.
GLO still needs to make a great record, which may be iffy given that Behrens, although a go-go messiah onstage, possesses a screech that usually requires Jimmy Page-like guitar to pull off. And Turner’s time on drums, rather than behind his big board of thumping effects, shows that this band could move well in organic directions.
But for this one-year-old Austin success story, the future’s so bright, they gotta wear shades.
(Photo by Brian K. Diggs AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL: Wilco
Most voices start to deteriorate with age, but Jeff Tweedy’s has actually gotten much stronger, fuller, more assured and more versatile since Wilco’s early days. His band, which has gone through a number of lineup changes, has also gotten more accomplished, culminating in the tuneful and beautifully arranged “Sky Blue Sky.”
For me, the new album still somehow lacks the immediacy of Wilco’s debut, “A.M.” However, the band closed down the AMD stage with a brilliant set. It not only rocked hard, but was remarkable for the contrast between the mastery shown in endearing melodies, impeccable arrangements and beautiful lead and harmony vocals, and the sheer havoc that erupted around the margins.
The chief instigator of sonic madness was guitarist Nels Cline, who was mostly known only to fans of the avant-garde before joining first the Geraldine Fibbers and then Wilco. Tweedy’s soulful vocal on “Side with Seeds,” from “Sky Blue Sky,” got a blistering answer from Cline. Cline’s frenzied little squiggle on “Handshake Drugs” was the harbinger of a three-guitar blowout with Tweedy and Pat Sansone.
Cline is equally capable of sheer gorgeousness, as on the Neil Young-like solo that spun out on one of Tweedy’s prettiest new songs, “Impossible Germany.”
Tweedy looked alarmingly like Hank Williams Jr. when he first walked out on stage, sporting a scraggly beard, cowboy hat and shades. But the shades and hat came off, and he was low-key and engaging between songs, asking for a show of hands from everyone having a birthday after wishing happy birthday to one fan in the front, and joking about the piece of clothing serving as someone’s place-marker on a pole out in the field.
“Is that underwear?” Tweedy asked. “Is that green underwear? Did it start out as white?”
Tweedy introduced “Hate It Here” by clarifying “It’s not about Austin! We don’t hate Austin at all!” The R&B-flavored song has a lovely melody like Boz Scaggs might have written back in the ‘70s, but Cline periodically seized it and took it more in the direction of John Lennon in a dangerous mood. Sansone played music-hall keyboards that pulled against the country-funk boogie of “Walken,” while Cline tugged at it with edgy lap steel and Tweedy played a raw, percussive blues vamp worthy of R.L. Burnside.
The set had multiple peaks, but Wilco still managed to make the end a real climax with a searing “Casino Queen” (from “A.M.”) that recalled vintage Faces and a dazzling “Outtasite (Outta Mind)” (from “Being There”). Although those older songs marked the pinnacle, I left eager to hear more of the new songs played live.
(Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL: Bob Dylan early scene report
A dark sea of listeners swarmed the AT&T stage in Zilker Park on Sunday, as Bob Dylan opened his set with “Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35.” Right away, crowds pushed forward because there were no zoom shots on the big screens, just group pictures, while the band sounded muddy from a distance. Nevertheless, a gravel-voiced Dylan, dressed in black and topped with a cowboy hat, sang “everybody must get stoned” to a delirious response.
Earlier in the day, rock-ribbed Dylan fans raced to secure the best spots by the stage as soon as the gates opened. One pregnant woman wore a T-shirt that read “Baby’s First Dylan Show.” Still, plenty of people poured out of the park only 30 minutes into the set, as they often do during the festival’s final acts, trying to beat the outgoing traffic.
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ACL: Billy Joe Shaver
One might say, with considerable justification, that Billy Joe Shaver is not overly preoccupied with razor-sharp stagecraft. He is just as apt to use his guitar for a hatrack as he is to pick it up and strum a desultory chord or two. If guitarist Jeremy Woodall is in the midst of a particularly satisfying solo, his boss might just choose to sit back on his haunches, sip some water, and listen appreciatively before getting up to resume his own performance.
Yet there is something undeniably mesmerizing about watching Shaver, who performed on the Austin Ventures stage Sunday evening. Perhaps it’s because he has, among all the ACL performers (with the exception of the gospel singers, among whom he would be very much at home), the clearest appreciation for mortality. Angels seem to hover closer to him than to other artists and he often raises his arms to salute them and perhaps beckon them a little closer.
