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ACL 2010: Saturday
October 10, 2010
ACL review: Gaslight Anthem
Sometimes you’re happy for all the help you can get. I was taking notes on Gaslight Anthem’s set midway back from the Budweiser stage on Saturday when a neighboring fan passed me a short note from his wife. “Unsolicited One-Sentence Review,” the note said, and continued, “Rockers with just enough melodicism.”
Lady, you’re hired.
The New Jersey quartet, touring strong behind their third album, “American Slang,” do indeed rock. Ferociously, in most cases, with a surprising delicacy when the mood suits them. And melodicism is definitely a component of the band’s sound as well. Much of the latter is evocative of Jersey godfather Bruce Springsteen (the band admits as much, and the Boss joined them onstage at a European festival last year): There are the same anthemic major chords, the same swirl of melodic elements and even some of the same lyrical tropes (cars cruising on the boulevards, youthful angst and even characters named Romeo and Maria pop up like raisins in a cake).
On record, and especially onstage, the band — vocalist/guitarist Brian Fallon, bassist Alex Levine, drummer Benny Horowitz and guitarist Alex Rosamila — borrow as much or more from punkers like the Clash and the Pogues as they do from the E-Street Band’s meat-and-potatoes rock.
From the call-to-arms guitar that kicks off “American Slang” to the fiercely unrepentant “Old Haunts” to the improbably titled “The Spirit of Jazz” to the tricky little guitar part that kicked off “Queen of Lower Chelsea,” Fallon and Co. burned down the stage, while on more nuanced material such as “Here’s Looking At You, Kid” and the opening “High Lonesome,” the group’s sound evoked at times Van Morrison and even some of the rough-and-tumble Stax/Volt sessions.
It was a thoroughly satisfying afternoon hour in the sun — deep in the heart of Texas and a long way from Jersey. And sometimes all you need is a one-sentence review.
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ACL review: Kinky
The chair section in the Clear 4G tent disappeared the moment Monterrey, Mexico’s Kinky took the stage Saturday, and the dancing crowd went nuts as soon as Ulises Lozano stepped forward for a brief accordion solo. From there, the show felt like a non-stop rave crossed with a soccer game where your team is winning big, and singer-guitarist Gilberto Cerezo had only to raise an arm to get an entire sea of hands waving ecstatically in the air.
While the rest of the group wore rock-star shades — Lozano, guitarist Carlos Chairez, formidable drummer Omar Gongora, and bassist Cesar Pliego — Cerezo looked like he’d just wandered in from his job as the cute high-school-age barista at your local coffee shop. However, his unassuming manner belied a strong voice that made a cover of “Mexican Radio” sound even better than the original. He possesses a great rock ‘n’ roll scream, too, and his voice easily penetrated through the group’s galvanizing fusion of funk, rock, electronica, industrial, Mexican and pan-Latin influences. Many of the songs were powered by a pounding house beat, but the polyrhythms Gongora layered on top made this more compelling than most ’90s dance music — no mind-altering substances necessary — and Lozano added a variety of textures on keyboards and programming, when he wasn’t playing accordion.
It was a blast watching Pliego while he laid down arresting basslines. Dressed in jeans, a white dress shirt and a black cowboy hat, he wore his instrument low and leaned back at an almost impossible angle, while his left leg pumped up and down, his knee reaching nearly waist height.
Someone in the front presented Cerezo with a Mexican flag, and Cerezo introduced the song “Cornman” by expressing his delight in being able to come play in “difficult times, so people know it’s not only war, it’s also love, and music and beautiful people.”
“Welcome to my world … welcome to Texas,” he sang, and fans jumped up and down with abandon. A surprising number of gray-haired fans were boogeying in the decidedly multi-ethnic crowd, and the woman next to me had said before the show that it was the first act she was getting to see, having spent the first part of ACL in the kiddie area with her children before the babysitter came on duty. A blond 20-something couple who looked straight out of 1960s Sears catalogue were getting down like Soul Train regulars, and even the people making an early exit were dancing their way out of the throng.
The show reached so many peaks that I thought it must be the end at least four times, but Kinky had not yet played “Mas,” which had the whole teeming mass singing at the tops of their lungs. After a brief respite, the band started the song up again and the crowd carried the chorus. Kinky managed to keep the energy level rising for a few more songs even after that, and when their time was up, as the setting sun started streaming in through the back, rays colliding with strobing white lights on stage, fans felt compelled to chant “OTRA! OTRA!” for a couple minutes, even though everyone knew there was no time for an encore.
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ACL scene: Deadmau5
For a brief moment at Zilker Park on Saturday night, it almost felt as though we had all been transported to South Florida for the annual Winter Music Conference. LCD Soundsystem’s “Yeah!” had just finished up on the Budweiser stage when Grammy-nominated dance producer Deadmau5 started his set on the Zync stage. Fresh off his appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards, he quickly became one of the most talked about acts on the day’s lineup.
