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ACL 2011
September 19, 2011
ACL Fest scene: Sunday stuff
Funniest T-shirt, spotted in the multicultural Manu Chao audience: “Keep Austin Brazilian.”
Suggestion for next year: Make the right lane of Barton Springs Road a bike lane from South First Street to the park. So many people were on bikes, that was nearly the case anyway, but occasionally cars pulled into the right lane, making for tricky maneuvering. The cars were just slowing down the bikes, anyway, since cars couldn’t get around the ubiquitous pedicabs, while bikes could glide past.
Dubious fashion choices:
— Orange fishnet stockings, and no shoes, on a woman strolling purposefully past the food booth area.
— Gold lame tights with leopard-print briefs over them on a bare-chested guy who wasn’t Leslie.
— One young dude apparently didn’t know that the sagging-trouser look doesn’t really work with bikini briefs, although if he wore his ensemble to the airport, it would certainly make some things easier for the TSA.
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ACL Fest review: Broken Social Scene
A few days ago, Kevin Drew, co-founder of Canadian Rock collective/indie band incubator Broken Social Scene, said in an interview that the band was done for now after the current string of tour dates. While he didn’t quite come out and say it during the group’s Sunday set at the Austin City Limits Festival, he seemed kind of sad that it’s drawing to a close for the time being. There was plenty of thanking the crowd, the band, Austin, etc., and a bunch of ‘feel the love’ moments with Drew saying things like “lay it out for us, this is therapy!” Not that those moments are uncommon during Broken Social Scene shows, but they seemed to have a little bit more punch this time.
For the most part it was a fairly subdued outing, at least compared to when the band was in town during South by Southwest after “Forgiveness Rock Record” had been released. The Stubb’s show that year was a big rock ‘n roll affair, with a light show, a bunch of different people coming on and off stage and a special appearance from Metric. This time around it was looser and quieter, despite the fact that at times there were four members playing guitars, a drummer and a percussionist.
There were a few more upbeat moments, however. A pop “Texaco Bitches” and a subdued cover of Modest Mouse’s “The World at Large” (complete with a sax solo) gave way to a more frenetic “Fire Eye’d Boy” and a “Water in Hell” (that felt a little like “Waiting on a Friend” as the band yelled “wooo!”) that was followed by an extended instrumental jam. They brought it back down at the end, with the folky “Major Labor Debut.” Though BSS will probably be back in a few years when they reform with new members and record an album, it was a low-key way to say “so long.”
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ACL Festival Review: Death From Above 1979
I imagine that in the years to come, when people talk about Death From Above 1979’s 2011 reunion performances in Austin, they’ll tend to remember either Saturday night’s aftershow at Emo’s or the South by Southwest gig at the Beauty Bar. Both were particularly memorable for their own reasons - the aftershow for closing out Emo’s outside room with a minimal amount of advance notice and drama, and the SXSW set for the mayhem that erupted when fans tore down the fence trying to see the band.
But I hope that DFA1979’s set at the Austin City Limits Festival is equally spoken of, because the Toronto dance punk duo - light on the dance, very heavy on the punk - oversaw an hour of controlled chaos Sunday that did note-perfect justice to their thrashing, thrilling songs. It’s easy to be cynical about the excitement that’s greeted DFA1979’s reunion - after all, the band’s only about ten years old and only broke up in 2006 - but seeing them dust off the songs from lone LP “You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine” could make a true believer of anyone.
“You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine” first track “Turn It Out” was also the first song of the show, setting a tone and intensity right from the first minute that wouldn’t waver through nearly an hour. The appearance of Jesse Keeler (on bass, synth and backing vocals) and Sebastian Grainger (on vocals and drums) kicked off a maelstrom of thrown arms close to the stage that wouldn’t let up, and Keeler in particular was flailing like a rag doll caught in the jaws of a Doberman. Grainger’s caustic scream hasn’t lost any intensity in the last five years; second song “Dead Womb” could have shattered glass and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a more unearthly yell than the monster Grainger released at the end of “Black History Month.”
This was a set that was short on peaks and valleys or ups and downs; if DFA1979 were a mountain it would be all summit. The duo’s not really about variety; they’re principally about intensity, and they managed to keep it up through the whole show, packing in loads of songs, Grainger always pounding and howling with the best of them and Keeler a blur. More than anything else the audience told the story; it was young, unbridled, sweaty and crowd-surfing. I saw people walking away at the end of the show with smiles as broad as the Atlantic.
“You guys have been seeing bands all day and you’re still not tired of seeing bands?” asked Grainger after a typically shattering “Go Home, Get Down.” “You guys are, what is it, sadists or masochists or something?”
Maybe. But it felt so good.
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ACL Festival Review: Empire of the Sun
If you’re a live performer and you’re going to have spectacle - like, lots and lots of spectacle - you’d better have the songs to back it up.
This is why no one particularly questioned Kanye West’s personal ballet company on Friday night. They were thematically appropriate, and besides, he made “Runaway,” and “Gold Digger,” and “Flashing Lights,” and … point being, as long as he keeps putting together and performing songs that big and buoyant and memorable, he can perform from a life-size replica of Voltron wearing a coat made entirely of copies of Action Comics #1 if he wants to.
But lots of bands get hung up on this, even good ones. Of Montreal’s baroque pop is often overshadowed by the theatrics of its live show. The Flaming Lips, great as they are, could probably stand to shift some of their focus to their music from costumes, bubbles, puppets, projections and marijuana-flavored brains encased in gummy skulls (you can’t make that up, unless you’re Wayne Coyne).
This is a lesson Australian duo Empire of the Sun could stand to take to heart. The union of the Sleepy Jackson’s Luke Steele and Pnau’s Nick Littlemore have released one album, 2008’s “Walking On a Dream.” At its best “Walking On a Dream” is a synthesis of a wide range of influences and genres, electro-pop incorporating soul and funk and alt-rock and yacht rock and more. But it’s also unfocused and wandering and sort of overindulgent, and it’s wrapped up in a horrid album cover that looks like a third-rate “Star Wars” poster.
That overblown aesthetic is taken even further in the live show - which features Littlemore and Steele both caked in makeup and wearing ridiculous outfits with ridiculous headpieces, massive lighting displays, ostentatiously costumed dancers strumming glowing faux-guitars and a man in an oversized skeleton mask spewing fog. Littlemore is also a composer and musical director for Cirque Du Soleil at Radio City Music Hall, and you can see why - Empire of the Sun’s live show is just as colorful.
But the songs just can’t live up to that grandiosity, and it’s ultimately distracting. For all of Steele’s Prince-style vamping and rock star-emulating guitar-smashing, the band would be benefitted by an approach that cut away the fat and allowed the strong singles they do have, like “Walking On a Dream” or the catchy “Half Mast” to shine without being overshadowed by the production. As-is, that much crazy on stage only served to make the music harder to process and appreciate. Less is often more; for all of Empire of the Sun’s visual flair the Arcade Fire’s Regine Chassagne’s use of some multi-colored streamers in that band’s headlining set had every bit as much dramatic impact.
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ACL Fest review: Manu Chao
Manu Chao was already making eye contact with fans even before his 6:30 set on the AMD stage Sunday. Standing off to the side with his bandmates, he was easy to spot in his bright orange shirt, bouncing on his toes, and he drew devoted cheers when he grinned and raised his arms to folks in the crowd who were looking at him. That ebullient charisma defined the show, in which Chao stirred together reggae, ska, punk, flamenco and a variety of other genres, while singing in several languages.
A Parisian with Basque and Galician roots, the international pop star slashed his acoustic guitar like a folky Joe Strummer on such infectious, socially conscious singalongs as “Clandestino,” “Politik Kills,” ”Bienvenido a Tijuana” and “Eldorado 1977,” as well as the less topical “Me Gustas Tu” and “Bongo Bong,” a tune that first surfaced when he was leading the groundbreaking Latin-alternative band Mano Negra. Chao’s impeccably tight backing trio, guitarist Madjid Fahem, bassist Gambeat and drummer Philippe Tebou, abetted him in making frequent, sudden shifts from mid-tempo into double-time, which inevitably sent fans into a dancing frenzy. When Chao used this maneuver repeatedly at Stubb’s on Friday, it eventually became a little predictable, but at ACL, launching into warp speed just seemed like a natural reaction to the high energy of the crowd. The sound was also beautifully clear Sunday, making it easy to appreciate the artful way Fahem segued from lyrical, fluid passages into metallic mayhem. Meanwhile, Gambeat, who looks like a bouncer you better not get on the wrong side of, was almost as much fun to watch as Chao when they got to thrashing.
On “La Primavera,” with its spooky refrain “que hora son, mi corazon” (“what time is it, my heart?”) Chao kept pounding the bare part of his chest with the microphone, making a sound like a heartbeat, and he didn’t stop even after he seemed to have drawn blood. The crowd sang along lustily, and did the same after Chao told them they would now be singing in French, “and French goes “lo-lo, lo-lo, lo-lo, lo-lo, lo-lo.” A mosh pit broke out in front of the stage as everyone belted out their assigned part on the chorus of the rampaging polka “L’Hiver Est La,” while a guest trumpet player added an extra flourish. When the song ended and Chao took off his guitar, the crowd kept singing, even as he and the band took their bows, and he finally picked the guitar up again for another delerious round of “L’Hiver.” He stopped a final time, motioning that he’d been told to go, and some fans kept singing “lo-lo, lo-lo, lo-lo, lo-lo, lo-lo,” while others started chanting “Mala Vida! Mala Vida,” requesting a song from his Mano Negra days. Chao grinned and grimaced, made a slashing motion across his throat and then held up his hands in a funny exaggerated shrug before making his way off stage to continued cheers.
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ACL Fest review: Fleet Foxes
Like Bon Iver, who played the Long Center earlier last week, Fleet Foxes first showed up in Austin during South by Southwest 2007, when they were a young, relatively unknown indie folk group with long beards and a love of vocals from the 60s and 70s. The Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills and Nash were a few of the comparisons that were thrown around. Five years later and these guys are playing to maybe 10,000-15,000 people right before Sunday headliners the Arcade Fire, on a stage that was used by both Kanye West and Stevie Wonder over the last couple days.
It’s kind of crazy, considering they have only two albums under their belts, one pretty good debut and a followup that has its moments but doesn’t quite pop like its predecessor. The music is mellow and melodic, and there are plenty of reasons why it wouldn’t translate in such a huge venue. For the most part, the band injected enough of their quiet-building-loud formula into the set that the sound didn’t die. Frontman Robin Pecknold begins with hushed lyrics accompanied only by his finger-picking; a verse goes by and he’s joined by a mandolin, some percussion, an upright bass. By the end of the song the band is loud, they’re all strumming away in a frenzy, singing in harmony. The crowd is paying attention.
So it went with a good number of tunes from the first record, including “Mykonos” and a sprawling “Ragged Wood.” “Sim Sala Bim,” from their more recent album “Helplessness Blues” blew up (as much as a mandolin-heavy folk number can) with the audience clapping along, as did closer “Helplessness Blues,” which opened with a guitar part that could have been cribbed from “Nebraska.” The funny thing about the set was that the better they were, the more they started to sound like a band that would win an Americana Music Award and less like one that would land on Pitchfork’s “best new music” list.
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September 18, 2011
ACL Fest review: Arcade Fire
It’s been a simultaneously proud-but-frustrating 12 or so months for Arcade Fire, one where lots of triumphs have come handcuffed with backlash or some sort of drama to steal luster from what should be - to this point at least - a career year for any band. Their Album of the Year Grammy came with waves of “Who are they?” backbiting from the industry that gave them the award in the first place. Their perfectly enjoyable May performance in Austin at The Backyard was marred and overshadowed by traffic and other logistical woes of a degree normally felt by cities hosting the Olympics. And when the band was announced as Sunday night headliners for this year’s Austin City Limits Festival (while Stevie Wonder played Saturday night) there was lots of “Really? Them?” whispering that got louder as Sunday-only tickets kept on not selling out until the weekend of the festival.
So while the Montreal band with greater-Houston roots didn’t necessarily have something to prove when it took the stage on Sunday night, it was in an existential place where an undisputed success, with no asterisks or “yeah, but…”s, would be more than welcome.
Sounding lush and full from the opening moments of “Ready To Start,” the eight-piece band was clearly in some sort of zone Sunday, one where running through the high points of its not-huge but still accomplished catalog would’ve been enough to quiet most of the haters. But starting with more menacing violin lines added to “No Cars Go,” the third song of the night, familiar songs came with new embellishments and variations, giving them more color, character and intensity than presented on recordings. “Haiti“‘s normally serene tone took on dread with more staccato passages and pleading vocals from Regine Chassange, “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)” came with a new wave keyboard opening, buried wobbly siren effects and an early-in-the-set use of the standing dual drum bashing by Will Butler and Richard Reed Parry that’s a staple of the band’s live show, and “Month Of May” - already one of the band’s hardest-rocking songs - charged like a panzer tank from start to its extended and cacophonous finish.