Shaver’s canon is so well known and so highly-revered that it seems almost beside the point to mention the particulars, but yes, he did perform “Georgia On a Fast Train,” “Ride Me Down Easy” (performed as a bucking honky-tonker, versus Waylon Jennings’ meditative version), “The Hottest Thing In Town,” (“We’re gonna get back to the sinful stuff,” he said in introducing that one), “Black Rose” and “I’m Just An Old Chunk of Coal.”
There was also, no surprise, a strong spiritual component to his music—more than any country singer since Hank Williams, Shaver is able to reconcile the sacred and the profane. “When Fallen Angels Fly,” “I’m Gonna Live Forever” and “Jesus Christ Is Still the King” served to remind festivalgoers (and perhaps he himself) that it may be a party, but it’s still Sunday. Or, as he jovially saluted the audience, “If you don’t love Jesus Christ, go to hell!”
ACL: Sunday field report from the M.O.
4:07 p.m. Maybe Common should have been on the bill from the start, his smooth, retro positivity and flow is a huge hit with a gigantic crowd at fest. He has the biggest wave of hands bouncing of the entire weekend. Wicked set.
4:13 p.m. Spotted Joe Gross and his neckerchife talking to KUT folks and sitting next to legendary Billy Joe Shaver, who has a purty lady perched on his lap. Only at ACL.
5:07 p.m. Crew of wet patrons just explained they returned from a trip to the Green Belt, a trip they say does the trick in beating the heat each day.
5:13 p.m. Not much love for Rose Hill Drive from Boulder. Appears to be smallest crowd for this time of day of the fest. Thousands of people are flocking by them, scurrying to stake out a spot for the Ghostland Observatory set.
5:20 p.m. Moment most resembling NOLA Jazz Fest: WaMu tent packed with chairs and busting at seams for Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
5:26 p.m. Beer lines shortest they have been all weekend at this time. People may be losing steam. Bloc party lead singer ended set with “keep Austin weird.” Playing to the crowd? Who knows?
5:31 p.m. Best line of day: stage music following Bloc Party was “We’ll Always Be Together” from “Grease,” which prompted one guy to say, “This song makes me want to kill myself.”
6:01 p.m. Amos Lee seems to be winning over a bunch of new fans with his young white man Chicago blues. Somewhat reminiscent of Blues Traveler or Ben Harper.
6:16 p.m. Just heard someone leaving Regina Spektor saying “I’m tired of Tori Amos.”
6:30 p.m. Chicago resident and alt-country pioneer Jeff Tweedy sporting a cowboy hat. Ha!
7:20 p.m. Some of the new ’70s-sounding tunes from Wilco seem to satiate those who bemoaned the lack of any jam bands at ACL this year.
7:25 p.m. Second Jazz Fest vibe: Wilco throwing a swingin’, nasty, funky New Orleans jam on new tune “Walken.”
7:49 p.m. Ghostland brings the crazy light show from their recent Hogg Auditorium show. People are drawn to the thudding piece of land on the northwest side of the stage which transforms into a gigantic outdoor dance party, or rave, it seems. A few older patrons look a bit bewildered. Also, GLO lead Behrens is trying to compete with Björk and others for most flamboyant. Well, keyboardist Turner has on a cape, so, really, both of them are quite flamboyant.
7:56 p.m. Just as many people are arriving as are departing to see the Decemberists for a hot second on way to Dylan’s set. The two crowds are a bit opposite in terms of average age.
8:13 p.m. It’s not all Ghostland and Decemberists, the Eli Young Band, with its country-blues rock, is rocking to a smallish crowd at the Austin Ventures stage, while Ziggy Marley finishes his grooving and rollicking set to a packed tent.
8:17 p.m. Still, 13 minutes before the set, but it’s obvious Dylan is the big draw for the weekend, as people flock by the thousands to the AT&T Blue Room stage to see the legendary songwriter.
8:28 p.m. The crowd from the AT&T stage as Dylan is about to start stretches all the way to edge of Decemberists set at the Dell stage. Sea of people.
8:32 p.m. Vertigo is not your friend on a night like this. It is so darkened with body mass out here it almost feels like being in the deep of the sea.