Technical difficulties marred the first few moments of the performance. The typically anonymous producer had to remove his signature oversized mouse mask in order to fix his equipment. Once this mishap was remedied, his hour-long set continued without issue. Visually, there was a fairly extensive light show to make up for the lack of pretty much any other activity on stage.
While it only took about 20 minutes for me to become personally uninterested in his set, the crowd was undeniably excited. I had to walk almost as far back as the Art Market area in order find the perimeter’s edge of people who were not clapping, dancing, and waving their glow sticks in the air.
Photo by Jack Plunkett ASSOCIATED PRESS
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ACL 2010 Review: The XX
There is something inherently funny, yet charming, about British kids dressed in black in the blazing early evening heat and sun, but that’s exactly what happened tp the the XX during their Saturday evening set at ACL.
The British trio has had a big year. Their debut album, released last August, won the prestigious Mercury Prize earlier this year. They felt like one of the breakout acts of this year’s South By Southwest. They’ve been touring on and off for well over a year.
Word has it this set was their last for awhile — it’s time to recharge and start working on the follow-up. It was a mellow, if possibly broiling, way to close out an extraordinary 14 month period for the young rockers. Oliver Sim, sporting a very British haircut, mumble-crooned his way through tunes such as the anthemic “Intro” and “Crystalised.” Much as at SXSW, it was weirdly hypnotic seeing drummer Jaime Smith tap out beats on a drum machine. It balanced the sound between the raw and the cooked, between the digital and the analog, between the emotional and the machine-made. Guitarist Romy Madley Croft’s spare, tiny lines felt huge in the falling sun. Not a bad way to end it for the year.
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ACL aftershow report: The Black Keys at Stubb's
My, how these two have grown.
Consider this: When I first wrote about The Black Keys in 2002 they were banging around midwestern clubs in support of “The Big Come Up,” a platter of dirty two-man blues and bash that got them lots of looks but also got them cast as The White Stripes’ unfortunate cousins during a time when any record with a trace of fuzz or distortion made its authors part of the retro-garage movement.
Now? They’re THE on-the-rise band of Austin City Limits Festival weekend, drawing a throng Friday afternoon that rivaled crowds of lots of BCS schools’ football stadiums and played an aftershow Saturday night at Stubb’s that promoters said they could’ve sold out three times over. Austin natives Spoon actually did that last summer and on Saturday night Spoon honcho Britt Daniel was turned away from the club’s packed-like-pickles VIP deck. It was that kind of a night.
So The Black Keys have arrived, thanks in no small part to a startling new record (“Brothers,” its sixth) with a single (“Tighten Up”) that distills the duo’s base elements - skeletal blues-based guitar, at least one killer solo and/or breakdown, Patrick Carney’s stamp press-force drumming and Dan Auerbach’s eternal romantic longing - down to their most potent forms.
What became apparent after Carney and Auerbach started making noise Saturday on opening song “Thickfreakness” was how they’ve not only grown in stature but expanded their stylistic palette. Auerbach can slip country twang guitar lines in pretty much anywhere he wants or go completely the other way with metallic feedback, the band can pull it back for an easygoing ballad (“Act Nice And Gentle”), and Carney can dip into the funk that served him so well on last year’s Blakroc album.
So for 80 blistering-but-never-close-to-overboard minutes it was the pair (plus a bassist and Moog player for some of the “Brothers” tunes) opening up its catalog and either stacking those new building blocks atop earlier songs (“The Breaks,” “Girl Is On My Mind”) or mega-sizing the creative growth displayed on new ones. That meant “Strange Times” kicked off faster and harder than on record (which takes some doing) and nearly slowed to collapse in its choruses, or that the tension of “Tighten Up” was intensified by rhythmically teasing its monster final verse breakdown after each verse. And when it finally arrived right in front of Auerbach singing “Living just to keep going/Going just to keep sane,” well, “cacophony” seems like the right word for the mood in the house by that point.
It was musicianship paired with showmanship (we’ll excuse the mammoth disco ball that made two appearances) making an airtight case for why The Black Keys’ time is now, and that they’re not about to let it pass squandered.
Photos: Alberto Martinez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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ACL scene: David Bazan
Seattle’s David Bazan was the victim of one of the more unfortunate scheduling conflicts during Saturday’s ACL lineup. While performing on the BMI stage, it was often easy to hear LCD Soundsystem’s electro beats over on the Budweiser stage. Bazan, appearing with a full backing band, rose to the occasion with a set that was loaded with some of the more rocking songs from his catalog.
Last fall, he released “Curse Your Branches” on the Barsuk label. It was his first proper solo album after fronting the band Pedro The Lion for a decade. A smaller, but dedicated crowd of fans braved the schedule conflicts and camped out in one of the shadier areas of the park to watch him play a set that mostly featured his more recent material. Highlights also included older favorites such as “Start Without Me” and “The Fleecing,” tracks from Pedro The Lion’s final album “Achilles Heel.”