What these new, deluxe-ish arrangements did was add accent marks to the whole of the songs, and cause their lyrical intent to be reconsidered, or at at least get re-examined. Hearing songs from the band’s three albums in a somewhat jumbled fashion (to the crowd, anyway) and musically enhanced made it really clear that the dominant themes of lead singer/songwriter Win Butler’s work are isolation (escaping it, dealing with it, fearing and fighting it) and the fallibility of mankind; debut album “Funeral” was about isolation and alienation on a personal level, “Neon Bible” about the failure of man’s institutions, and last year’s “The Suburbs” about the collapse of the idea of home. And just in case the point was lost on anyone watching from below, video screens behind the band shifted from grainy ’50s-vintage film of planned suburban communities to driver-perspective shots of anonymous cars on freeways, another way of pointing out how in one way or another we’re always losing each other.
Given all that, it’s interesting that songs that boil down to the struggle of the individual against a mostly ambivalent and uncaring world take on their greatest efficacy when propelled with manic force on a crowd of tens of thousands of people who came together for three whole days during a festival that creates at least something of a communal experience, i.e., the very thing the band spends most of its time lamenting the disappearance of. So maybe Butler’s songs are more warnings of what we could lose, to remind us how valuable moments like Sunday night can be and how rare they’re becoming. At least, you’d like to think it was that sentiment more than just hoary showmanship that moved Butler to say early on that when playing Austin they “feel like this is a hometown show in the states,” and that the band was driving a larger message home over the course of the 90 minutes it spent recasting most of its repertoire.
Whether that idea connected with the loudly approving and to these eyes genuinely moved crowd is anyone’s guess. What was pretty clear is that by the end of show-closing “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” the band had put everything it had into making its songs new, more meaningful and as forceful as possible, which is all you can ask of a headlining act on a Sunday night. Call it a victory, one free of any asterisks or second guessing.
Set list:
- Ready To Start
- Keep The Car Running
- No Cars Go
- Haiti
- Rococo
- Speaking In Tongues
- Intervention
- Wake Up
- Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
- The Suburbs
- Month Of May
- Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
- We Used To Wait
- Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
encore:
- Rebellion (Lies)
- Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
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ACL Fest review: The Lee Boys
The Lee Boys are not yet famous enough for a headlining slot at ACL, but after seeing them on the Vista Equity stage at 3 p.m. Sunday, everything else seemed a little anticlimactic. Like Robert Randolph, the Florida family group came up in the “sacred steel” music-based worship tradition of the House of God church. The band’s joyful gospel-funk fusion is also heavily inflected by blues, soul, rock and jazz. While drummer Earl Walker and bassist Alvin Cordy Jr. kept up relentless grooves that had fans dancing like maniacs, vocalist Derrick Lee frequently left the frontman role to pedal steel guitarist Roosevelt Collier, whose improvisations were explosive marvels of ingenuity and expressiveness. Most of the time, he kept a thoughtful expression, as though he were pondering the message of a sermon, and his uncle Alvin Lee on rhythm guitar was likewise as solemn as a church elder, but every so often, they’d catch sight of an audience member boogeying down or levitating, and they’d smile beatifically. Playing a seven-string bass, Cordy took an exceptionally creative approach even as he held down the bottom end, and he unleashed a couple riveting jazz solos as well. The level of communication between band/family members seemed downright telepathic, allowing for stunning, spontaneous dynamic shifts.
The band kept the audience enthralled with original gospel numbers such as “I’m Not Tired” and “So Much to Live For” (introduced by Alvin Lee with the guitar riff from the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Runnin’”), and with more familiar material, including the standard “Don’t Let the Devil Ride” and a glorious singalong version of the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There.” Collier opened “Amazing Grace” with a spine-tingling solo verse on the steel before Derrick Lee took over in his commanding baritone. Paying homage to the late, great Solomon Burke, the Lee Boys delivered a stomping, soul-stirring cover of “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love.” By the end of the show, the crowd was exhausted from dancing, many of the fans looking more than a little wet and ragged — and completely ecstatic.
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ACL Festival Review: Randy Newman
You know what is a terrible way to experience Randy Newman? In a sweltering tent with what had to be a thousand or so of your closest friends, many of whom are in chairs, looking at the people who are standing in front of them with glares.
And yet we did it anyway.
It was genuinely surreal to see shirtless bros chanting “Ran-dy! Ran-dy! Ran-dy!” Did they think this guy was gonna come out? (No, that clip is probably not safe for work.)
But no, out came Randy Newman, looking like your uncle coming over to dinner. He sat down at the piano, the only instrument on stage and opened, naturally, with “It’s Money That I Love” (is there another reason for Randy Newman to play a sweltering tent at a festival?)
“I like to start with a spiritual like that,” Newman said. Of course.
It was, at times, hard to hear. The threat of rain, perhaps, had packed the Vista Equity tent to beyond its capacity. “Last Night I Had a Dream” vanished a bit, “Bad News From Home,” a straight-forward look at a marriage collapsing, didn’t fare much better. But everyone screamed on cue for “Short People,” a song that made no sense then and makes no sense now.
Were the songs outstanding? Of course. Was “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” one of them? Of course. Would Randy Newman fans do it again? Of course.
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ACL Fest review: Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses
What a difference a couple of years, a few hundred nights in beer joints, a lot of hard work and, oh yeah, an Oscar can make.
When Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses first played the ACL Festival (in 2008, if memory serves), they were relegated to the tiny BMI Stage. Well, this year Bingham has taken Horace Greeley’s advice and headed west—about a half mile west, to be exact, to the AMD Stage, as big a venue as the festival has to offer.
Bingham approached the challenge of putting a barroom band in front of many thousands of people in instinctive fashion. As far as he was concerned, he was playing the world’s largest open-air honky-tonk and he and the Dead Horses cranked up the energy level appropriately.
Coming out of the chute like the rodeo rider he once was, Bingham was cheerfully profane and ready to get the party started. The rambunctious “Dollar A Day” (with its hardscrabble line, “It costs a whole lot of money/To live in the land of the free”) and the Steve Earl-ish “Depression” put hard times to music, while the loping country-rocker “Southside of Heaven” harkened back to Bingham’s own picaresque past. “Hallelujah,” which may be Bingham’s high-water mark as a songwriter so far, hushed the sun-kissed crowd.
Throughout, Bingham was animated, engaging and seemingly happy to find himself at the only place he wanted to be on this particular Sunday afternoon.
His music, however, took on aggressive, even abrasive edges as he and guitarist Corby Schaub alternately and together strapped on slide guitars in “Direction of the Wind,” “Bluebird” and “Sunshine” and played with an intensity that evoked a duel with straight razors. It was, arguably, some of the toughest music of the festival weekend, a musical analog to the hard and windswept territory that so Bingham’s musical creations inhabit. It’s no country for old men, nor young ones either, but it’s Bingham’s home range. Not even an Oscar can change that.
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ACL Fest scene: Metamorphosis
From left, Christina Ross, artist Alex Andre and producer Jeffrey Hopkins aside the Metamorphosis at ACL Fest on Sunday. Photo by Matthew Odam
Near the park’s entrance sits an incredible spinning contraption that has been one of the other Wonders of the fest. A pinwheel of mirrors spins allowing people to alternately see their reflection and that of the person standing on the other side of the wheel. If you stand patiently in front of the Metamorphosis and someone on the other side does likewise, and you make eye contact, you can get yourself lost in the alternating faces that pop up: yours, then theirs, then yours, then theirs. Slowly you become the other person and vice versa. It is truly mesmerizing, and requires one to be comfortable with themselves to the point that they can have an almost intimate, psychic experience with the other person.
Artist Alex Andre and his girlfriend Christina Ross came up with the idea while on a camping trip a few years ago when they found themselves playing with double-sided mirrors and flashlights late at night. The couple from Venice Beach, Calif., decided that if they dug the moving and strange experience, they should share with others. So Andre built the contraption that runs by a hand crank (a battery supplies light for night-time morphing) and the two, along with producer Jeffrey Hopkins, take the machine to festivals across the country, blowing minds and bringing smiles.
“People are lovin’ it,” Ross said. “It brings joys no matter where we go.”
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ACL Fest: scenes from Saturday
With the welcome showers Saturday, some festival-goers declared a unilateral end to the burn ban. Friday, it was mostly youngsters sneaking a cigarette, but Saturday, diehard smokers of all ages lit up at shows, between stages and in the bathroom lines. One dad with a stroller, a wife and two small kids set an example of disdain for anti-smoking regulations by dragging on a cigarette near the Austin Ventures stage, while an indignant crew at the Honda stage gathered around a sign on a long pole that demanded “Respect the burn ban, b!tches!!!,” illustrated by an appropriate graphic of a cigarette in a circle with a line through it.
Best t-shirts Saturday: One that postulated “Fat kids are harder to kidnap (worn by a guy of average height/weight) and another that asked the eternal question “What the pho?”
While a white-haired and -bearded senior sported a Strokes t-shirt, a number of youngsters wore t-shirts for concerts that occurred before the were born. including shows by Bob Marley and the Clash.
And although you may think nothing is made in America anymore, those blue port-o-lets are manufactured by Satellite Industries, Inc., of Minneapolis, Minn. USA! USA!
Wait, is there live music at the Rock Island Hideaway? A surge of wild applause Saturday afternoon seemed to signify the World’s Most Killer Guitar Solo, or maybe even an unexpected collaboration between Kanye West and Stevie Wonder. Nope — it was just the crowd watching the UT/UCLA game, reacting to a penalty declared against the enemy. The score was already decisively tilted in UT’s favor. Who on earth buys an expensive concert ticket and then spends the afternoon in a tent watching a lopsided early-season football game?
In case you were wondering if there existed a female Beavis & Butthead, yes, indeed, and they were standing in line for the porta-potties near the Vista Equity stage about 8 p.m. Friday.
“I can’t get totally wasted, I have to (expletive) get up tomorrow and look decent,” declared Female Beavis.
“I am totally getting wasted,” announced Female Butthead. “Maybe you can (expletive) go pack up and then get a taxi and come out.”
This was preceded by a riveting discussion of what one of their friends had posted about another of their friends on Twitter, affirming that Female Beavis and Female Butthead are well acquainted with the wonders of modern social media. Also, the astute observation: “Stevie (Wonder) must be soooooo ooooooooold!”
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ACL Fest scene: Waterloo Records
One of the more local elements of ACL Fest is the Waterloo Records tent, which sells vinyl and CDs by festival performers, T-shirts, Slinkys, mini fans and all kinds of other stuff. The tent is also the site of autographs sessions by a full lineup of bands, including TV on the Radio and My Morning Jacket this year.
At 3:30 p.m. Sunday, the tent was packed with people looking for a bit of relief from the sun and buying albums to get signed by the Head and the Heart, who had a hundred or so fans waiting for an autograph.
One of those fans buying vinyl copy of the Head and the Heart’s debut was Sean Garza, who had driven from Dallas to see the band perform at the festival. “I have the vinyl at home but I don’t have a singed copy,” Garza said with a laugh.
Waterloo owner John Kunz said that one of the most popular albums in the tent so far has been California rock band Young the Giant’s album, “Young the Giant.” “We underestimated the demand on that one,” Kunz said. Austin’s Gary Clarke Jr. has also been a sought-after artist.
Kunz, who was busy keeping the pop-up shop straight, said that aside from part of My Morning Jacket and Stevie Wonder’s sets last night, he’s been working to manage the autograph sessions. “I have to go to another festival to see music.”
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ACL Fest scene: The Head and the Heart
A 1:30 p.m. slot on the last day of the festival can be unfortunate, but it was perfectly suited for the Sunday afternoon harmonies of the Head and the Heart.
All weekend, the Google+ stage was home to some of the buzziest bands — and therefore the most energetic crowds — and the six-piece band from Seattle was no exception. Even with the relentless sun — and probably lack of sleep for many — the audience was engaged and ready for sing-alongs, enveloped by the excellent sound from the stage.
The band was clearly having fun and kept a nice pace throughout the set, with easy banter and even some impressive spinning. They joked about the international audience they had attracted, noting the flags from Australia, Texas and … Yogurt (a French flag with “Yogurt” written on it), and they got everyone fired up (for a Sunday) when singing the lyric “T is for Texas.”
Aside from the spinning, the set reminded me of last year’s Blind Pilot show, which was on the same stage at almost the same time. They brought beautiful harmonies to songs from their debut, self-titled album from earlier this year such as “Ghosts” and the hit “Lost in My Mind,” which they played at the halfway point to the crowd’s expected delight. Folks watching from the side spontaneously came on to the stage to dance toward the end of the song. Singer and violinist Charity Rose Thielen joked that she was happy to see that people seemed to be dancing at shows more these days, instead of standing there with their arms folded like she used to do. Thielen, who has a Michelle Williams look about her, particularly in the white lace top she was wearing, was especially captivating when she sang solo.
And as they sang “some day we’ll all be ghosts,” everyone seemed to be at peace with that.
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ACL Fest review: Mariachi El Bronx
(Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
In yesterday’s review of the James Bond-reflecting Cee-Lo Green show, I wrote that “there’s a fine, fine line between entertaining shtick and overdone cheese.” If there’s any band that you might expect, purely on concept alone, to blow that line to smithereens, it’d be Mariachi El Bronx. A bunch of Los Angeles hardcore punk types switching gears and throwing on mariachi suits to perform south of the border-influenced original material? That sounds potentially dreadful. That the first song to come from the band, a cover of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” for Spin, was somewhat unexceptional didn’t encourage matters.