8:33 p.m. Dylan is introduced as, among other things, the poet laureate of rock ‘n’ roll. He starts out his set with gravely-voiced “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35” with its sing-along chorus “everybody must get stoned,” which is met with obvious joyous approval. Dylan has set the theme for the night early into his headlining set. This is classic outlaw Dylan, in all black with a white, old flat top, Western-style cowboy hat.
8:37 p.m. A gravelly, and apologetic “It Ain’t Me” for second tune. There seem to be surprisingly few, if any, close-ups of Dylan on the big screens.
8:40 p.m. There seems to be a good share of Dylan fanatics here but also many here who seem to be here because they are “supposed” to see the “voice of a generation.”
8:48 p.m. Early defectors from Dylan set are mostly young folks. One pregnant woman has a T-shirt on with the words, “Baby’s first Dylan show.”
8:52 p.m. Young guy one: “He’s got like 30 CDs. He’s been through, like, a bunch of phases,” he says in explanation of Dylan. Girl one: “Oh, really?” Him: “Yea, I’ve got a poster of Dylan in my room.” Me: “So good.”
8:55 p.m. Hundreds of fans pouring out, not unlike during any night’s headlining act, as Dylan and Co. wail “Levee’s Gonna Break,” which is seemingly one of a myriad musical nods to New Orleans this weekend.
9:00 p.m. Second-biggest reaction of the night comes as a reaction to slowed-down version of “Tangled Up in Blue.” As a counter to the crowd’s enthusiasm, one woman laments a popular criticism of Dylan, “I can understand like one out of every five words. It sounds nothing like the album.” Thousands of others don’t seem to mind a bit.
9:15 p.m. The fans are leaving by the thousands at this point. Many, laughing about the quality of the performance and inability to hear/see the set in such a poor venue for this type of show, seem happy to be able to simply say they saw the legend perform once.
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ACL: Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor is the little Russian Jewish girl that could - the New Yorker singing her strange little immigrant songs to an ever-widening circle of believers. Her album “Begin to Hope” is one of the great sleeper hits of 2006, a strange singer-songwriter affair that’s been building and building and shows no sign of stopping. This is how some albums (and movies and TV shows and everything else in show business) used to work — one person tells another and suddenly an artist has fan base to write home about. She’s just so old school.
So there was something almost transcendent about seeing tens of thousands of fans screaming for Regina Spektor during her Sunday afternoon set on the AT&T Blue Room stage. There she was, in blue dress and knotted strand of pearls, looking for all the world as if she was playing a recital for her grandparents. Everything about her was grand from her piano to her “who me?” persona.
“Better” chronicled a distressing relationship in sharp chords and her high-pitched, Kate Bushy voice. She played “Poor Little Rich Boy” with one hand while she smacked a stick on the bench to keep time. She strapped on a guitar for “That Time,” which turned into a massive sing-along. And, seriously, who can’ty sing along with lyrics like “Hey remember that time when my favorite colors were pink and green / Hey remember that month when I only ate boxes of tangerines/SO CHEAP AND JUICY!” From her boundless smile to her compelling songcraft to those pearls, there’s just nothing about her you don’t want to root for.
(Photo by Brian K. Diggs AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL: Lucinda Williams
A late-afternoon start with a big yellow sun still beating down couldn’t have put Lucinda Williams in a kinder, gentler, happier mood. But that she was, as she’s publicly declared more than once while her new album “West” slides into the sunset.
So she chose to play mostly songs off a previous effort — the superb “Essence.” No greatest hits, no temper tantrums.
Proof that she is more satisfied with self (and presumably with her fiance) came with a song yet to be recorded. After a jangley opening, “Honeybee” offered an almost childlike, giggling refrain of “Oh, my little honeybee, I’ve got your sweetness all up in my hair … We make quite a pair.”
This is not the love-starved, joyless Lucinda of old, though she still knows how to pull the greasy blues out of nearly every number with strong sides of slide and steel guitars. After a couple of classics (“Riders on the Storm” and “I Live My Life,” the latter from an upcoming Fats Domino tribute), she took the crowd to ever higher ground.
“Get Right with God,” which she introduced as inspired by Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody,” was followed by a pleading, prayerful take on her “Unsuffer Me.” As a punctuation note to her John Lennon-era anti-war shirt, Lucinda raised her hands to the sky and made it clear that it is the current president’s war that simply must end now.
(Photo by Brian K. Diggs AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Ben Kweller, Austinite?