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ACL review: Monsters of Folk
You have to believe that the Monsters of Folk are having fun jacking around with folks’ preconceptions. There’s that name, for one thing, a burst of who’s-your-daddy egotism with tongue firmly in cheek. Then there’s the boys themselves, making their entrance onto the Austin Ventures Stage Saturday evening in matching black funeral parlor suits to the strains of William DeVaughan’s ’70s funk track “Be Thankful For What You Got.”
Then there is the group’s pedigree — think an indie incarnation of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Like that ensemble, the members of MOF hail from disparate pedigrees: She and Him (M. Ward), My Morning Jacket (Jim James) and Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis). (And one of Austin’s own: Will Johnson of Centro-matic, who has become the fifth Monster.) And, like CSNY at their peak, Monsters of Folk is capable of evolving from a layered, nuanced rootsy sound to a screaming, multi-headed garage band monster with the blink of the proverbial eye.
Their nearly two-hour set drew largely from their self-titled debut from last fall, but there were some detours into the members’ own repertoires, including Oberst’s “Soul Singer In A Session Band,” Ward’s “To Save Me” and a titanic version of My Morning Jacket’s “Smokin’ From Shootin’.” The SoCal folk rock of “The Right Place” and “Golden” (another MMJ song), the ethereal vocals on “Slow Down Jo” and “The Sandman, the Brakeman and Me” and the assertive, melodic pop of “Baby Boomer,” “Whole Lotta Losin’” and “Losin’ Yo Head” — (does anyone else hear echoes of the Beach Boys in here?) — Monsters of Folk displayed more sides than a funhouse mirror. Soulful wordsmiths, furious rockers, gifted performers — the set-closing spiritual “His Master’s Voice” was spine-tingling — they reminded this listener of the old B. Kliban cartoon wherein the scientist comes into the laboratory to find his creation doing the cha-cha with a couple of buxom babes and drinking a martini. “Look, Igor,” the scientist exclaims, “The monster lives! And not badly, either!” Photo: Kelly West AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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ACL review: Broken Bells
After a wildly anticipated set at this year’s South By Southwest that received decidedly mixed reviews, Broken Bells — the boutique project headed by James Mercer (of the Shins) and Danger Mouse — returned to Austin for an afternoon set that drew a massive crowd to the AMD Stage on Saturday.
Drawing heavily from their debut album, with a smattering of new material, the duo and their backing musicians delivered a polished performance laced with swirls of high-harmony vocals, electronic effects, bolero trumpet and an easy assurance — although viewing the big monitors from more than a quarter mile away made discerning any onstage dynamics among the musicians a job for astronomers.
Echoing with oblique references to the Beatles’ psychedelic era, Pink Floyd’s grandiosity and Steely Dan’s hipster-cool surmise — see if you can guess the reporter’s era by those name checks — songs such as “Vaporize,” “The High Road,” “Your Head Is On Fire” and “The Ghost Inside” elevated the crowd while simultaneously, somehow, eliciting a sense of trancelike abandon.
New songs featured rubbery rhythm guitar, haunted twin vocals and a subterranean layer of industrial funk. Drowning, chewy guitar tracks anchored the set’s only cover tune (whose name I unfortunately didn’t catch).
The 12-song set concluded with an upbeat pop-laced take on “The Mall and the Misery” that sent folks off dancing. It might have taken Broken Bells a couple of visits to Austin to find their groove, but once they located it, they rode it into the ground.
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ACL scene: Barton Springs Road on Saturday
Although most people on Barton Springs Road west of Lamar were streaming purposefully toward ACL Saturday afternoon, some folks sporting three-day wristbands stopped to relax in local establishments before braving the hordes in the park, and plenty of people from nearby neighborhoods wandered down just to watch the parade go by.
On the front porch of Austin Java, Joel Lang was hanging out with his 3-month-old daughter, Veda Monserrate. He had planned to go to ACL and catch bands such as Gogol Bordello, but his friends bailed on him, he said, so he sold his three-day pass. Veda attended last year’s ACL in utero, but this year she was content to recline in her stroller, wrapped in a pink blanket and sucking vigorously, Maggie Simpson-style, on a glittering pink pacifier, while sizing up strangers with her enormous blue eyes. Her dad spotted a friend, and other Austinites seemed to be running into their neighbors and co-workers as well.
On the sidewalk next to the Shiner Bock-sponsored stage outside Flipnotics, a woman pushing a double stroller ran into someone she knew, hugs were exchanged, and then another friend strolled up and within 15 minutes, there seemed to be about eight people in their group. On the stage, raised a full story above street level, Slowtrain played a fine set of choogling country-rock, causing some 30 or 40 people to pause and listen, from a gray-haired man and his consort to a kid with a skateboard tucked under his arm. A pedicab driver drifted by headed east, passengerless, with one leg resting up on his handlebars. Up the street, another pedicab driver was waiting for a passenger, his conveyance decorated with an oversize kid’s mylar balloon and a sign proclaiming “Bikin’ 4 My Baby.” Yet another pedicab driver pedaled swiftly toward Lamar, the cheap boombox fixed to his bicycle blaring away.