But Mariachi El Bronx, the alter egos of hardcore punk outfit the Bronx, are not only not a joke, they’re so massively entertaining, musically well-realized and wholly charming that they’ve actually eclipsed the original band from which they sprang. It was easy to see why early Sunday afternoon, as the band’s eight members ripped through an hour of gleeful tunes. Many of those songs were drawn from last month’s “Mariachi El Bronx” album (not to be confused with 2009’s “Mariachi El Bronx”) which finds the band pulling in further influences from cumbia and bolero and other increasingly diverse forms of music.
In fact, the opening song of the set, “48 Roses,” is also the first track of “Mariachi El Bronx” 2011, and for both album and show it sets the scene perfectly — infused with southwestern flavor, more thunderous than mariachi usually is and hugely enjoyable. Much credit should go both to drummer Jorma Vik, who coaxes big sounds out of a small kit, and violinist Ray Suen, who’s served as an off-and-on member of the Killers. “Silver Lead” — a song about “the similarities between Pablo Escobar and Jesus Christ” — had a particular and appropriate operatic sweep thanks largely to Vik and Suen’s incredible chops.
But the MVP is almost certainly front man Matt Caughthran, a stellar singer who keeps the proceedings light while always making it clear that Mariachi El Bronx are no novelty act. He shines both on the more traditional numbers, like “Great Provider,” and on the more demanding songs like “My Brother the Gun.” And his sense of both humor and humility made him easy to connect with; I’m not sure I’ve seen a better stage banterer at the festival this year. Every song got its own little introduction — “This song is about being poor and being happy,” said Caughthran of “Poverty is King,” surely a song for our times — and his gratitude and excitement were palpable. That he was genuinely funny — telling a riotous anecdote about why he didn’t attempt to sneak mushrooms into Austin — didn’t hurt things either. At this rate, if Mariachi El Bronx became the Bronx’s full-time gig, it’d be hard to argue with the choice.
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ACL Fest review: Stevie Wonder
Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMANNo one builds consensus like Stevie Wonder. That’s an admittedly odd and political way to think about one of the best recording artists of the last hundred years, but it speaks to how powerfully and easily the man taps into some mostly hidden Master Vein of the human condition to bring people together. From the moment Wonder was announced as one of this year’s Austin City Limits Festival headliners - no disrespect to Arcade Fire, but Wonder was this year’s main attraction despite not playing Sunday night - there was just about unanimous approval at the selection. Talk to anyone who had a ticket for Saturday and whether they be hippie burnout, hipster, a recovering punk or an ACL weekend warrior who otherwise avoids concerts the rest of the year, and they’d definitively say the rest of their day or weekend was just lead-up to Stevie Wonder.
So how did one of the most eagerly awaited performers in the festival’s history answer the anticipation? By letting it all hang out in a loose, celebratory drive of a set - soundtracked by his chapter of the American songbook - with a few detours and turnarounds and plenty of stops along the way to remind the crowd that all of them matter, that they’re in this thing called life together and that very day is an opportunity to be great.
Escorted on stage to the sound of his 14-piece backing band, Wonder took his place front and center, playing keytar on a round and ripe rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and before song’s end told the truly massive audience that (in what would be the night’s sort-of mantra) each day they should “put your best love forward.”
What followed from there was a run of hits and almost-standards that hammered home Wonder’s virtuosity even while being something of a creative wandering spirit through to his ’80s pop hits. “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” was all bouncing reggae funk, “Higher Ground” got a brassed-up playing that didn’t overwhelm its original deep groove, “Living For The City” was as urgent and affirming as it’s ever sounded, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” was a celebration… you get the idea. Check the set list below. If there’s a classic you wanted to hear it got played and it sounded great.
Interspersed between were plenty of “Stevie Moments,” where the shamanistic worldly innocence he’s had pretty much all of his 61 years was on display; chastising political leaders for not putting people first, calling for guns to be less accessible (could anyone but Stevie Wonder do that in Texas and not get booed off stage?), and spending at least five minutes at the end of “I Do I Do” trying to orchestrate an audience sing-along that never really clicked and ended with Wonder good-naturedly dismissing a crowd that was having too much fun (or was too drunk) to care.
After messing around with bits of an under-construction song called “Check On Your Love,” (again, who else could turn a headlining festival set into a quickie practice session and get cheered for it?) Wonder began a closing run that kicked off with “Superstition” and segued into bits of “Isn’t She Lovely” and Peggy Lee’s “You Give Me Fever” before ending with “As.” In amongst those he thanked Austin’s police chief for allowing him to barge rather far past the fest’s 10 p.m. curfew, and said he’d love to make a return engagement at next year’s ACL, a proposition that got plenty of applause and approval from those in front of him. They’d have him back every day if they could. Everyone agreed on that.
Set list:
- How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
- My Eyes Don’t Cry
- Master Blaster (Jammin’)
- The Way You Make Me Feel
- Higher Ground
- Living For The City
- Don’t You Worry ‘bout A Thing
- I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)
- Ribbon In The Sky
- Overjoyed
- Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours
- Sir Duke
- I Wish
- I Do I Do
- For Once In My Life
- My Cherie Amour
- I Just Called To Say I Love You
- Check On Your Love (working title)
- Superstition
- Isn’t She Lovely (chorus and verse)
- You Give Me Fever (snippet)
- As
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ACL Fest: Stevie Wonder sound problems
Laura Skelding
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Based on the Twitter rumblings, the sound experience at Stevie Wonder’s set Saturday night was a pretty mixed experience. How was it where you stood? Tell us in our comments section.
Here’s were our various team members were on the field and what they experienced:
Michael Barnes: Sound at Stevie Wonder was dreadful where I stood, about half way back in the crowd and dead center. It was underamplified and spotty. Any verbal patter was drowned out by bored folks who couldn’t hear what Stevie was saying. Periodically, a chant would go out: “Crank it up! Crank it up!” After about six songs, people around me began to bail and little improvement.
John T. Davis: I tried to make my way up and got about as far as the second beer station east of the Google stage, about 500 or so yards from the stage and couldn’t hear a note. I could hear the bass line from My Morning Jacket all the way from across the park, but not a peep from SW. Walked out on Barton Springs Rd. and up Robert E. Lee to go home and still couldn’t hear anything, and I was effectively behind the stage. Bound to have been a major disappointment for folks who camped out for hours if their experience was anything like mine.
Sharon Chapman: I was to the right of the soundboard, about 75 feet behind it. The sound was great — I could make out every word, including Stevie’s between song banter, and I heard no bleed from My Morning Jacket. As I was leaving after the set, I walked by a woman who had been standing about 30 behind me. She had tears running down her face and was saying, “That was awesome, that was incredible,” so I’m figuring the sound was fine for her, too.
Patrick Caldwell: I was near the emergency exit gate closest to the stage on the north side of the park, and while I didn’t experience any bleed from My Morning Jacket, and Stevie Wonder was largely audible, the sound was still disappointing. Vocal levels were all over the place and various portions of the band — the horns, the background vocalists — seemed to fade in and out. Most of Stevie’s banter was drowned out by the sound of the conversations around me, which is of course partially the fault of a chatty crowd. But it also indicates a problem with the sound; as close as I was to the stage it simply shouldn’t have been that easy to drown out the music. Though I was too close to have the same awful experience that those toward the back apparently did, it didn’t surprise me to hear that folks were disappointed — even relatively near to the stage it was clear something was off.
Peter Mongillo: Behind the soundboard and to the left, the sound was great, with people were dancing and singing along. Wonder’s stage banter was clear, as were his vocals and the rest of the band. Aside from a few folks complaining that he was being too chatty in between (and during) songs, there were no issues.
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Memorable ACL moments: Saturday
Michael Barnes:
The widespread, ecstatic response each time the rain commenced, followed by a sort of resigned sigh when people realized that everything would be wet for hours, then another burst of group energy once that funk had passed.
Succumbing to the joyous, dancing hordes jazzed by electronica magician Pretty Lights, after a personal feeling of crowd panic, and despite some poor concert citizenship nearby.
Realizing that acts that I’d merely admired — Iron and Wine, Bright Eyes, Kanye West, etc. — were infinitely more charismatic live, performing in an epic setting.
Basking in the outflow of love for local acts such as Gary Clark Jr., Patrice Pike and Electric Touch — they deserve it.
Brian T. Atkinson
Brandi Carlile practically levitated the AMD stage early Friday. The Seattle resident moved (“Dreams”) and grooved (“Folsom Prison Blues”) with unmatched elegance.
Equally transcendent: Wanda Jackson. The 73-year-old rocker killed with classics (“Let’s Have a Party”) and newer material (Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good”) alike.
Meanwhile, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings froze time in the Vista Equity tent (“Copper Kettle”). The acoustic duo easily bested the “Martian landing” next door.
Shooting Stevie Wonder: Memorable for the absolute chaos. Were any photographers in My Morning Jacket’s pit? Unclear restrictions doubled the madness.
John T. Davis:
Those first magic drops of moisture descending from the heavens early on Friday afternoon—and the reactions to them. Namely, stupified awe and gratitude on the part of the locals and befuddled bewilderment on the part of visiting out-of-towners at the ecstatic reaction to a smattering of raindrops. They have no idea.
The abrupt and bracing transition of going from 10,000 people singing along with Foster the People’s summer pop hit “Pumped-Up Kicks” into the master’s seminar on blues, soul and R&B that Charles Bradley was conducting in the dark and sweaty Vista Equity tent. It was like going from Venice Beach to the Fifth Ward of Houston in a heartbeat.
The sight of one dad alternating between his young son and daughter, taking turns swinging them in circles and tossing them up and down on Saturday morning to their giddy hearts’ content as the Belle Brigade pumped out a sweet, Fleetwood Mac-inspired pop soundtrack in the background as the sun beamed down. How few perfect moment in life are there, when all is said and done? Updated: To correct Charles Bradley’s name.
Chad Swiatecki:
Stevie Wonder: Hits paraded. Humanity affirmed. Bucket list lightened considerably
Charles Bradley: If Stevie’s a flowing faucet of love and affirmation, soulman Bradley is a surging fire hydrant. A growling, hip-shaking fire hydrant.
Santigold: More artists should find a way to have as much fun on stage as Santi White. That stuff is contagious, and so are her bouncy, beaty songs.
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Emo's outside stage shuts down after Saturday show
Saturday’s Austin City Limits aftershow with Canadian noise rock duo Death From Above 1979 was the final show on the outside stage at the Emo’s Red River location, according to the club’s Twitter account and the band. The inside stage will remain open. Owner Frank Hendrix, who purchased Emo’s in 2000 from Eric “Emo” Hartman, wasn’t immediately available for comment.
@emosaustin Last show ever at the outside stage. Go hard mother (expletive)s. #dfa1979
@emosaustin @risekevin we aren’t going anywhere. Inside will always be open, and #EmosEast is up an running. Emo’s will always be in Austin.
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ACL: Scene Saturday
With the welcome showers Saturday, some festival-goers declared a unilateral end to the burn ban. Friday, it was mostly youngsters sneaking a cigarette, but Saturday, diehard smokers of all ages lit up at shows, between stages and in the bathroom lines. One dad with a stroller, a wife and two small kids set an example of disdain for anti-smoking regulations by dragging on a cigarette near the Austin Ventures stage, while an indignant crew at the Honda stage gathered around a sign on a long pole that demanded “Respect the burn ban, b!tches!!!,” illustrated by an appropriate graphic of a cigarette in a circle with a line through it.
Best t-shirts Saturday: One that postulated “Fat kids are harder to kidnap (worn by a guy of average height/weight) and another that asked the eternal question “What the pho?”
While a white-haired and -bearded senior sported a Strokes t-shirt, a number of youngsters wore t-shirts for concerts that occurred before the were born. including shows by Bob Marley and the Clash.
In case you were wondering if there existed a female Beavis & Butthead, yes, indeed, and they were standing in line for the porta-potties near the Vista Equity stage about 8 p.m. Friday.
“I can’t get totally wasted, I have to (expletive) get up tomorrow and look decent,” declared Female Beavis.
“I am totally getting wasted,” announced Female Butthead. “Maybe you can (expletive) go pack up and then get a taxi and come out.”
This was preceded by a riveting discussion of what one of their friends had posted about another of their friends on Twitter, affirming that Female Beavis and Female Butthead are well acquainted with the wonders of modern social media. Also, the astute observation: “Stevie [Wonder] must be soooooo ooooooooold!”“
And although you may think nothing is made in America anymore, those blue port-o-lets are manufactured by Satellite Industries, Inc., of Minneapolis, Minn. USA! USA!
Wait, is there live music at the Rock Island Hideaway? A surge of wild applause Saturday afternoon seemed to signify the World’s Most Killer Guitar Solo, or maybe even an unexpected collaboration between Kanye West and Stevie Wonder. Nope — it was just the crowd watching the UT/UCLA game, reacting to a penalty declared against the enemy. The score was already decisively tilted in UT’s favor. Who on earth buys an expensive concert ticket and then spends the afternoon in a tent watching a lopsided early-season football game?