Ben Kweller, whose nose seemed to be doing just fine thank you, told the crowd he’ll be spending the next 2 1/2 weeks in Austin recording a new album. So, naturally, he previewed a couple of songs: One called “Old Hat” was a slooow something about loving a “worn quilt.” The other probably will be called “Fight All the Way” and was a faster, anthemic song that managed to get laptops and truckers into the same verse.
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ACL: Midlake
Midlake is probably one of the last rock bands you’d prefer to see in a field on a hot summer day, with sound bleeding over from two other stages. Subtlety in general does not go over well at festivals, and the Denton band’s latest album, “The Trial of Van Occupanther,” is wintery, atmospheric and complex.
Toward the end of the set, singer-guitarist-keyboardist Tim Smith even said plaintively: “There’s a lot of noise at this music fest.” Some in the crowd cheered, and he responded, more plaintively still, “We got a flute here.” Smith’s flute actually could be heard reasonably well on “The Pills Won’t Help You Now,” which Midlake wrote in collaboration with electronica’s Chemical Brothers. Nuances in the arrangement were shortchanged, but the lush vocal harmonies were still marvelous.
Smith has one of the prettiest tenor voices around, and guitarist Eric Pulido, who sings backing vocals, would probably be the lead in another band. “Van Occupanther” also has a low-key instrumental brilliance and craftsmanship that can recall the best of ‘70s California rock, without sounding too retro. A cheer went up when the band launched into the title track from “Van Occupanther,” whose melody soars and dives with unforced drama.
Another one of the strongest songs, “Young Bride,” got a crowd-pleasing introduction: a marriage proposal from one fan to his girlfriend. It was obvious from her body language that she was almost too thrilled to react, but the lack of a verbal response worried Pulido a little.
“Can we get a ‘Yes’?” he asked, and then, as the woman threw her arms around her new fiance, Pulido confirmed: “We got a yes!”
A promising new track from a forthcoming album, “Children of the Ground,” was more kinetic than some of the older songs. And on the closing “Head Home,” Smith sent fans off with both a beautiful melody and a stimulating guitar solo with a little blues in it and a bit of sonic fuzz on it.
(Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL: Grace Potter
According to the bio on her website, Vermont native Grace Potter and her band, the Nocturnals, have drawn comparison to Americana and pop icons like Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi, the Band, Little Feat and even — huh? — Norah Jones. But based on their performance at the WaMu Stage on Sunday afternoon, such comparisons are at dated at best, or at least irrelevant. The set was, rather, a study in hard-rock pyrotechnics, more Led Zeppelin than Lucinda. Potter’s new album, “This Is Somewhere,” covered a lot more stylistic territory, leaving the neophyte listener at something of a loss.
Potter switched from electric guitar to B-3 organ and piano during the course of her songs, sometimes even in the midst of a single tune. Hers is a bell-clear voice, which surfaced occasionally above the sonic onslaught (volume is always an issue in the enclosed WaMu space) in songs like “Ah, Mary,” the crowd-pleasing, set-closing rave-up “Nothing But Water” and “Mastermind.”
There was a certain similitude from song to song: tunes that began simply and then blossomed abruptly into big rock mashups.
Scott Tournet had a fine control on lead guitar, but he appeared to have graduated from the school where guitarists are paid by the note. The first time he and Potter squared off in a guitarslinger’s duel, in “Stop the Bus,” it was exhilarating. By the time the same face-off occurred for the fourth or fifth time, in “Watching You,” a certain familiarity had, let’s say, set in.
Potter is a genuine talent, and the band’s latest album displayed a genuine willingness to push boundaries. This listener hopes her live shows begin to reflect the same inventiveness the next time she journeys this way.
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ACL: Charlie Musselwhite
You can — pun definitely intended — rave all you want about blogs, DIY, My Space and WiFi, but for those of us old coots who wish they made cellphones with little bitty rotary dials, there is something reassuring about Charlie Musselwhite performing against the backdrop of the so-cutting-edge-it’s-bleeding ACL Festival.
Take it from me, there ain’t a new jack bone in the man’s body. From the vintage cobra-headed microphone he uses to broadcast his clean, soaring, supple blues lines to the battered Halliburton briefcase in which he keeps his arsenal of harmonicas, the 63year old Musselwhite has been there and back, playing in Mississippi jukejoints with the likes of fellow harp greats Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson, and later, Tracy Nelson and Luther Tucker.