Apparently, many people had decided rather than buy a pricey Heineken in the park, they’d fuel up beforehand. Inside Flip’s, the baristas seemed to be selling more beer than coffee. And when I tried to say hello to a friend who works at Uncle Billy’s Brew & Que, where live bands were also playing, the place was so slammed, I just waved at him and said “see you later.” Meanwhile, Daily Juice was jumping as well, but the atmosphere was far less hectic, and a customer in line danced happily to the electronica playing in the shop.
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ACL 2010 review: Muse
It’s a pretty big honor for a band to headline the ACL Fest twice - even if it is by accident. After the White Stripes cancelled in 2007 and the English alternative rock trio were bumped up to the top spot, they proved themselves adept headliners, with a massive, spectacle-laden rock explosion that seemed to be timed just right - this was just as “Knights of Cydonia” was in its highest circulation on the radio.
But were they so good they deserved another headlining slot three years later? If the shirtless guy next to me jumping a solid foot into the air and screaming “Yeah!” every two seconds is any indication - and come on, this is a rock festival, so of course it’s an indication - the answer is yes.
The intervening three years have seen Muse build itself an ever-larger, and exceedingly devoted, fan base - which equaled a clearly engaged, enthusiastic audience which greeted each radio single with rapturous applause and filled in the vocals on a brief instrumental cover of the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun.” The energy was at a feverish pitch right from the start, when Matthew Bellamy walked on stage and launched into “Uprising,” backed by the best light show the touring market can buy. From that first note on, Muse, stadium rockers in the truest sense of the words, unraveled its spiraling, epic jams over a barrage of lasers, lights and projections for an hour and a half. Although Bellamy’s vocals were at times a bit quiet, Muse proved itself an ideal festival headliner - with tight musicianship and a nearly obscene level of spectacle to match.
It’s a little astonishing to know that Muse consists of only four live players, because the band sounded impressively expansive on rockers like “MK Ultra” - named for a covert CIA program centered on mind control and one of many signs of the band’s fascination with paranoid subject matter (to say little of the news footage and Orwellian imagery that popped up at times on the projection screen). But in all the axe-grinding and spectacle there were bits of tenderness on display - Bellamy’s piano interlude “Niche” and Muse’s surprisingly sensitive take on classic “Feeling Good,” an Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse tune that’s been sung by everybody from Nina Simone to Kat Edmonson.
Bellamy broke out the keytar for “Undisclosed Desires” and a double-necked guitar for the bombast of “Resistance.” Although it may have been Bellamy’s right-hand man, bassist Christopher Wolstenhome, who busted out one of the most impressive feats of the night, a thematically perfect harmonica intro to final song “Knights of Cydonia.”
Although there’s few 10-minute solos on display in Muse’s songs, you can see bits of progressive rock creeping in here and there - the epic feel, the focus on world-building within the lyrics and, of course, the very dedicated audience. Mix that in with a whole lot of spectacle, and you have a pretty solid show. At least the shirtless guy next to me seemed happy, and who am I to argue with him?
Set list
Uprising
Supermassive Black Hole
New Born
Map of the Problematique
MK Ultra
Nishe
United States of Eurasia
Feeling Good (cover)
Undisclosed Desires
Resistance
Hysteria
Time Is Running Out
Starlight
Stockholm Syndrome
Encore
Plug In Baby
Knights of Cydonia
Photo: Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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ACL 2010 review: LCD Soundsystem
Two songs into his Saturday night set at the Budweiser stage, just after nailing delightfully silly “This Is Happening” single “Drunk Girls,” LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy apologized for wearing sunglasses on-stage. Directly in front of him, the Austin sun was setting over the west hills. One can only imagine how blinding it must have been.
“There’s a mid-size star (expletive) up my vision. I’m very sorry for looking like a jerk and wearing these sunglasses,” said Murphy. “Wait no, I’m trying to look cool, that’s it.”
It’s too bad Murphy had to deal with the world’s most epic glare, but it’s a happy accident - it’s hard to imagine a band better suited to guide ACL Fest audiences from day to night than LCD Soundsystem, with its cathartic, weary-yet-enthused dance rock jams. Murphy’s songs were practically made for those waning hours of twilight, and indeed LCD Soundsystem proved even more enjoyable than they did during their 2007 mid-afternoon set. Striding onto stage in a black-and-white plaid shirt and a five o’clock shadow, Murphy and the six other members of LCD Soundsystem’s live band - charmingly, all of whom look like total schlubs aside from glamorous Moog jockey Nancy Whong - kicked off the set with the wandering first track off “This Is Happening,” an immediately winning rendition of “Dance Yrself Clean.”