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ACL Festival Review: TV on the Radio
The festival setting is a two-way street for TV on the Radio. They are capable of being an astounding live band, full of passion and guts, a place where rock and punk and electronic music collapse into each other. Their music is also layered, often delicate stuff and if the sound is lousy, their compositions can turn into flailing mush.
Fortunately, the band has learned over the years how to strip down its arrangements, not to mention focus on more straight-forward material when there’s a sweaty, outdoor crowd in front of them.
The result was one of Saturday’s most powerful sets with singer Tunde Adebimpe singing, wailing and chanting, bringing songs such as the grinding “The Wrong Way” and the surging, funky “Caffeinated Consciousness” to vibrant life.
The set’s centerpiece was “Young Liars,” a song that dates from the band’s earliest incarnation, when it was just a duo of Adebimpe and guitarist/producer David Sitek.
Over time, “Young Liars” has changed from a wee slip of a thing, a thin studio experiment, to become a live powerhouse, a sacred space that builds and surges on waves of distortion. Hearing that song roar to life was one of the weekend’s perfect festival moments.
It was also impossible to top, though the band certainly tried, moving from strength to strength on “Staring at the Sun,” the frantic “Repetition” and “Wolf Like Me.”
So when do we get a double live album, guys?
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ACL Fest review: Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Del McCoury
It was hard to imagine anything more spiritually transforative than the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s fairly recent collaboration with gospel group the Blind Boys of Alabama, but at ACL, the 7 p.m. Vista Equity stage trad jazz-bluegrass summit between Preservation Hall and the Del McCoury Band had strangers embracing, new fans rhapsodizing, and stunned observors congratulating themselves for not making an early exit to get a prime spot for Stevie Wonder’s performance at another stage.
Bluegrass giant Del McCoury and his group recorded American Legacies togther with New Orleans’ tradition-minded Preservation Hall Jazz Band, demonstrating on the 2011 release the powerful links between two quintessentially American art forms. The resulting tour is a tour de force, showcasing instrumental virtuosity and a deep love for traditional forms. McCoury’s high, lonesome voice and driving guitar offered a stunning contrast to the looser New Orleans vibe of the Preservation Hall musicians on a striking version of Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya” Saturday, while the crowd boogied to a New Orleans rhumba beat (and let it be said the the silver-pompadoured senior McCoury was probably the most handsome heartthrob at ACL — eat your heart out, Chris Martin). Clarinetist Charlie Gabriel from the Preservation Hall band matched McCoury for charisma, especially with his sly singing on the standard “A Good Gal is Hard to Find.” Preservation Hall trumpeter Mark Braud wowed an adoring crowd collaborating with Rob McCoury (banjo) and RonnieMcCoury (mandolin) and bandmate Jason Carter (fiddle) on “Sugar Blues.” McCoury’s group delivered a riveting cover of Richard Thompson’s “Vincent Black Lightning 1952,” while the ebullient New Orleans contingent, including tuba player Ben Jaffe, tossed ice cream and sherbet cups into the happy crowd on “Ice Cream” (as in “you scream, Ice scream”). Such was the spirit of camaraderie generated that cups and spoons were passed around in the audience, new friends gladly sharing the bounty. The triumphant closing number “I’ll Fly Away,” a gospel-second line parade favorite, had the audience united in joyous celebration.
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ACL Fest review: Cee-Lo Green
For the first time in a while - given the ample love for his critically acclaimed solo work, his role in the seminal Atlanta hip-hop group Goodie Mob, his place in the neo-soul and funk duo Gnarls Barkley and his raised profile courtesy of his judge’s role on “The Voice” - Cee-Lo Green had something to prove on Saturday.
His performance at Lollapalooza last month was widely lambasted for its caustic stage banter, half-hearted singing, ludicrous GWAR/Mad Max-inspired costumes (there’s a fine, fine line between entertaining shtick and overdone cheese) and some poorly rendered cover songs. Bad reviews showed up in Time Out Chicago, USA Today, the Onion A.V. Club and others. That’s a disappointment, considering people still speak in hushed tones of Gnarls Barkley’s performance at the Chicago festival in 2006.
So did Green bring his A game to the Austin City Limits Music Festival? He certainly stepped it up - none of the snafus present in Green’s Lolla set were on display this time around, and the set list, a fine mix of material from last year’s solo album “The Ladykiller,” Gnarls Barkley and other odds and ends, was finely selected. But there was a definite oomph lacking there - Green’s voice never hit those moments of shattering intensity or gleeful abandon that characterize him at his best.
Green started things out with “The Ladykiller” highlight “Bright Lights Bigger City,” and it’s clear that he’s internalized that song’s bombastic James Bond flavor, with an all-female backing band of performers rocking skintight spandex. He’s eschewed the post-apocalyptic look for something a little more Auric Goldfinger (or Hank Scorpio, for you Simpsons fans) and while it’s a step up, and an aesthetic that’s more in line with Green’s glittering tunes, it’s still precariously perched on the edge of cornball. And while Green’s voice could have sold the absurdity, he was lacking in flair on follow-up song “ChamPain” and only seemed to warm up with the goofy sexual rapping on “Closet Freak.” That song brought a bit more energy to the stage, which Green harnessed on a fun gender-flipped take on “Don’t Cha.”
But while those moments were highlights, Green got bogged down on an uninspired quasi-rock take on “Crazy” and what felt like a perfunctory version of “(Expletive) You.” And while his rapport with the crowd was rock-solid, funny and loose and including a very sincere shout-out to victims of the Central Texas drought and wildfires, he was also done no favors by a very bad sound mix (foreshadowing the later difficulties with Stevie Wonder on the same stage). Inevitable special guest Nakia was all but inaudible, for instance, for what should have been a big moment on “(Expletive) You.” Nakia’s a great vocal talent and a welcome addition to the stage, so it was frustrating to have to struggle so hard to hear him.
At no point were things unsalvageable - and closing Gnarls Barkley gems “Gone Daddy Gone” and “Smiley Faces” were both highlights - but, bogged down by the sound quality and a certain lack of vocal enthusiasm, Green never seemed to get properly revved up. Consider it the festival equivalent of hitting a single.
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September 17, 2011
Scene report: The panda in the front row at Stevie Wonder
Who are those people in the front row? When did they secure their spots? Have they moved at all during the day? What’s with the panda suit?
University of Texas student Vanda Taupradist, an international business studies major, got to Zilker Park at noon on Saturday to see Stevie Wonder. The panda head is nothing new for the music lover, who likes to sport the costume at concerts. But the full-body costume is a first. Vanda, who is known to friends as Vanda The Panda, said when she found out that the legend Wonder was headlining ACL Festival, she knew the musical genius deserved the sartorial upgrade. And she went to great lengths to make sure she could see the artist her mom had turned her onto as a child.
Taupradist camped out at HEB for 17 hours to buy student tickets to the festival. Her reward? Icon Stevie Wonder’s set list and towel, a bunch of new friends after having never left her spot and some serious laundry to do before returning to the festival Sunday.
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ACL Fest review: Fitz and the Tantrums
(Laura Skelding AMERICAN-STATESMAN)The going was a bit rough at the beginning of Fitz and the Tantrums’ 5 p.m. set at the Honda stage. The tinny mix wasn’t doing the band any favors, burying both the creative horn charts and the stirring organ. Fortunately, the sound improved, and singers Michael Fitzpatrick and Noelle Scaggs were basically not going to rest until they had the entire crowd dancing and letting loose. The group’s neo-soul style has an element of irony, and Fitzpatrick seems to have worked backward from Britain’s the Style Council to find R&B nirvana, but Scaggs is a natural, like a Tina Turner cousin signed to Motown. You know when she was seven years old, the middle-schoolers were copying her dance moves. Both expressed heartfeld appreciation for Austin audiences, and Fitzpatrick proclaimed that the band would not be where it was without its SXSW exposure.
The Tantrums covered the Raconteur’s “Steady As She Goes” with aplomb. but really grabbed the crowd with the title track of their full-length debut, “Pickin’ Up the Pieces,” featuring arranger James King on flute. The group had fans singing along lustily to a clever cover of Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams,” and finally established dominance with the irresistible, singalong original “MoneyGrabber.” A certain amount of time-travel may be required to fully appreciate the band’s appeal, but when Scaggs and Fitzpatrick commanded the audience to get low down, and Fitzpatrick called out vioators — “I know you guys think you got a hall pass!” — the average height of their fans was suddenly about 3-feet-tall, and the exhortation to get crazy had a host of fans erupting skyward into a happy paroxysm of silly dance moves.
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ACL Fest review: Alison Krauss
Musical transcendence can be hard to find at a festival like ACL, where for many, listening is secondary to coming, going, deciding how long to stay and where to go next, discussing the previous band, determining group requirements for beer and food, and trying, via various forms of technology and occasional waving and screaming, to track down friends who disappeared hours ago. Those looking to be transported may struggle to focus on the musicians alone amid the hurly-burly. However, a large crowd at the Bud Light stage actually grew astonishingly still and surprisingly quiet for Alison Krauss and Union Station’s magnificent 4 p.m. set. A hush fell the minute Krauss began to sing the opening bar of the heart-wrenching new song “Paper Airplane,” from her first album with Union Station since the smashing success of her 2007 Raising Sand collaboration with Robert Plant.
Krauss has one of the loveliest soprano voices going, with a crystalline tone and irreproachable pitch, and her phrasing is marvelously liquid and understated. She has probably never sung an unnecessary note in her life. She brings the same economical expressiveness to her fiddle playing, and she’s backed by one of the best bands around, featuring Jerry Douglas (dobro, lap steel, vocals), Dan Tyminski (guitar, mandolin, lead vocal), Ron Block (banjo, guitar) and Barry Bales (bass, vocals). Basically, if any one of them comes to town, no matter who else he’s playing with, go see him.
A rollicking bluegrass tune had heads bopping, while a yearning older number, “Let Me Touch You for Awhile,” held the crowd transfixed. Wearing a long, flowing, fuschia-print gown with bell sleeves, Krauss was funny and engaging between songs. She joked about one of the standards out in the audience, an inflatable toy on a long pole.
“It’s not every day you see a unicorn on a stick,” Krauss said. “What is that, a paint roller? Is that so you can get into those hard-to-reach places?”
That quote may not be exact, because it was raining too hard at that point to take notes. In honor of the precipitation, the band pulled out a terrific oldie, bluegrass legend Del McCoury’s “Rain Please Go Away,” which Tyminski sang beautifully, and hopefully he wasn’t too puzzled by people shouting “Noooooo!” at the chorus.
One of the most moving numbers was the desolate “Ghost in This House,” but in the middle of Krauss’ depiction of the loneliness that haunts the survivor of a bad break-up, a roar of happy applause went up in one section of the audience. It turned out someone had proposed to his girlfriend. I’m no marriage counselor, but I’m thinking he should have waited for the next number, the sweet and hopeful “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You.” At least he didn’t do it during “I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow,” which Tyminski sang with stirring conviction, reprising his appearance on the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack.
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ACL Fest review: Wanda Jackson
((Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
You think you’ve got it going on? Wanda Jackson, 73 years young, just happened to mention during her ACL set on Saturday that she used to date Elvis. A story which has the added advantage of being true.
Then she happened to let drop that she’d just finished a ten-day tour with Adele. And, oh yeah, Jack White called her up one day to ask if he could produce her latest album. “I’m a lucky Okie,” she said with admirable understatement.
Jackson, rock and roll’s original “bad girl”—long before Ronnie Spector and eons before Amy Winehouse—is still going strong, taking to the Austin Ventures stage in a black pantsuit with a hot pink fringed jacket and an awe-inspiring head of lacquered black hair (“The bigger the hair, the closer to God,” as Ann Richards used to say).
Backed up by a crackerjack rockabilly ensemble from Nashville, Jackson moved through her set with a vigor her grandchildren might envy. She’s still a sassy thing, with more attitude in one cocked eyebrow or sly smile than most punk rockers. How many septugenarians can you name that would take the stage to the majestic chords of Link Wray’s “Rumble” and then belt out “Riot In Cell Block #9”?
Jackson devoted the mid part of her set to tracks from the Jack White-produced “The Party Ain’t Over,” including “Shakin’ All Over,” Elvis’ “Like A Baby” and, poignantly, her take on the late Winehouse’s “You Know That I’m No Good.”
“She fought her demons,” said Jackson in an aside. “I was so looking forward to meeting her one day.”
Jackson has hits of her own, of course. She had to write them, being that no one was writing rock and roll songs for women in the Fifties. There was the campy “Fujiyama Mama” (they don’t make titles like that any more!), and the so-simple-it’s-brilliant “Mean Mean Man,” and her enduring theme song, “Let’s Have A Party.”
Towards the end of her set, Jackson’s voice grew raspy with allergies; the price of singing in Austin. Her husband of nearly 50 years brought her out a glass of something to soothe her throat. She nodded towards him and said, “That’s the guy who kissed better than Elvis. So I married him.”
Even bad girls have sweet spots.
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ACL Fest review: Courtyard Hounds
I happened to catch the Court Yard Hounds’ first public performance a year and a half ago at South By Southwest. The venue was the beer garden of a small tavern on Rainey Street and I’d be lying if I didn’t say the whole thing had a slightly unfinished feel to it. Martie Maguire and sister Emily Robison were embarking on something neither had ever done before—front a band.