Leading his own ensemble, as he did at the WaMu Stage Sunday afternoon, Musselwhite gave every appearance of being a man having a ball, happy in his element. His set drew largely from his award-winning latest album, “Delta Hardware,” including the light-hearted kiss-off tune “Gone Too Long” and “Black Water,” in which Musselwhite’s searing harp echoed the wails of Hurricane Katrina’s dispossessed.
But the performance also ranged far afield from the new release, featuring a tune from his 1966 debut as well as a rousing version of Eddie Taylor’s “Bad Boy.” He even pulled out a big chromatic harp to essay some back alley samba-flavored blues he discovered in Brazil.
When Musselwhite wasn’t playing or singing, guitarist Chris Anderson (who originally hails from Denmark, go figure) carried a lot of musical water, to considerable acclaim. Chicago and Delta blues on a sultry Southern Sunday afternoon — it’s a recipe Charlie Musselwhite served up to perfection.
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ACL: Common
If Wu-Tang, as ODB once informed us, is for the children, then Common is for the ladies. Which isn’t a knock — a lyrical mack who scans like a feminist even when he’s spitting lines such as “Freaky like the daughter of a pastor/ said I was bait for her to master,” Common, in powder blue golf shirt and ever-present hat, held the crowd in the palm of his hand and rocked their proverbial bells.
Of course his Sunday afternoon set on the Dell stage was a welcome break in a festival known for adult alternative roots folk-rock (Wilco, Indigo Girls and pretty much 80 percent of every stage) and semi-indie darlings (what’s up, Bloc Party?). This was earnest hip-hop live and direct, complete with a full band Common knew how to work with, a DJ unafraid to cut into the mix and the occasional sampled hook (That was Lily Allen’s voice on “Drivin’ Me Wild”) that served as accent rather than foundation. “Forever Begins”shouted out “good music and room to breathe” while establishing his bona fides as a nice guy (“Can’t judge the weave/ my lady had one”).
“Black Maybe” espoused a modernist militancy that broadened blackness to include all of the oppressed. Sure, he’s talking about skin when he spits “When we talk about black maybe/ we talk about situations/ of people of color and because you are that color/ you endure obstacles and opposition,” but he included sexual orientation in his list of the oppressed. (Hey, this is a big step for hip-hop.)
Throwing down his verse from Kanye West’s “Get ‘Em High” reminded everyone just how tight the two Chi-town talents are, while “Drivin’ Me Wild” reminded everyone just how sharp and hooky West’s productions are. He brought up a gal from the stage to rap “Come Close to Me” and he dedicated a juiced-up version of “The Light” to the late producer J Dilla (as well as the ladies). Consider our bells rocked.
(Photo by Brian K. Diggs AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL: Yo La Tengo
The only thing better than ice coffee to get the last day of ACL started? A good jolt of feedback from Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan. The artfully sculpted squalls that swept through opening numbers “From a Motel Six,” “Stockholm Syndrome” and “Pass The Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind” were enough to blast away any lingering fog of fatigue.
Fans had to feel a little indignant at first to see a schedule with Yo La Tengo relegated to a 12:30 p.m. slot. The trio has been around a lot longer and made a lot more great records than most of the headliners, and will probably outlast most of them, too. But artistic justice aside, it was great to see the band early, before the crowd got too thick to worm your way up front.
The group’s certainly not visually flashy, but it’s always thrilling to watch Kaplan wrestling with his guitar in the midst of a feedback blitz, when it seems like the roar is trying to pull the instrument right through the floor of the stage, and him with it.
Drummer Georgia Hubley and bassist James McNew anchored and subtly shaped the mayhem. Hubley, one of the most underappreciated drummers around, is unassuming even when absolutely walloping the kit. She’s also an underrated singer. She may not have a “Rock Star: Supernova” range, but with a tone as pure as rainwater, who needs it? The crowd was silently rapt when she sang the melancholy “Tears Are In Your Eyes,” over skeletal fills from Kaplan.
Kaplan played jaunty keyboards on “Beanbag Chair,” from the new “I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass,” throwing in a few dissonant bars reminiscent of NRBQ pianist Terry Adams. Kaplan and McNew delighted the crowd with their falsetto harmonies on the ‘60s R&B-flavored “Mr. Tough.”
The crowd was amazingly quiet for Kaplan’s long, contemplative, softly shimmering intro to the final “I Was a Fool Beside You for Too Long,” which built and built with hypnotic power until it exploded in a feedback fireball, over which Kaplan wailed “Too long, too long.” After that, most of the afternoon would feel anti-climactic, but Yo La Tengo is at Stubb’s The Parish Monday for longer excursions into both guitar madness and quiet pop splendor.
(Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL: The chair crisis
Donna and Jeffrey West, who’ve been coming from Maryland the past four years, were mildly disappointed that the “no chairs beyond this point” signs were set back more than 50 feet from last year’s boundary. They came early Sunday and set up about 100 yards from the AMD stage. “I think they’ve got it backwards,” Donna West said. “It should be chairs in the front and standing in the back.” Jeffrey West added that, despite the set back, they’ll bring their chairs again next year. “It’s still our favorite festival. We just wish we were a little closer.”
(Pictured, unidentified ACL Fest-goers enjoying their chairs. Photo by David Weaver FOR AUSTIN360)
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ACL: The Jones Family Singers
Yes, they did it again: no, “oops” about it. For the third year in a row, the Jones Family Singers — a group of Pentecostal shouters from Bay City — completely wrecked the house that used to be known as the gospel tent.
The Lord couldn’t pony up the sponsorship money, so the stuffy, covered area is now officially called the Washington Mutual stage. But from 1 p.m. until an hour later, it was owned by the JFS, who had a pretty full house waiting for them to start, but then had folks dancing on the fringes as the set peaked with a 20-minute holy ghost workout on “Fall Down On Me,” with its irrestistable “how long can you go” choreography, guitarist Fred Jones Jr.’s sanctified duck walk and a lead change, with Bishop Fred Jones Jr. giving his daughter a breather.
This family of five sisters, two brothers, their father and 15-year-old Ian Wade on drums just keeps getting tighter. At the center of this big wave of praise and love is lead singer Alexis Jones Roberts, whose got the smile to match her volcanic vocals. It was like hearing Aretha Franklin if she stuck to gospel and didn’t go pop.
As always, the group opened with a 15-minute blast of “I Am,” with its crowd-pleasing “Rock ‘n’ roll in Jesus” choreography and Roberts’ continual stoppage of the song to get the crowd — or her muscians — to add something to the jam. But when they slowed it down with the more-churchlike “I Love You,” the crowd stayed with them, instead of wandering off.
Only quibble during a set which had changed little since last year’s at ACL: the group should add a little more religious undertones to their version of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout.” Most casual gospel fans don’t know that “shouting” means dancing at Pentecostal services, so without that context, it seemed as if the JFS were just wringing the crowd with a cheesy number from “Animal House.”
But the Jones Family Singers were still as good as it gets at ACL.
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ACL: The National
It’s tough to pull off a good, solid mope on a hot stage at ACL, but the National did their level best. The Brooklyn band has draw comparisons to Nick Cave (mostly thanks to Matt Berninger’s defeated-sounding baritone) and the Tindersticks (again, the baritone, and Pamda Newsome’s violin), but their sound is more indie rock — songs in square 4/4 time, big, strummy buildups, that sort of thing.
Opening with the wonderful “Start a War,” Berninger tries to salvage a relationship. “Whatever went away, I’ll get it over now/ I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again / walk away now and you’re gonna start a war.” Bummer.
Kind of magnificent in a hide-the-knives sort of way, but tough to pull off at a sweltering festival. Their songs had a tendency to run a bit bland, in spite of Berninger’s nifty croon and his staggering resemblance to Spoon’s Britt Daniel. But vaguely generic songs such as “Secret Meeting” absolutely came alive when Newsome’s violin was thrown into the mix, his lines soaring around the dueling guitars. “I’m so sorry for everything,” Berninger moaned. As the violin crashed against the drums, you believed it.
(Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL: Sound Tribe Sector Nine
Santa Cruz, California’s Sound Tribe Sector Nine (STS9) had the jam band aficionados’ bodies moving and grooving to a beat that lasted nearly the entire hour of the 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Dell stage time slot.
STS9 — guitarist Hunter Brown, percussionist/laptop manipulator Jeffree Lerner, bassist David Murphy, keyboardist David Phipps, and drummer Zack Velmer — worked that groove right around 80 beats per minute wherein hippies just can’t resist doing those free form, spinning dances that yield the appearance of near ground liftoff. There were little pockets of hippie dancers doing their thing sprinkled throughout the several thousand people baking in the sun in front of the Dell stage.