Although the dancing didn’t reach the feverish heights it would an hour later for Deadmau5’s groove-a-thon, there were ample hands in the air for “Drunk Girls” and “I Can Change” - and there was a noticeable surge of enthusiasm for a sped-up, punked-up take on “All My Friends.” I’ll confess to being modestly surprised by just how much this set rocked and just how good it sounded - in particular, “Movement” was shattering in its intensity.
A world here about the people in LCD Soundsystem who aren’t James Murphy: Murphy tends to get the lion’s share of the credit, but the rest of the band’s players are absolute experts at taking music that has plenty of electronica in its DNA and making it surge live, which is probably harder to do than it looks. Particular praise is due to drummer Pat Mahoney - since we’re talking dance music here, a pounding drumbeat is even more important than usual, and Mahoney’s a monster on the kit. Especially when Murphy joins in, as he did on “Tribulations,” a deep cut off LCD Soundsystem’s self-titled debut.
By the time Murphy tore into the 2,137 shouted exclamations of “Yeah!” that make up the song of the same name (that number might be slightly exaggerated) and the disco ball came on, the sun had dropped out of the sky and Murphy had adeptly helped navigate the audience into the darkness. Photo: Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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ACL 2010 review: Local Natives
A crew of well-meaning young men from Silver Lake, California, Local Natives fall into that oddly expanding category “bands who cite Talking Heads, possibly from the stage, as a huge influence.” (See also Yeasayer, Vampire Weekend, Wolf Parade and a dozen more.) Some folks scoff at this - as one fellow on Twitter put it, “Their mouths say Talking Heads, but their music says every (expletive) Byrne solo alb;” OUCH - but the crowd at the Austin Ventures stage on Saturday seemed to adore their combination of vocal harmonies, skittering rock and sunny Afro-pop breaks. (They even covered Talking Heads “Warning Sign.”)
Drawing from their nearly-year old, well-regarded hyped debut “Gorilla Manor,” the band worked on their titration of California folk and something slightly funkier. Singer Taylor Rice reinforced the beat on a tiny drum kit up front and bassist Andy Hamm drove the songs this way and that. You could not have grown in a vat a band more perfect for a late afternoon crowd at ACL.
Photo: Kelly West AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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ACL 2010 review: Jones Family Singers
For four years, the Jones Family Singers of Bay City have come to the Austin City Limits Music Festival and blow minds with their “tradition gospel with a contemporary flair.” In the Clear 4G tent, five singers, led by the mighty Alexis Diane Jones-Roberts harmonize over guitar, bass, drums and keys that brush up against funk and remind you that gospel is the root integer of soul.
Rallying cries such as “if they ain’t clapping their hands, I want you hunch ‘em a little bit in the shoulder” and “But we got our own version of rock ‘n’ roll…we like to roll with the Holy Ghost” punchtuated to rolling gospel. The chorus of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” became “Jesus Christ is my savior” and the “Star Spangled Banner” was played for troops here and abroad. So far, so sanctified.
Then a very odd thing happened. As Jones-Roberts brought the next generation of Jones Family Singers out, small children who looked between 4 and maybe 11, a large frat-looking fellow jumped on stage to dance with them. Then two girls joined him in front of the kids.
Mercifully, everyone was back in the crowd within a few minutes but it created a moment so distastefully bound up in the complicated intersections of race, appropriation, class, privilege, power and money that you could practically hear all the cultural studies grad students in Texas start to take notes. Add to that the soul-saving mandate of evangelical Christianity (perhaps the Spirit moved the dude) and there’s a thesis in there. There’s not enough space here to go into it in detail and the Singers seemed very charitable about it. I am not as charitable, so two points:
Frat dude, there is such a thing as manners. After you jumped up on to the stage, a few of those little kids looked quite scared. This was their moment, and you made it all about you. Very, classy, ace.
Security didn’t seem to do anything after the dude went on stage, nor did I see anyone talk to him afterward. Perhaps someone in Jones Family waved them off, perhaps they didn’t want to scare the kids — I don’t know, honestly. Someone in a W3 shirt spoke to the two girls, but that was it. It was impossible to imagine that had the band been white and the interloper been African-American, the situation would have played out similarly. I really, really hope I am wrong about that.
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October 9, 2010
ACL 2010 review: Mayer Hawthorne
Just as accidental soul singer Mayer Hawthorne took the stage Saturday afternoon at ACL Fest, two 50-something white women at the front of the crowd pressed their backs against the photo pit fence imploring a friend to capture them mugging for the camera with Hawthorne in the background. Does this say something about Hawthorne’s appeal? Maybe.
A formidable hip-hop producer with a knack for recreating a vintage Motown sound, Hawthorne’s solo debut was something of a lark that unexpectedly took off. With a falsetto croon that’s less velvet and more cheap 80s velour, Hawthorne’s saving grace is self awareness. He knows he’s not a great soul singer. (Or, as my colleague Matthew Odam remarked, even a good soul singer.) While someone like ACL 2009 artist Raphael Saddiq embodies old school soul, Hawthorne pays homage.