Their “day job” as founders of the Dixie Chicks did not demand that either step to center stage full time and, as a result, the inaugural shows of the Court Yard Hounds had a slight whiff of “work-in-progress.”
But time has gone by and, as the Dixie Chicks begin to recede further from the pop culture consciousness, the Court Yard Hounds have evolved from a curiosity into a living, breathing, stand-alone musical entity.
Moreover, their set on Saturday at the Austin Ventures Stage was a red-blooded, full-throated, arena-ready performance—fully committed and almost scarily assured.
The sisters have always been virtuoso instrumentalists, of course, but they seemed to have settled easily into their headliner roles; Emily handling most of the vocals and the stinging banjo and resonator guitar lines, and Martie leavening the mix with sweetness, icing the arrangements with fiddle and mandolin and joking onstage with easy brio.
Most of their set was drawn from their one and only album with a smattering of new songs woven in. The band hit the ground running with “Delight” and popped the clutch straight away into “It Didn’t Make A Sound,” one of Emily’s thank-God-and-Greyhound-you’re-gone songs, propelled by her banjo and Bukka Allen’s honky-tonk piano.
They debuted some new material, including “Phoebe,” which Emily described as Martie’s “happy suicide ballad” and another, “Rock All Night,” which likened love to a midway ride at the Texas State Fair.
But for all the musical fireworks, the most memorable moment had to be when Martie escorted her three young daughters out onstage to shake maracas with mom and Aunt Emily on the lilting “The Coast.” It was precisely, exactly as cute as the dickens.
Then it was back to business, with a bluegrass breakdown and a concluding rave-up of the caustic rocker “Ain’t No Son.”
There’s no way for this observer to know if Maguire and Robison want to revisit the amphetamine-like craziness that was the Dixie Chicks at their platinum-selling peak. But if they do, they have the music to take them there.
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ACL Scene report: Snoozing through Fitz &the Tantrums
As if Fitz & the Tantrums weren’t entertaining enough, the Honda stage provided additional amusement in the shape of a young guy crashed out on the ground, sleeping under a wet green quilt as soundly as though he were resting on the finest mattress in a luxury hotel room. His buddy, standing and occasionally dancing to the music, glanced down at him regularly during the first part of the set, and then made a couple attempts to rouse him as more and more people started making their way back out of the thickest part of the crowd, and naturally headed straight for what seemed to be a space between dancers and chairs, only to have to hopscotch over Sleeping Beauty.
Apparently his pal finally really needed to be somewhere, because he gave up on trying to get him to stir, and just shrugged and took a picture of him with his phone, then gently tucked a backpack under his head as a pillow before setting off through the crowd, leaving him curled up in a fetal position, one hand tucked under his chin. More and more people traipsed by and did double takes, their reactions ranging from smiles to raised eyebrows to rolled eyes. One guy laughed, gave the thumb’s up and proclaimed “OUTSTANDING!” A couple people took photos. And older gentleman looked at me, held his finger to his nose and stage-whispered “SHHHHHH!!” as the crowd sang along loudly with a song, and Sleeping Guy remained oblivious.
“Awwwwwww!” exclaimed one passer-by/stepper-overer.
“That’s rough,” another proclaimed with a scowl of disapproval.
He was still sleeping soundly when I left at the end of the set, and if you want to see the spectacle for yourself, he’s probably on the Facebook page of someone you know, or he may well still be there Sunday morning.
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ACL Festival Scene report: Water, water everywhere
And no, I’m not talking about rain.
For the most part the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2011 looks very much like the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2010 — there’s minimal additions to the overall setup, which makes sense, given how smoothly last year ran. What few extra touches are there aren’t likely to make too much of an impact on your festival experience.
But credit should be given where credit is due: probably the biggest of those changes is a huge relief and a very smart move by C3 Presents that deserves a shoutout. For the first time in my memory the festival has a water set-up that’s essentially flawless; I think this year is the the only year when I’ve been adequately hydrated the whole day through. Camelbak is offering up free filtered water at any one of three different stations in the park, and there’s never any appreciable wait to get filled up.
This is a huge improvement that’s made bringing in a refillable container easier than ever; throughout the years refilling your water bottle has always been varying levels of annoying, so this is a supremely welcome change. It’s had a bigger impact on my experience inside the park than pretty much any other factor.
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ACL Festival review: Alexander
When Alexander Ebert stepped out in front of the crowd Saturday afternoon, light droplets of rain falling from the sky, you could almost believe he had neither changed clothes nor moved from the spot since last year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival, when Ebert’s band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros played a cacophonous set of buoyant hippie folk rock on the same stage.
He was wearing a half-buttoned tattered shirt that looked much like the one he had on last year, a hat that seemed similar, and he was still barefoot. I didn’t recognize the rainbow-colored guitar strap, but it certainly seems like the sort of thing he wore last year.
But appearances can be deceiving; Ebert’s been up to a lot since last year. The Los Angeles bohemian toured the country with Mumford and Sons on a vintage train and released his solo debut, simply “Alexander” in March. According to his Facebook page, Austin City Limits is his first chance to play the new songs in a festival setting. Live, the new material hit the free spirit folk sweet spot, jammy, stoner-friendly and pleasantly ambling, faintly reminiscent of 70s king Donovan. But it lacked quite the transcendent power of the better Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros songs, perhaps due to the absence of excitable Zeros singer Jade Castrinos.
“Awake My Body” was an inauspicious first song to go with, with its low-key charm and bits of jagged trumpet. The set picked up some energy with a passionate clapalong on the lovelorn and pleading “In the Twilight” and a new song penned at the end of the aforementioned Railroad Revival Tour. But the show didn’t pick up any real steam until the cool, hushed “Truth,” which has a certain reverent and lived-in vibe all its own.
The band seemed a bit looser and more enthused from there on out, harnessing the collective goodwill emanated by the drizzle for a soaring “Let’s Win,” and Ebert growled nicely on the bluesy “Glimpses” and it’s “Mama, I’m so tired of the bull (expletive)” refrain.
Not that Alexander’s particular brand of nonconformist folk doesn’t have its problems; there can be a sort of hippie sameness that sets in. For somebody with such a musically short attention span — between his solo work, Edward Sharpe and his powerpop outfit Ima Robot, Ebert’s all over the place — Ebert’s solo material doesn’t have the sonic variety it probably should. But you can’t doubt the man’s sincerity; he sings loudly and passionately and communes genuinely with the audience when he perches himself on the partition separating crowd and stage. And that level of sincerity carries you a long way at a festival like this.
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ACL Festival Review: Iron and Wine
(Alberto Martinez AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
At some point in the past, say, three or four years, it became perfectly acceptable to have beer-ad horn solos (or whole beer-ad horn sections!) in your (ostensible) rock band. I am not entirely sure when this happened, nor am I entirely sure who to blame. But there is a big, smooth jazz horn presence on record music made by everyone from Destroyer and Bon Iver to Fleet Foxes and, God bless her, PJ Harvey, who at least has as little Beefheart in her past to keep her honest.
Dripping Springs resident Sam Beam, doing business as Iron and Wine, is similarly down with the horn section. Horns are all over his his album “Kiss Each Other Clean,” his Warner Bors debut which ambled into stores in January, and a three piece horn section was all over his meandering, jammy set Saturday afternoon at ACL fest during some of the day’s heaviest rain. As a colleague put it, “This is very ‘Bob Dylan at Budokan,’ huh?” Um, yes. Yes, it was.
To his credit, Beam has never been all that wedded to his songs’ original arrangements, but this was one of the most free-form sets I’ve ever seen him play, well into that vague area where dad-rock becomes jam band noodling and vice versa.
Songs such as “Walking Far From Home” were stripped to the frame and rebuilt using scattered percussion, guitar flickers and a general feeling that they could break into, say, “Dark Star” at any moment. The most powerful moments came when Beam himself put on an electric guitar and cut loose, single notes and swaths of distortion adding color and fire to the slow-burn music.
“Free Until They Cut Me Down” was almost abstract, horns starting to freak out over jazz-rock drums as the sort of ramble-tamble that was impossible to imagine from this guy at the beginning of the century, when he was a film instructor in Florida making whispered, sub-dermal folk records in his house. Beam’s music was wandering like the wild geese in the west; we were just following it around.
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ACL Festival review: Daniel Lanois & Black Dub
(Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
It’s long been evident that Daniel Lanois has more musical imagination than he knows what to do with. Witness his career-defining productions for the likes of U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris and others. Not to mention his own eclectic solo projects and soundtrack work.
The lastest project from his fertile brain is Black Dub, a quartet that utilizes his longtime go-to drummer Brian Blade and a slender blonde firecracker of a vocalist named Trixie Whitley. Lanois has described the project as “a collective,” whose operating aesthetic borrows from the Jamaican reggae “dub” technique of chopping, splicing and re-mixing tracks for a unique sonic effect, in essence a new musical creation. Lanois says most of the tracks from the group’s debut album were recorded live in one take with no overdubs. Spontaneouos collaboration and fluidity triumph over premeditation.
You could see that same guiding principle at work, for better and worse, during Lanois Saturday set on the Austin Ventures stage. Lanois is a master of tonal landscapes, using his guitar and pedal steel to create evocative sonic landscapes full of ringing echoes and bell-like tones. On songs like “Nomad” and “Surely (You Were Meant To Be Mine),” he provided a complex palette of witchy, funky grooves against which Whitley flung her powerful voice, while Blades swung in punctuation and counterpoint. It was a fascinating exercise to watch.
However, to this listener, things went somewhat off the rails when Whitley and the bassist left the stage and Blade, and Lanois began to work off one another in a long, elliptical instrumental that seemed to take shape only slowly, The musical term, I think, is “taking the long way around the barn.” If you and I were doing likewise, it might be aptly charactgerized as noodling around. But you could see the structure of the track slowly evolve as Blade and Lanois reached a sort of telepathic collaboration. Interesting, but a trifle opaque for my tastes.
Whitley returned to the stage and the band concluded their set with a twangy rocker called (I think) “Wicked Child,” and a doom-fraught, headlong rush of percussion and guitar that resolved itself into “Ring the Alarm.” Only eight songs in all, but the band covered a lot of sonic territory.
And that is why Daniel Lanois will always be compellingly listenable no matter what he undertakes. It may not always be accessible to the layman, but it will never be boring or slapdash.
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Filmmaker Malick, Christian Bale spotted at ACL Fest
(Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
Austin fimmaker Terrence Malick has been busy this year. He won the Palme d’Or for his imaginative and moving film “The Tree of Life,” and word is he has already finished with principal photography on his next film starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams. There was news his next film after that would be a feature starring Christian Bale. And it seems the director and actor may already be working together, or at least hanging out. Photographer Daniel Bloomfield posted to Flickr last night a photo of Malick and Bale on the side of the stage during Bright Eyes performance. For those skeptics who believe there’s no way Malick would be spotted on stage, there is Spoon drummer Jim Eno in the foreground of the photo. It is also interesting to note that photographers were not allowed to shoot the Bright Eyes set where the legendarily press-shy director was snapped. Reps from C3 would not confirm Malick or Bale’s appearance at the festival Friday. Bright Eyes plays tonight at Stubb’s.
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ACL Festival Review: Aloe Blacc
Aloe Blacc has a pretty wicked sense of humor.
Like fellow ACL Festival performers Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros last year with “Home,” or Foster the People this year with “Pumped Up Kicks,” most of the wider attention that the Los Angeles singer has received is on the basis of one song. “I Need A Dollar” is a blues-soul gem for our impoverished times that shot up the charts across Europe, found a home on late-night television and as the intro to HBO’s “How To Make It In America,” and is slowly infiltrating domestic radio as well.
(Sidenote #1: The Onion AV Club could make a great installment in their ongoing “Inventory” feature of all the fantastic soul songs about poverty, from Sharon Jones’ “Money” and Black Joe Lewis’ “I’m Broke” in the recent past all the way back to gems like Baby Huey/Curtis Mayfield’s “Hard Times” and Billy-Paul’s “Let the Dollar Circulate.” Free idea, AV Club!)
So it’s safe to say that of those who showed up to Aloe Blacc’s early afternoon set with any inkling of who the soul singer was, they were probably stoked to see “I Need A Dollar” live. But Blacc, hilariously, teased their expectations twice, first having his band, the Grand Scheme, introduce him to the song’s distinctive melody before segueing into the jumpy “Hey Brother” instead. He pulled a similar fakeout before singing heartfelt soul-pop ballad “If I.”
That was both funny and smart — saving “I Need A Dollar” for the second-to-last song both kept the crowd there (many of them started to wander away after he played that one) and let Blacc plunge into his breakout album, last year’s “Good Things,” which fully marked Blacc’s transition from hip-hop (he’s also in hip-hop duo Emanon) to soul. Fly in a vest and sunglasses, Blacc displayed a remarkably smooth and unruffled confidence — leading the audience in clap-alongs and generally wrapping the crowd around his finger without ever being too showy (save an excellently ostentatious dance on “You Make Me Smile.”)
Blacc’s not from the Black Joe Lewis/James Brown/Otis Redding “howl like you mean it” school of soul singing — he’s more along the lines of Raphael Saadiq’s smooth-as-silk, pop-friendly take. And his songs, fortunately, take advantage of that; he nailed the slick “Good Things,” brought soul to the Velvet Underground’s oft-covered “Femme Fatale” and made the sweetest-sounding condemnation of Congress ever in “Politician.”