I’m not even going to try to distinguish neither what songs they played, nor their song titles as STS9 is well known for remixing their songs and creating spontaneous ones during their live performances. Sunday afternoon’s set was no different; each song contained polyrhythms that developed from a single moment and then folded back over one another - sometimes after the songs had reached the 10-minute mark.
To the uninitiated, Brown’s guitar lines occasionally bordered on new-age noodling, but to be fair he did a great job of fulfilling the requisite jam band guitar layering and solos under the rhythm without ever sounding terribly cliche.
(Photo by Brian K. Diggs AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL after-show: Hot Freaks!
Where have all the black-framed glasses gone? The young and shaggy were outnumbered by out-of-town ACLers sporting VIP wristbands at the blogger-curated Hot Freaks! showcase on Friday night — though those two French guys from La Blogotheque screaming drunken tributes to Grizzly Bear helped keep things down to earth.
Despite the Mohawk’s attempts at sophistication (two upper levels roped off for VIPs only), these were good old-fashioned rock shows, complete with a short-lived moshpit and the familiar scent of cigarettes and beer penetrating everything and everyone.
Britishers Art Brut and Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear took the stage at sister-clubs the Mohawk and Club DeVille, along with locals Brazos and Crazy Sexy Rainbow (White Denim in disguise). Even though they were all part of one big happy showcase, the two stages made for pretty distinct scenes (Grizzly Bear opened the set with a recorder solo; Art Brut’s lead singer played jump-rope with mike cables), and pretty distinct sounds.
Brazos opened up DeVille slow and dreamy (think Rufus Wainwright with pneumonia and drums), followed by Grizzly Bear, who took slow and dreamy to new heights. Their lengthy elegies echoed with layers of synth, clarinet and autoharp; even the up-tempo numbers sounded like lullabies.
A decidedly more energetic Mohawk kicked off with Crazy Sexy Rainbow (who were less than stellar, but hey, they jumped around a lot), ending with Art Brut, who whipped the Mohawk into a relative stir with tongue-in-cheek tributes to male impotency (“I know I can, I know I can/I’m fine when I’m with my own hands”) and funny, straightforward narratives (“I’m considering a move to L.A./He’s considering a move to L.A.”). These against infectious punk(ish) instrumentals, a good bit of drums, plus some small scale crowd-surfing? Good stuff.
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ACL: More scene reports
Good Samaritan or bad businessman? A fella on Barton Springs Road has been satiating ravished fans by selling slices of Papa John’s Pizza for a buck a slice. That’s eight dollars per large pizza; where’s the profit?
Chris Conley of Forth Worth has been to ACL Fest the past four years and says the organization seems to improve every year. “The fire on Friday was a drag, but the response was impressive,” says the military veteran with first response training. “The cooperation by the crowd and the swiftness of the organization prevented a bigger tragedy. Conley liked the widened “no chairs” zone this year. “It just makes for a better overall flow. We could get around from stage to stage a lot easier.”
Barton Springs has kind of turned into a head shop. One person had an interesting way to advertise her wares. Sitting behind a table filled with glass pipes, she said, “Get your ACL commemorative paper weights here.”
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ACL: Bob Dylan fan club
By 7 p.m. Saturday night, the line for Bob Dylan’s performance that evening stretched around the block all the way to Interstate 35. Most people arrived in the few preceding hours, but two fans had been hanging out in front of the popular outdoor venue since 4:30 that morning.
Kait Runevitch and Caroline Schwarz are co-directors of the Bob Dylan Fan Club (www.thebobdylanfanclub.com). “Bob asked us to start it about two years ago,” Runevitch said. “We met him after a gig and he said, ‘I love seeing you girls out there at every show,’ and said he needed a fan club.”
At 25, the Humbolt County resident says she’s a veteran of about 275 Dylan shows, starting in 1997. She and Schwarz came to ACL for Dylan, but picked up three days passes anyway, checking out Asleep at the Wheel, the Rev. Horton Heat and Mofro on Friday.
The two said they slept in sleeping bags on the street most of the early morning, heading back to the hotel for breakfast. “Most people thought we were homeless,” Schwarz said. (This seemed odd, given their clothes and hair, but they said they changed into summer dresses a few hours before the show.) Both said the Stubb’s staff was very pleasant, letting them use the bathroom whenever they needed.
Runevitch and Schwarz planned to take in the Sunday show before heading back to California for work on Monday and rejoining the tour later in the fall.
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