Consequently, reports from his early shows tend to portray Hawthorne as a quick-witted, down to earth dude with an easy, self-deprecating stage banter. But somewhere along the line did Hawthorne begin to believe his own hype? For the most part Hawthorne played the straight man in Saturday’s performance. Yes, he told an anecdote about an autograph seeker in Waterloo Records mistaking him for Michael Buble, but it was clearly a canned intro for the track “Maybe So, Maybe No.” He emphasized “the word for the day was fun” before launching into a yacht rock cover of Michael McDonald’s “What a Fool Believes.” But he also un-ironically labeled his slow jams “baby-making” music. Some of the audience was with him, but the overall response was lackluster.
“I know it’s hot,” Hawthorne said, trying to coax the audience to dance. He asked for bouncing and got a few bobs here and a couple hip switches there.
The performance wasn’t a complete dud though. When Hawthorne dropped irresistibly funky originals like “My Green-Eyed Love” with it’s spot-on, in the pocket groove, it was obvious why hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg, who Hawthorne shouted out (name dropped?) twice clamor to collaborate with him. But baby-making music? Not so much.
Photo: Kelly West AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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Rat pack: Dedication for Deadmau5
ACL is full of interesting fashion statements. Westlake High School students Chris McDaniel, 16, and Robert Hunt, 16, decided to rock some serious headgear to show love for their favorite band, Deadmau5.
The DJ is known for sporting an oversized mouse mascot head on stage, so the Westlake Chaps took a page from his book.
They actually got the idea from a buddy who apparently chickened out. Considering the amount of attention the two were getting — specifically cute high school girls — it looks like their friend missed out.
The two friends put aside school work and used some tips from the Internet and a little improvisational kill to construct the mouse heads, which were made from hamster wheels and wood boards. Amazingly, they said the costumes, which took about eight hours of work, weren’t hot.
Photo (from left): Chris McDaniel (left), Caroline Hunt and Robert Hunt. (Matthew Odam AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL is a slam dunk
Standing in the VIP area earlier this afternoon I noticed a rather tall dude.
“Do you ever get confused as one of the Barrys?” I asked the guy as he waited for his drink.
“Almost every day of my life,” he said.
Turns out it indeed was former San Antonio Spur Brent Barry, brother of Jon and son of NBA Hall of Famer Rick.
Barry, who said he is able to cruise the fest in relative anonymity, told me that this was his fifth festival. The Spurs are quite the musical team, it seems, as Barry said he had planned to come to the festival with Spurs forward Matt Bonner (no stranger to Fun Fun Fun Fest), but alas the Spurs have a pre-season game tonight. Looks like it pays to be retired.
I would imagine Barry is the only Slam Dunk Contest winner to ever attend ACL Fest.
Brent Barry (left) with friend Len Briley at the Austin City Limits Music Fest. (Matthew Odam AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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ACL Cares
Combining live music and positive social contribution is part of Austin’s cultural charm, and it’s also what ACL Cares is all about.
The ACL Cares booth is on the south side of the park near the entrance, and offers 9 groups (SIMS Foundation, Health Alliance for Musicians (HAAM), HeadCount, Anthropos Arts, Austin Music People, Austin Parks Foundation, Rock the Vote) an opportunity to interact with the public.
First year participant SharedEarth is an online community started by Adam Dell that offers an opportunity for people with land and gardeners a chance to connect. Volunteer Amy Wilson told me this afternoon, that the group had already signed up a couple dozen people early today. The good weather and organic gala apples the group was giving away likely led to increased foot traffic by the table. Antropos Arts was building interest in their cause with the opportunity to see Ozomatli, as the band was scheduled to be at the non-profit group’s tent at 5 p.m.
Green Mountain Energy is no stranger to ACL. The ACL Cares organization is at the fest for the fourth year. They are selling $3 fan tags to offset carbon emissions. All of the money raised through the sell of the stickers go to the Goat Wind Farm, with each sticker purchase going towards 300 kilowatt hours of renewable energy certificates. Green Mountain’s Neal Gilbreath told me that each fan tag sold offsets the equivalent of 400-mile drive or 1300-mile flight.
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ACL 2010 review: the Black Lips
The Black Lips on-stage introduction for themselves — “Hello, we’re the Black Lips, and we play rock and roll” — couldn’t possibly serve as a more succinct encapsulation of the band’s stripped-down style. Though there’s bits and pieces of blues, doo-wop and punk in there, the Black Lips are still probably one of the most straightforward, pure rock groups to ever play the festival. Even the normally smooth ACL camera seemed to adopt a “Bourne Identity”-inspired shakiness to correspond with the band’s unbuttoned charm.
