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Did someone say Foo?
Welcome to the first day of the 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival. Get ready to watch music and stay hydrated, possibly not in that order.
This year’s fest is two weeks later than last year (there’s been talk of an October start date for 2009), and Austin is holding its collective breath that not only will the three-digit temps of years past be avoided but that most of the festival will take place with the mercury held to lower than 90 degrees. We’ll see.
The Foo Fighters are this year’s Sunday headliner, a slot for which ‘07 headliner Bob Dylan was utterly inappropriate. To wit, he did not, you know, rock, which seems the least a band should be expected to do when closing out a big festival. Even people without much interest in the Foos should check them out simply to say they were there: Word has it a long hiatus is in the works for this band that has managed to be around not just three times longer than head Foo Dave Grohl was in Nirvana, but nearly twice as long as Nirvana was a band at all (Nirvana 1987-1994, Foo Fighters 1995 -present). This is very weird for thirtysomethings in the crowd to deal with, so don’t be surprised if you see members of this ACL Fest target demographic mumbling to themselves during the weekend. (If you see one, just offer him or her a drink and a shady spot; they’ll be fine when they remember how old Robert Plant is.)
Speaking of the man with the golden voice, Saturday night, Plant and musical partner Alison Krauss, — the duo whose “Raising Sand” has been one of the sleeper hits of the past few years — is up against Beck, who has been around even longer than the Foo Fighters. Roky Erickson, one of music’s greatest comebacks, is playing at more or less the same time.
Is there an aesthetic theme this year? Not an overarching one — that’s not really how ACL Fest rolls. But there are two smaller trends to note.
ACL Fest is packed with indie rock this year. From the harmonies of the Fleet Foxes to the guitar histrionics of Band of Horses, from the Brazilian funk of CSS to the acoustic songwriting of M. Ward, from the somewhat less acoustic songwriting of Austin’s Okkervil River to the kitchen-sink dance rock of Austin’s own White Demin, indie rock acts are on nearly ever stage.
And some mention must be made of the accidental influence of Talking Heads. The funky New Wave legends are an influence on today’s hispters the way Gang of Four and Wire were an influence on yesterday’s. Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend have clearly heard more than a few of Talking Heads’ funkier outings. Antibalas plays actual Afrobeat, no matter that they hail from Brooklyn. MGMT have been known to cover “This Must Be the Place” while Hot Chip’s pop oddness seems impossible to conceive of without albums such as “Remain in Light.” And of course, there’s former head Head David Byrne himself, playing a set that is slated to include plenty of the Heads material that the band produced through a collaboration with brilliant producer Brian Eno.
So keep a drink in your hand, folks, and walk toward the music, whichever kind you choose. You have three days of this — pace yourself. See you out there.
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