Blacc’s band the Grand Scheme kept pace at every step, with guitar and organ infusing a kind of Tarantino cool into “Femme Fatale” and shining during a lengthy jam just before “I Need A Dollar.”
(Sidenote #2: Just where do these suit-wearing, awesome-playing soul backup band guys like the Honeybears, the Menahan Street Band and the Grand Scheme come from, anyway? I like to imagine they’re grown a farm somewhere.)
And when Blacc did bust into “I Need A Dollar,” he brought his best effort, briefly mashing up the song with a line or two each from Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry” and Hall and Oates’ “Maneater.”
“It’s all soul music,” said Blacc. “It doesn’t matter what country or color it comes from.”
True enough. And when Blacc makes soul music that good, you’re practically beaming when he goes 15 minutes over.
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ACL Festival Review: Belle Brigade
Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
You can’t say that Barbara Gruska and her brother Ethan—aka the Belle Brigade—don’t come by their chosen occupation honestly. Their father is singer/songwriter Jay Gruska and their maternal grandfather is Oscar-winning composer John Williams.
That backstory, however interesting, would be less than relevant if the younger siblings hadn’t crafted such a breezy and enjoyable debut album and, more to the point, delivered the goods with an ear-pleasing set Saturday afternoon at the Honda Stage.
Though they may be flying under the radar compared to some of the Fest’s bigger names, the pair’s sunny harmonies and guitar-driven hooks drew listeners from across the western half of Zilker Park.
One writer likened their music to a top-down cruise down the Pacific Coast Highway with the radio blasting, and that flavor pervades the Belle Brigade’s music, even when the songs’ subject matter might be less than upbeat (as in “Rusted Wheel” or “Sweet Louise”). The pair’s acknowleged fondness for the Fleetwood Mac hit machine, the Beatles and classic Motown shine through in their sibling harmonies (Ethan, unusually, sings in a higher register than his sister, for the most part), tenaciously catchy melodies and streamlined delivery.
Their set really went from a smolder to a flame when Barbara (a sought-after LA session drummer who boasts a tenure with Jenny Lewis among her credits) set down her guitar and went to work behind the traps on the rocking “When Not To Look For Freedom.” It was an effervescent, elevating moment that kick-started a slow and humid afternoon. On guitar or on drums, she was every bit the firecracker her red hair implied, jumping in the air to bring a song to a close or slamming the snare drum like it had kicked her dog.
“Rusted Wheel” and “Lucky Guy” showed deliberate pop craftsmanship in their careful construction and gear-shifting tempos. And then there was “Shirt,” which may be the only pop song I can think of written from the point of view of a garment (Hmmm, maybe My Morning Jacket should cover it…)
The Belle Brigade isn’t out to save the world, but as they demonstrated at ACL, they can make a little piece of Zilker Park a happy place to be.
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ACL Fest Review: Pretty Lights
One-man electronic dance sets like last year’s Deadmau5 show or this year’s epilepsy-a-thon from Pretty Lights pose certain challenges for reviewers. I’m happy that the festival has shifted its attentions increasingly to dance music over the years; seeing Pretty Lights and Skrillex on the bill is an acknowledgment of a variety of music that a certain set of fans are exceedingly passionate about. But they can be tricky to write about.
Absent many of the typical features of a live show — dynamics between individual band members, clear song breaks, stage banter — there’s not always a huge amount to seize upon. Instead, the most important questions tend to be A) “Is the production adequately inspiring?” and B) “Did the set keep its momentum the whole way through?”
And the answer to both of those is a pretty unqualified “Yes.” Colorado’s Pretty Lights, nee Derek Vincent Smith, set up shop behind a laptop atop a series of platforms and surrounded by towers that were bathed in a fantastically timed, genuinely mesmerizing kaleidoscopic light show. C3 cannily slotted Pretty Lights right in the sunset hour, giving the entire set the feel of an escorted journey into the nighttime. Even whoever was editing the video screen seemed to get into the spirit, frenetically cutting between audience members and giving the visuals the vague sense of a Four Loko commercial, with countless shots of boozed-up dancing youngsters.
Against the psychedelic backdrop of the lights, Smith did a solid job keeping things fresh, mixing his hip-hop and soul samples with a series of progressively stronger beats, and occasionally pulling in and transforming a snippet from left-field — Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place” was drawn into the fray and miraculously made a bit slower and more ominous than it already is. The crowd was healthy and appeared satisfied; I saw a lot of euphoric dancers.
But it’s hard not to feel like there was something indescribable missing that kept Pretty Lights’ set from being quite as thumping as it could have been. In the past Smith’s often played with a live drummer, and that would have added some necessary energy to the beats and added someone else for the crowd to latch onto; as it was Smith, with his minimal F-bomb-oriented banter, could have used some help engaging the crowd.
Or maybe the set’s energy level just flagged a bit at the end as audience members naturally drifted off to situate themselves for Kanye West. Smith acknowledged the looming headlining performance by going out with a prominent sample of West’s “All The Lights,” a sensible acknowledgment of the evening’s big event that nonetheless somewhat served to make Pretty Lights’ set feel less like an event itself and more like a prelude to what was to come.
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ACL Festival interview: Electric Touch
Mood: cheeky and friendly for Shane Lawlor, reserved and withdrawn for Christopher Leigh
This is ACL number what for you guys?
Shane: Number two. We did in 2008 when our first album came out and now we’re back as we’re getting ready for our new single and then the new album soon after.
So lots of new stuff we’re going to hear?
Shane: Oh yeah, lots of new stuff since we’ve been writing for the last two years pretty much.
How much have you changed as a band in the three years since you’ve played ACL?
Shane: We’ve seen and been through a lot. We went to New York for a while, went to Los Angeles for a while and made it back to Austin. We’ve played some major festivals and just had a lot of ups and down, and our songs are about those things we’ve gone through. Same as how everyone else writes, really. We do tales of ordinary life and the human condition, we do it rock n’ roll in Glorious Technicolor (note: that phrase is cap-cased in the band’s official fest bio - this tells us something).
Seems like Manic Street Preachers is a band that-
Shane: They were around a lot when I was younger but at that time I was really a fan of a lot of American music. I liked them but they weren’t a huge deal to me. Now I can certainly see that the influence was there. It’s funny because they’re English but they seem like such American music in the size and the way it’s put forward because they’re an arena band in England. They’re just huge in the songs that they do, so I can see the comparison.
For all the non-Austin people who will read this and are just learning about you for the first time, who are the bands that each of you grew up with, that influenced you?
Shane: When I started playing it was bands like Pavement and Sonic Youth and Nirvana, stuff like that but listening to artists like Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, those were my gateways into music very early on. Buddy Holly was just massive when I was growing up.
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ACL Fest review: Kanye West
There was a surprisingly small crowd with about twenty minutes to go until the Kanye West set Friday night. When West finally came on, he did so in grand fashion, in a crate that had been carried out to the center of the crowd; after an opening sequence by his dancers, who are clearly modeled on “Black Swan,” he popped out of the box and boarded an elevated platform, which took him high above the audience for “Dark Fantasy” (Nakia shot some of video of West’s entrance here). Then, instead of having a helicopter airlift him out, he walked to the stage on a barred-off path through the crowd, distributing high-fives.
It was an over-the-top beginning to an over-the-top show, which included a backdrop of Gothic-style stone angels and was divided into three ‘acts,’ which really didn’t really break up the show in a particularly meaningful way. No one seemed to mind, though, probably because that’s just the kind of half-baked craziness that has earned West truckloads of attention.
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ACL Festival Review: Charles Bradley
Of all the artists to emerge from or have their careers resurrected by the great soul resurgence of the last 10 years, it’s quite possible that Charles Bradley has the potential to be the most galvanizing. That’s a tall order — Bradley’s got fierce competition in the modern soul game, ranging from Daptone labelmates Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings to Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears to Raphael Saadiq to Mayer Hawthorne to Fitz and the Tantrums to … point being, it’s a long list, with as many different movements and varieties cooking as simmered in the genre’s heyday in the 60s and 70s.
But Bradley brought something singular to the table at the Vista Equity stage on Friday: heart. Great, huge, heaping helpings of sentimentality and love and … well, soul. Sure, he’s got a powerful, raw, full-throated voice, backed by a strong cadre of musicians in the Menahan Street Band. But more importantly, he’s also got a naked vulnerability, a life story - he’s a 62-year-old former James Brown impersonator and worker of odd jobs across the United States who’s still reeling from the shooting death of his younger brother - that’s the most arresting tale of personal redemption this side of Girls’ Christopher Owens. Other singers may have the howl and excitement (Black Joe Lewis, in spades) or may have nailed the pastiche thing (Sharon Jones) but it’s Bradley whose need to share his music seems the most spiritual, as if coming from an ocean of deep feeling.
Audiences can sense that kind of thing, which is one of the reasons why Bradley enjoyed such a rapturous reception at the ACL Festival. Bradley strutted onto the stage right as a mercurial introductory instrumental groove from the Menahan Street Band morphed into the distinct beats of Baby Huey’s “Mighty Mighty.” He let out the first line of “Heartaches and Pain” and immediately enjoyed wild shouts of approval from the assembled crowd. “Heartaches and Pain” is an autobiographical number, dealing with the aforementioned younger brother’s murder, and one of the more melancholy songs off an album, “No Time For Dreaming,” that’s fairly saturated with tragedy. Whether the audience knew the backstory or not, they clearly connected with Bradley’s delivery. They were in his pocket from line one.
And he didn’t let them down. Bradley nailed the delivery of the bouncy title track, underscoring exultant backing vocals from the Menahan Street Band with an array of dance moves lifted straight from the James Brown playbook, dropping in bits of the robot for variety’s sake. He was sweaty and shirtless by the time he segued into single “The World Is Going Up In Flames.” His standard “Heart of Gold” cover seized on that song’s powerful strain of melancholia, while “This Love Ain’t Big Enough For the Two of Us” exploded out the gate with insistent horns from the band and Bradley’s searing yell. He paused every couple of songs to throw an enthused “I love you!” to the audience, beaming with the pride of a man whose life has just launched into an unexpected third act.
Bradley, as mentioned, has gigged as a James Brown impersonator, and the Godfather of Soul’s influence on him is clear - the shout, the dancing, even a clear physical resemblance. But songs like “Why Is It So Hard,” with its heady mixture of autobiographical lament, commentary on the contemporary woes of America and “A Change Is Gonna Come” reference, evidences Bradley’s closest soul forefathers - Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, whose primal voices could be at once thrilling and yet deeply sad and sentimental. When he closed out his set with “Golden Rule,” with bows and gratitude to the audience for sharing the experience with him, he was achingly sincere. And the crowd when wild, as they’re apt to do when confronted with a soul master who, improbably, released his debut album at 62 to a receptive world. “No Time For Dreaming?” On the contrary, Bradley at the ACL Festival, occasionally goofy dance moves and all, seemed to be living proof that it’s never too late to dream, and that’s a message most of us are happy to hear right now.
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ACL Fest review: Santigold
There are a few different ways to do the beat-heavy electro-pop/hip-hop that Santigold (born Santi White) traffics in. There’s the school that’s heavy on artifice and separating the artist from the audience (think Janelle Monae’s outer space android schtick), and there’s the performer-as-cultural-lightning rod approach, which worked pretty well for M.I.A. before she popped out a Seagram heir and pretty much forgot what a Tamil Tiger ever was.
Problem with those schools is once a crack shows in the persona - ie, a real person with real flaws becomes visible - the art’s origin and motivation gets all turned inside out. White avoids any such problems by ditching artifice entirely (well, except for a pair of largely expressionless but cartoon-ish dancers best described as Robert Palmer’s video backing band girls crossed with Jerome from Morris Day and The Time) and just rocking the party. She gets you to clap, asks if you’re having a good time and smiles big and wide at you as fluffy hooks buffeted by deep bass rumbles come tumbling out of the speakers.
Saturday’s show came at an interesting time for White, who is three years removed from a solid, realized debut album. About to release a new LP, the set was split nearly in half between sturdy, bouncy hits like “L.E.S. Artistes” and “Lights Out” and new material that suggests a move toward both U.K. grime (double-time raps and vocals with dirty, busy production) and, curiously, Miami bass (no explanation needed or given). It’s music that sounds made for dark, cramped clubs, where the bass can roll around a packed room and cause a crowd to half lose their minds, instead of soundtracking beachy beer commercials. It’ll be interesting to hear how those songs present on record, but it was fairly obvious the hooks on White’s next record will reveal themselves through repeated listens rather than pleasantly smacking you in the face right away.
The distinctly contrasting material blended fine in a live setting (a good sign), thanks certainly to White’s obvious enthusiasm and a stage show that at various points featured White being dragged around on stage, a backing band with matching plastic Elvis wigs, prop sledge hammers, pom-pons, parasols, three costume changes and one of those two-person horse costumes that sidled up on stage for no real reason at all. Holding it all together was White, grateful and joyous at the chance to have a crowd of more than 10,000 (Coldplay followed her on an adjacent stage) join her on the next steps in what looks to be a constantly evolving, surprising career.