Their spare, rapid-fire approach isn’t necessarily for everyone — and they played to a reasonably sized crowd with a fairly constant stream of festivalgoers making their way out, indicating that not everybody wanted in on what the Atlanta quartet were selling. But the beach ball and toilet paper flying in the air were tell-tale signs that those sticking around were enjoying our consolation prize for not getting the Almighty Defenders, the gospel rock supergroup the Black Lips are in with kindred spirit King Khan that was on the initial ACL Festival lineup.
Older and wiser and less likely to make out or urinate on-stage than they once were, the Lips — not to be confused with the flaming variety — sounded shaggy and even a bit quiet for an opening run through of songs ranging from “Good Bad Not Evil” gem “O Katrina” and a rendition of “Short Fuse” that saw drummer and vocalist Joe Bradley growling so intensely the lyrics were nearly unintelligible. But things took off more with an enthusiastic take on “Cold Hands” that also seemingly included a needed boost to the volume levels for the rhythm section. Though the band didn’t cross into full-on controversial antics, they did grow more animated and dynamic and even faster, cranking through 10 songs in 25 minutes and laying on the reverb during “Lock and Key.” And a road-test of new material went fairly well, before the band closed with “Bad Kids,” the fist-pumping anthem of youthful indiscretion that’s a heck of a lot more transgressive than its inclusion on the “500 Days of Summer” soundtrack would lead you to believe.
Jay Janner photo / AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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ACL scene report: Waterloo Records
Judy and Dan Gauchat will be going home to St. Louis with heavier suitcases. By early Saturday afternoon, they’d already hit the Waterloo Records tent more than once. While their 34-year-old daughter was off at another show, Judy Gauchat had picked up a First Aid Kit CD for her, as well as one for herself, and got in the autograph line. Her husband soon came to keep her company, and eventually get his photo taken with the Swedish duo. Holding CDs by Nortec Collective, Carolyn Wonderland, and Two Tons of Steel, he said he’d stumbled on Two Tons as the first act on the BMI stage Friday and was so impressed by their expressions of gratitude at opening the festival.
“They were very humble,” he said.
His loud print shirt testifying to past attendance at the Jazz & Heritage Festival in New Orleans, he said ACL compares favorably.
“It’s neat to see the variety of people, older as well as little ones,” Judy Gauchat said.
She mentioned that St. Louis had just hosted its first big music fest, which had clearly taken a lot of cues from ACL.
Dan Gauchat named Robert Randolph’s set as one of their favorites so far: “His energy level is just unbelievable.”
On the food front, their favorites: chicken cones and sloppy nachos.
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ACL 2010 review: The Very Best
With a group consisting of just a vocalist and a producer playing on the enormous Budweiser stage at 12:30 pm, The Very Best might have had a sparse looking set. But Malawian artist Esau Mwamwaya performed flanked by a pair of dancers who started the showcase clad in black and gold fringed hoodies and gradually shed clothes as the set went on. These women, physically interpreting the group’s electro-African grooves with some crazy kind of Afro-vogue pop locking brought an exuberant energy to the stage. For his part Mwamwaya, who sang, rapped and led the audience through call and responses, was a solid opener coaxing motion out of an audience largely unfamiliar with his work and battling a beatdown from the high noon sun.
With a gregarious vibe and upbeat grooves, the entire set was well received, but proving the new school adage that for the mashup generation familiarity pays the wild responses came at the end of the set when the group dropped the tracks “Rain Dance” and “The Warm Heart of Africa” which sample MIA and Vampire Weekend respectively. Hands went up, bodies swayed in unison and a collective smile spread across the lawn.
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ACL 2010 review: First Aid Kit
Sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg of First Aid Kit completely charmed the early risers who made it for the first slot at the Honda stage Saturday, although most in the audience had likely never heard of the Swedish duo before. Both women have strong, sweet voices with a steely brightness that gives their old-fashioned country-folk harmonies a modern edge. When Klara sang high notes, she sometimes conjured a tougher Joan Baez, while Johanna brought a tempetuous undertow with her impassioned, full-throated harmony lines.
Although very young — Johanna was born in 1990 and Klara in 1993 — the pair’s songs are thoughtful, poetic and rather wintery. Maybe it’s a Scandinavian thing, although their dispositions seemed decidedly sunny on stage. After the melancholy but resolute “You’re Not Coming Home Tonight,” with a drummer backing Johanna on emphatic autoharp and Klara on acoustic guitar, Johanna had to hold her blue, fluttery vintage dress to keep the wind from flipping up the hem. Klara joked “I feel like I’m in a music video!” She then ased “Johanna, what do I do next?” and laughed and explained “She makes up the setlists.”
Klara, wearing a long, bright-green, short-sleeved dress straight out of the early ’70s, introduced a song so new it didn’t have a name yet by suggesting to fans “If you can come up with anything, just shout it out.” The gorgeous tune celebrated some of their influences in its chorus, promising “I’ll be your Emmylou and I’ll be your June if/you’ll be my Gram and my Johnny, too.” Johanna played keyboards that sounded like a circus organ on another fine new song, “The Lion’s Roar,” which had more rock energy, although it was a waltz. At that point, basslines started bleeding through egregiously from the AMD stage, and people in the crowd turned their heads and grimaced in its direction from time to time. (I thought it must be some metal band, but it turned out to be Grace Potter.) The sisters continued undaunted, even tho the bass was sometimes so loud you could feel it in your chest, and they received a long, long round of applause.
Afterward, a long, long line of fans formed at the Waterloo tent for their autograph signing — and everyone I spoke to or overheard had simply stumbled upon First Aid Kit, heading over to the stage upon hearing the sisters’ voices ring out across the park. Some were holding more than one copy of their debut full-lenth release, The Big Black & the Blue.
Midway
A brand-new song, “The Lion’s Roar,” the song ‘First Day of My Life’ by Bright Eyes as a revelation. ‘Jagadamba, You Might’ ‘Tangerine’ In April 2008, First Aid Kit’s 7 track debut EP ‘Drunken Trees’ was first released in Sweden Wichita Recordings is re-releasing ‘Drunken Trees’ with a bonus track, the sensational and much You-Tubed cover of Fleet Foxes’ “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song,” You’re Not Coming Home Tonight Cross Oceans Little Moon Tangerine Our Own Pretty Ways
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ACL 2010 review: Balmorhea
Balmorhea is something of an interesting choice for the opening slot of a major festival — it’s not hard to imagine them playing beautifully at night under (ideally) an impressive light show. And they’re perfectly suited for a seated venue. But their intricate, atmospheric classical-influenced rock — generally instrumental pieces overseen by Rob Lowe and Michael Muller and accompanied by an astonishingly talented ensemble of percussionists and string players — sounds like it could get lost under the toasting sun of an early outdoor festival set. Strolling over there after the gates opened, it was tempting to wish they were instead playing the shaded nearby Clear 4G stage rather than Austin Ventures.
Which is something Lowe and Muller seemed conscious of this morning, as they smartly balanced a set interspersing the more deliberate compositions that make up this year’s “Constellations” with more bombastic, thundering selections, including highlights from last year’s “All Is Wild, All Is Silent.” Even the meditative “Bowspirit” felt booming, thanks to the bone-rattling bass of Travis Chapman. Kendall Clark’s percussion perfectly shook the stage, while Muller’s electric guitar chops proved impressive.
From the punch of the wordless vocals that characterized “All Is Wild, All Is Silent” to spirited hand claps to an expansive, shaking new song that heralds good things to come from the band, Balmorhea’s set was a classy, perfectly played way to ease into the ACL Fest’s second day.
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C3: "We didn't sell 10,000 more tickets"
Charlie Jones of C3 Presents called an interview Saturday to dispel the word that ACL Fest has 10,000 more people on hand than in year’s past. A new contract with the city allows C3 to sell 75,000 tickets, up from 65,000 last year, but Jones said that doesn’t mean they did so. Even though ACL has been sold out for three months. He said that attendance yesterday was 68,000 fans.
“The contract was amended to more accurately reflect what comes through the park during the festival,” he said. Included in the total Friday were about 1,200 kids under the age of 10 and a guest list of nearly 5,000 staffers, volunteers, sponsors and media.
C3 partner Charles Attal said the total attendance in Zilker during the Black Keys crush of humanity was 52,000.
“Just because we can sell more tickets doesn’t mean we will,” Jones said.
The original capacity of ACL was 75,000, but organizers voluntarily lowered the total to 65,000 in 2004 after fans complained about two-hour waits for shuttle buses and other hassles. Jones said in the past six years, C3 has smoothed out many of those wrinkles.
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ACL live review: Lissie
Illinois-bred singer-songwriter Lissie has got quite a voice- attractively raspy (a la Phoebe from “Friends” with a cold) and able to power-up into a melodic twirl. But her stage personality was almost as charming. After a couple members of the audience shouted that they were also from Rock Island, Lissie said, “Hey, we’ve got a posse.” When the rumble of reggae band the Very Best invaded her set during the gorgeous “Everywhere I Go,” she danced to their music for a few seconds after her song was over.
Standing barefoot on a towel, in a red silk dress, she was the day’s perfect opener, the balm before the scorch. Backed by a bassist who also played the bass drum and a guitarist, the blonde in Scandanavian pigtails opened strong with “When I’m Alone,” her best-known song. But it was “In Sleep” that really tore it up, with Eric Sullivan keeping the encroaching riddims at bay with a guitar solo that was a song in itself.
Lissie plays Emo’s tonight with the Black Lips.
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October 8, 2010
Video: Live ACL updates at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday
Austin360.com has 20+ staffers working to bring you the most comprehensive ACL Fest coverage on the web. Stop by Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 5:30 p.m. for a live video update from Zilker Park featuring previews, reviews and live interviews with artists.
Get a (low-budget) sneak peek here. (With stick figures!!!)
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