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ACL Fest review: Coldplay
A few years ago in an article about sign language interpreters at music festivals, Austin resident and touring interpreter Barbie Parker talked about the relative difficulty of preparing to interpret for different kinds of artists. A legacy artist like Bob Dylan was a nightmare because of the deep canon and unpredictable setlist, while rappers presented a two-pronged problem because of speed of delivery and the multitude of plays on words and other lyrical devices that don’t translate gracefully to sign language.
You could learn something by watching the interpreters from Austin’s Lotusign do their work Saturday night while British rock band Coldplay banged out a grandiose, hit-after-hit-filled and consummately professional 90 minutes at Austin City Limits Festival. Mainly that the band is a gang of literal and lyrical generalists to the extreme, pretty much absent of metaphor, verbal trickery or allusion, with enough symbolism and personification (keys are held, clocks are watched, people are lost, etc.) to keep every set of lyrics from being “I used to be in love, and now I’m not” ad infinitum.
This insight about the band is hardly a revelation and as our great recent “defense” of the curiously maligned band points out, a big key to Coldplay’s success is the incredible accessibility of their lyrics, almost to the point of being musical comfort food for the loved, loveless and pretty much everyone who’s somewhere in between. But watching singer Chris Martin’s lyrics presented in a physical form with sweeping, easy motions - versus the near gymnastics demanded by a combo like Nas and Damian Marley earlier in the evening, or the arcane literary references of a band like The Decemberists - drove the point home in a new way; these are wide-open ideas populated by stock characters (God, devils, angels, children and “you” make up the bulk) in service of incredibly basic motivations. Inanimate object + verb + direct object + a U2- or Cure-sized melody = pretty much every Coldplay song ever written.
So it’s no wonder to find Coldplay on a headliner stage on a big festival like ACL and others all over the world. You pretty much can’t fit a song like “Viva La Vida” into a place with less than a five-figure capacity (though they tried pretty successfully Thursday night at an Austin City Limits television taping), “Yellow” soars high enough to scrape the heavens… everything the band does is big. Like book them for halftime of Super Bowl LX big. And clearly they’re comfortable projecting these songs in massive fashion. From the opening pulses of the new “Hurts Like Heaven” through to the end Martin bounded around the stage when he wasn’t behind a piano or guitar, reaching out the crowd (no one makes yearning as palatable as these guys) and delivered what is really a startling collection of hits for a band that’s been banging around for just over a decade.
Saturday found the foursome in a comfort zone, doing what they’ve done scores of times at this point and checking all the boxes you’d need them to fill as the night’s co-headliner. There were tastes of the upcoming album “Mylo Xyloto,” familiar songs given new colors (the closing of “God Put A Smile Upon Your Face was massive) and humorous asides like in “Everything’s Not Lost” about all the women in the audience wanting to see Coldplay while all the boys they were with really wanted to see Kanye West across the park. In all, enough new flourishes and surprises to keep it from feeling like a paying-the-bills hit parade.
It wasn’t a set that caused audience members to re-examine how they think about music as a whole as they filtered out of the park, but that’s never this band’s intent to begin with. Faces smiling, hands red from clapping and throats strained thanks to choruses so ingrained that singing to them is almost autonomic behavior, they left happy from seeing exactly what they had expected would be put before them, served up big and gulped down whole.
Set list:
- Hurts Like Heaven
- Yellow
- In My Place
- Major Minus
- Lost
- The Scientist (corrected)
- Violet Hill
- God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
- Everything’s Not Lost
- Us Against The World
- Politik
- Viva La Vida
- Charlie Brown
- Paradise
(encore)
- Clocks
- Fix You (preceded by verse and chorus of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab”)
- Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall
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ACL Fest: Burn ban vs. youth
Parry Gettelman FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN | September 16, 2011
The burn ban at ACL apparently applies only to those over 30. Friday, I saw a number of 20-somethings smoking, including a group of five women sitting right by the Barton Springs entrance and attendant security; a guy with a chiseled chest, sagging trousers and clashing underwear at the Bud Light stage; and a quartet of women parked on the ground at the Honda stage, who were at least using a mostly empty beverage container as an ashtray. The smoke from several directions got so thick at one point during James Blake’s set that my throat started to hurt.
One attempt to discourage someone from smoking actually worked, at least temporarily, while another failed miserably. It was probably a mistake to try and explain the hazards of smoking, even during a historic drought, to a dude in a Camel t-shirt.
Best t-shirts Friday: one demanding “Stop plate tectonics” and another advising “I am not Johnny Ramone.”
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ACL Fest: Gary Clark Jr. review
Parry Gettelman FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN | September 16, 2011
Since he got his major-label deal with Warner Brothers, Gary Clark Jr. has been tagged as the Next Big Thing, his praises sung by everyone from Rolling Stone to The Wall Street Journal. During Friday morning’s ACL preview on KUT, a DJ proclaimed definitively that the Austin blues guitar hero would be moving up from the BMI stage to one of the main stages by next year. And while Clark’s Friday evening set wouldn’t make anybody forget Jimmie Vaughan or Eric Clapton, both among his mentors, his sizeable crowd was one of the most engaged I saw all day, with the vast majority of smart-phone users taking pictures or making videos rather than compulsively checking e-mail and texts. Mercifully, there was very little of the chatter that plagued other shows.
Clark, wearing slim-fitting pale trousers and a white t-shirt with a deep V neck, wasn’t big on crowd interaction, but he exuded easy charisma even when playing off to the right of his three bandmates like a sideman at the start of the opening number. Searing guitar licks are his hallmark, but he also has a terrific voice, a burnished baritone with a penetrating quality that was particularly effective on the snarling “Don’t Owe You a Thing.” One of the songs from his new Bright Lights EP, its choogling, swampy rhythm got a shot of punk-rock adrenaline, and Clark’s stinging guitar and vocal communicated sharp insolence, before he segued into an earthy, hypnotic, circular solo that sounded more like a bid to get signed by Fat Possum than a step toward crossover stardom.
On the pretty ballad, “Please Come Home,” Clark turned old-school R&B supplicant, crooning in a strong, if not classically smooth, falsetto. His guitar sent barbs flying every which way on a rocking cover of Albert Collins’ “If You Love Me Like You Say,” which ended in a dramatic flurry of chicken-scratching. The last number was naturally the show-stopping “Bright Lights,” which Clark introduced with a lyrical passage before galvanizing his band to deliver a sound thrashing. His guitar’s thick, menacing tone underlined the swagger of his vocal as he declared “You gonna know my name by the end of the night,” while the tangled, anguished notes reflected the lyrics’ undercurrent of ambivalence and self-doubt. His performance didn’t necessarily portend future superstardom, but it certainly primed an exceptionally appreciative crowd to impatiently anticipate the full-length Warner debut due early next year.
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September 16, 2011
ACL Fest: Mavis Staples review
John T. Davis FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN | September 16, 2011
After six-decades-and-change of marching for civil rights, singing for Jesus and and fusing an indelibly compelling blend of gospel, blues, soul and R&B, 72-year old Mavis Staples had the last word on Friday night at the conclusion of her set in the Vista Equity Tent. “You ain’t seen the last of me!” she crowed defiantly as she wrapped up her classic 1971 hit, “I’ll Take You There.”
Indeed it seems we haven’t. Time may have beveled the fine edges off her river-deep contralto, but her touch and technique have not surrendered a thing to the years. Hers is a compelling voice, not just for the richness of its delivery and its gritty, soulful intonation, but for the events it chronicles.
With her father, Roebuck “Pops” Staples, Mavis saw the heyday of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. One of the songs she performed on Friday, the rousing, funky “Freedom Highway,” was penned by Pops on the eve of the watershed march from Montgomery to Selma. The traditional “Creep Along Moses” harkened back to the churches where resistance to segregation was born. Similarly, her take on John Fogerty’s “Wrote A Song For Everyone” (from her Jeff Tweedy-produced current release, “You Are Not Alone”) harkens to those same universal truths.
But Staples is no museum specimen. Her performance was a juicy, rocking marvel, shot through with humor and the kind of barn-raising energy that the best gospel (and the best soul) music has always engendered. Her rendition of “The Weight” (which achieved immortality due to the Staples Singers’ performance in the Band’s “The Last Waltz”) is a secular song made sacred; “I’ll Take You There” is, in essence, a hymn that stormed the pop charts. Staples special gift is to render those distinctions irrelevant. And, best of all, we ain’t seen the last of her.
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ACL Festival Review: Nas and Damian Marley
You know where the burn ban was not in effect? The crowd watching Nas and Damian Marley show Friday afternoon at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. It was a reggae show at a music festival, so the smell of weed was just part of the ambiance.
There’s long been a bit of a disconnect between reggae and the American, suburban wing of its worldwide fanbase. How can one put this politely? The latter is full of kids perhaps more into the ganja culture that the, say, the religious, revolutionary, racially complicated ideology. This is why you can see a bunch of kids, with no irony whatsoever, who marked their chair area with an enormous Confederate flag, (no, really) watching the son of Bob Marley chant down Babylon. Not too irie, kiddies.
But young Damian’s probably used to it. He had his nearly floor-length dredlocks know their audience — Marley even advised from the stage that “a little pinch of marijuana” is better for dealing with the stress of the global economic crisis than going down to the pub.
His relationship to his father’s legacy seems a bit like Sean Lennon’s to his famous dad. (Ziggy always seemed to be the Julian Lennon fellow.) He and Nas, also a guy who knows a thing or two about having to live up to something. (Nas’s debut album “Illmatic” is a stone-classic, and while the man from Queensbridge has made a solid career for himself, he will never, ever equal that initial flash of hip-hop brilliance.)
The two trades verses on a few duets such as “Nah Mean” before Nas busted out a round robin of solo verses from “Life is What You Make It,” “Street Dreams” and so choruses of “Represent.” He even went two verses deep into “If I Ruled The World.”
They rejoined, Marley cranked his brilliant ragga smash “Welcome to Jamrock,” a sea of hands waved, the guy whose job it is to wave the Jamaican flag the entire set got to rest his arms and glass pipes were politely extinguished. One love, brah.
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ACL Festival through the years
In the middle of Zilker Park stands 9 foot tall screen-printed columns surrounding a replica of the State Capitol. Each one is dedicated to a year of ACL Fest, with the year’s lineup listed. I took a few minutes to peruse the lineup and notes some changes over the years. As we all know, the maiden voyage of ACL Fest felt like an Austin version of JazzFest, with a bunch of local acts and jam bands populating the lineup. The inaugural fest, scheduled at the 10th, if not 11th, hour was topped by Ryan Adams, the Arc Angels and Asleep at the Wheel. The Wheel has played every fest since, but you’ll never see them listed among the top acts on a poster these days. Jam bands like String Cheese Incident, Soulive, G. Love and Special Sauce had maybe their biggest showing at the fest. Who’s back in the 10th year that was there at the beginning? Locals Patrice Pike and Gary Clark Jr., who must have still been in high school and now plays gigs where the likes of Roger Waters show up.
Jam bands continued to have a strong influence the following year with additions like Karl Denson, Leftover Salmon and Charlie Hunter, but around 2004 things started to change a bit. Sure Sheryl Crow and Trey Anastasio offered country pop and jammy fare, but co-headliners the Pixies helped usher in a bit of an indie rock movement that has lasted to this day. That year Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand, Gomez and Broken Social Scene all made their first appearances, changing slightly the tone of the fest.
The lists also make for an interesting opportunity to wonder what has happened to some bands while charting the growth of others. Spoon was not even in the top 30 bands listed on the lineup in 2005. The Austinites (most of them) were a second-tier evening band last year and certainly will be if and when they play here again. Arcade Fire, meanwhile, was listed #16 in 2005 and is now a major headliner. As for 2005 co-headliner Oasis? They are a Where Are They Now episode. And indie rockers Sleater-Kinney have gone to the band graveyard. The main headliner in 2005? Coldplay. I guess some things never change.
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ACL Festival Review: Kurt Vile and the Violators
And the award for ACL Fest Set With the Best Use of Treble goes to Philadelphia’s Kurt Vile and the Violators, who rocked three guitars, drums, an immense amount of hair and no bass. (Cue the fellow with the hair: “No Bass!”)
Vile and his band played on the Austin Ventures stage, perhaps the most underrated stage in all of ACL Fest. Smallish and easy to rock out on, the Austin Ventures stage has been home to some of the festival’s most memorable sets over the years: White Denim, Roky Erickson and St. Vincent (who should have brought her band that time, but whatever). It’s my favorite place in the park to see a band.
Perhaps appropriately, Vile and the Violators, all sporting hair worthy of Soundgarden roadies, played one of the day’s most gloriously indie rockish sets, Vile on amplified and sometimes distorted acoustic guitar, his band’s two-electric guitar interplay behind him. Opening with the mumbling, vaguely suggestive “Blackberry Song” (“Girl, you’re like a child/ your blackberries grow so wild/ pick the best ones off the bush”), the songs ramped up in energy (well, relatively; they’re a pretty heavy-lidded bunch) and distortion, with Vile switching to electric and everything getting heavier and louder. A chorus or two wouldn’t kill him, but considering that that Vile’s set was about as distorted as the weekend is going to get, the waves of noise were more than welcome.
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ACL Festival Interview: Gary Clark Jr.
Mood: As chilled out as humanly possible.
You’ve got a show tonight at Antone’s after you play the fest. That place is like home for you. Do they have a bed for you there?
It is home, definitely.
How many times would you say you’ve played there?
That’s a great question … I don’t even know how I can figure that out. When I’m in town I’m there at least two times a week playing with other people or my own shows. So two times a week since I was a freshman in high school. However many that is.
Are there other reasons why that place is so special to you?
A lot of it comes because Clifford Antone brought me in there when I was so young when he was still alive. He gave me that opportunity to play so early, and that was an amazing opportunity.
Is he still there in spirit?
Yeah, he is.
How can you tell? Do you feel him there?
I definitely do. He’ll let me know when to pull out some great, old blues song. Tell me how to steer something, and give me a little nudge.
What have you learned about performing since you’ve gotten time with Eric Clapton? Are you performing differently?
The biggest thing is how to relax. He just goes out there and does it. Not that I’m not relaxed, but it’s so second-nature for him. Seeing a guy like Clapton do it so naturally, you learn a lot from that.
Who are some contemporary artists that are inspiring you, that shaped your new record?
We were just on tour for six weeks and listened to a lot of OutKast, and Janelle Monae is another one. They’re so creative and adventurous. That sense played into the new record.
In what way? Can you talk about a song where you took some new chances?
No. (Laughs.) No one specific song, but I had a lot of new people working with me on this record and that’s never happened before. Everything else I’ve done I’ve been very … (Makes cradling, fetal motion.) … I had to let go and let more people bring in ideas.
When the new record comes out you’re going to be all over the place. What’s the thing you’re most looking forward to when it drops?
Well, I don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything about this yet because it just happened, but I’m going to be going down to Brazil with Eric Clapton to play a few dates. I just found out about that yesterday.
Did you believe it when you found out?
Nope. I was like, “put it on paper. Show me something because I don’t believe you.”
Have you ever been there before?
No. It’s going to be crazy.
Matt Reilly from KUT said he thinks your success came from hitting 10,000 hours of performing live. You might not be quite that far, but how many hours are you going get on stage this year?
Haha, that’s a great thing to hear. But yeah, it’s a lot of time. But this year? It’s going to be 200 hours, easy.
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ACL Festival Review: Delta Spirit
DELTA SPIRIT BUD LIGHT STAGE 2:30 P.M. FRIDAY
‘God bless Texas and this lovely weather,’ bellowed Delta Spirit frontman Matthew Vasquez on Friday afternoon under a cloudy sky, with the coolest afternoon breeze since early May wafting through the first-day ACL audience. ‘It’s finally cooling down.’
Not so fast there, Matthew. The weather might be more temperate, but Vasquez and his bandmates used their fish-out-of-water slot on the Bud Light stage (‘Big Boi! Kanye!,’ marveled Vasquez of the other acts on the stage bill) to heat things up to a rolling boil.
Using a crunching alt-rock approach reminiscent of REM and a few deft and unexpected flourishes (one rocker employed what sounded like a bolero melody), Delta Spirit roused a mellow crowd with a set evenly divided between songs from their first album,’Ode To Sunshine,’ their latest (‘History From Below’) and some songs from a forthcoming project.
For my money, Vasquez is one of the most compelling ACL frontmen I’ve seen since Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith a couple of years ago. Flinging his thick mop of dark hair with a theatrical flourish and flinging his own self about the stage (and flinging the occasional guitar to his guitar tech’s peril), Vasquez sang in a driving gravelly baritone that made up in power what it lacked in nuance.
But for all of Vasquez’ charisma, it was clear that drummer Brandon Young is in command of Delta Spirit’s engine room. His powerful, occasionally martial rhythms drove the band through energetic alt-rock rave-ups like ‘People C’mon’ ( which the band dedicated to the fire victims of Bastrop County’ and ‘Bushwick Blues.’ The momentum was especially forceful when Young was joined on percussion by keyboardist Kelly Winrich, who wailed away on an adjoining tympani kit on songs such as ‘White Table,’ with its tension-filled build up and cathartic release.
Closing out their set with the anthemic ‘Children,’ Vasquez announced that the band would be back for South By Southwest, with a new album in tow. ‘We can’t wait,’ he said, a sentiment certain to be echoed by the band’s ACL fans.
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ACL Festival Interview: Charles Bradley
Mood: Weary, full of love
You’ve been on the road for a while this year. How you holding up?
With the grace of God and the love I receive, I’m doing very good
What’s the high point of your day?
No question, when I get out on stage and I see the faces of the people and they’re giving me back the love I’m giving to them, that’s the high point. I’m just enjoying doing the best that I know in my heart to do.
Did you ever think these songs about your brother’s death would affect people so deeply?
My grandmother always said that truth carries a lot of power. I believe that when you speak the truth and real people are out there to hear it, it’s going to have touch them and help them with what they’re going through.
What’s the song that just knocks people over every time out?
“Heartaches and Pains,” that one and the love song, and the song “How Long?” with me asking how much longer do I have to struggle and keep going on to show you that I’m a real person.
I think people are believing it now. How does it feel for people to accept what you’re doing and enjoy it so much?
Sometimes when I get out on stage I have to keep all these feelings in me out of the sunshine, because if I didn’t I’d just break down in tears. But if I do let it go, the people see how sincere I am, and how much I mean what I’m saying up there. That makes it worthwhile.
Does it feel like church when you’re up there?
I’ll say that I believe in God, and when I’m up I’m just sharing what God has planned for me and given me.
Who are the artists that inspired you through all the years you were trying to make it as a singer?
James Brown definitely. James Brown got me through lots of segregation days and lots of heartaches and pains by listening to his lyrics. When I was on the streets, James Brown kept me going. Others were Otis Redding and Diana Ross. She came up from the projects, the absolute gutters and made it as a superstar, so I liked knowing that someone could do that. That you could make it out from the lowest of the lows. She came from the guts of the Earth and made it. That gave me hope to keep going.
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ACL Festival Review: Ray LaMontagne
RAY LAMONTAGNE AMD STAGE 4:10 P.M. FRIDAY
Ray LaMontagne took the AMD stage in the shank of a hot and humid afternoon on Friday looking like one cool customer. Outfitted in a dark vest and a riverboat gambler’s flat-crowned hat, the bearded LaMontagne looked every bit the sharp-dressed man.
Yet, for all his visual elan, he wasn’t that compelling a performer to watch, especially on a big and boisterous festival stage.
Of his talent, there’s no doubt. A former shoe factory employee, he has parlayed a sharp eye for the heart’s hidden corners into a successful and esteemed career. His new album, “God Willin & the Creek Don’t Rise,” may be his most vibrant and accomplished.
But, apart from a few shy “thank you”s, he didn’t make much effort to engage the audience. And his distinctive, breathy voice (a trifle reminiscent of the Band’s Rick Danko’s) sometimes seemed to slide off the musical arrangements provided by his band, the Pariah Dogs, rather than dominating them.
Many of not most of those arrangements were ear-friendly, warm country/folk grooves that evoked “Harvest”-era Neil Young, pursued to good effect on “For the Summer” “Jolene” and “Shelter,” not to mention a faithful rendition of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried.” Sometimes it almost got too pastoral for words.
Except, except…just when you were about to start perusing the festival program to see who else’s set to catch, LaMontagne would pull a card out of his sleeve (a gambler’s trick, so to speak) and cause the audience to do a collective double-take, as when he seized the concluding vamp of his best-known song, “Trouble,” and rode it, Van Morrison-style, surfing the groove.
Or his impassioned, feral blues-rock showcase, “Repo Man,” wherein he growled, “I’m gonna do what your daddy should have done/And put you across my knee…I ain’t gonna take you back/I ain’t your repo man.”
Or, and most especially, his roaring concluding track, “Henry Nearly Killed Me (It’s A Shame).” Behind a ferocious, bluesy Chicago-style attack and chicken-scratch guitar, LaMontagne honked and wailed on a harmonica, crouched and snarled into a handheld mic, stalked the stage and drove the song into the turf.
For a moment there, Ray LaMontagne looked, against all evidence to the contrary, dangerous. It was a vital and refreshing moment.
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ACL Festival Review: James Blake
James Blake’s music is all about the spaces in between, which doesn’t make it particularly well suited to a festival setting. Moreover, the British singer-songwriter-producer is a reticent sort of fellow, whose idea of pandering to the crowd is pretty much offering a bashful ‘Thanks ever so much!’ at the end of a number. But some of the peculiar hooks in his songs are so irresistible, and his shimmering, powerful, yet understated vocals are so arresting, that his 3 p.m. set at the Honda stage had a surprising amount of impact.
Bringing a singer-songwriter’s introspection to the somewhat abstract genre known as dubstep, Blake bares his soul while creating an air of chilly, mysterious detachment. Sitting at his keyboard, he opened ‘I Never Learnt to Share’ by singing the stark pronouncement ‘My brother and sister don’t speak to me,’ and then sampled and looped his voice so he could harmonize with himself, while a chest-rattling bassline ran under the spare contributions of his drummer and guitarist/keyboardist. Many in the exceptionally talkative crowd continued to jabber with each other even as he ratcheted up the level of angst, but when the trio let loose with a clangor of industrial noises, cheers rose up, and Blake managed to hold fans’ attention til the end of the number. The chattering soon recommenced, and I kept moving forward hoping to get away from the casual listeners, but it seemed while those with prime spots in front of the stage were generally more engaged in the performance, the ones who were talking were positively shouting in order to hear each other.
Blake prevailed again in ‘CMYK,’ working his own eerie vocal magic on top of a spooky sampled lyric from Kelis’ ‘Caught Out There,’ while the drummer promulgated danceable rhythms and a morass of sound swirled around. When he sang the opening bar of Feist’s ‘Limit to Your Love,’ the crowd let up a cry of delight, but some soon took the silences in the spare, piano-based arrangement as a lull to be filled with more conversation - sorry, I missed the location of the frat party the five guys next to me were discussing — while sound from a neighboring stage also leaked over. Blake unveiled a new song with gospel-like piano, and although some were mesmerized by his unearthly voice and the tricky melody line, he seemed aware it was a tough sell in this setting, asking at the end ‘Did that convince you to buy it? Maybe not.’
Fortunately, he had a convincing closer in the tumultuous, primal ‘Wilhelm Scream,’ and he received warm applause. Which he seemed to truly appreciate — maybe playing for chatty festival crowds is where he gets all the doubt and anxiety that make his records so intriguing.
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The Do Good Bus rolls into Zilker Park with Foster the People
Tour buses porting rock stars aren’t the only massive vehicles occupying the space in and around Zilker Park. The Do Good Bus, located just south of the main entrance, is a rolling philanthropic venture co-founded by Stephen Snedded.
The venture was born from an idea Snedden had to originally get his friends and family to get involved with volunteering. He would pick up a group of people and take them on a trip to volunteer. He’d keep the destination a secret to make sure nobody tried to bail. Snedden says the activity helped dissolve the unseen barrier so many feel when wanting to get involved with charity work.
Last year Snedden expanded on the idea, making the decision to take a bus to different cities around the country. The bus arrives in towns, picks up a few dozen volunteers who have applied online and takes them to the day’s designated charity.
Currently the Do Good bus has teamed up with emerging rock band Foster the People. The band’s drummer, Mark Pontius, is actually the brother of Do Good co-founder Rebecca Pontius. The bus is joining Foster the People on its tour from September from September 12 through October 21. The bus teams up with a local charity in each town, and the band often gives mentions of the charities on stage, giving the organizations increased visibility.
In Austin, the Do Good Bus has teamed up with the Texas Wildfire Relief Fund and the Red Cross to help raise money for victims of the Central Texas Wildfires. Additionally, ACL Festival organizers C3 Presents will be matching every dollar raised at the festival on Friday.
Snedden says he feels like the Los Angeles-based mobile philanthropic effort is picking up momentum. At the ACL Fest event, the planned activities for the day hit a bit of a snag, as the morning’s musical acts had to be postponed due to the rain. Brady Rymer and some fans did escape the elements, boarding the bus for an intimate impromptu acoustic set by the musician. Around 3 p.m., Foster the People were said to be en route to the bus where they planned to mix and mingle with fans.
Members from the JHL Company, a public affairs firm that represents the State Firemans and Fire Marshall Association, were on hand to help raise money for the Wildfire Relief Fund. JHL account associate Jaimie Lenhardt said she was “so excited to see such an outpouring of support” at the event,” adding that almost everyone in the area had been affected or knew somebody who had been affected by the fires earlier this month.
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ACL Festival Review: Ha Ha Tonka
Every now and then you’re lucky enough to catch an ACL Festival performance that becomes sublime for reasons entirely unrelated to the actual show.
A personal example would be Flogging Molly’s joyous, mudslinging, rain-embracing party amidst the downpours of ACL 2009, when the music and the weather intertwined for a show full of visceral, fun abandon.
Unlikely enough, rain played a similarly glorious role halfway through an early afternoon set from Ozark stompers Ha Ha Tonka. As lead singer Brian Roberts lead the band in a stunning a cappella take on “Hangman” — a variant of the centuries-old folk standard “The Maid Freed from the Gallows” — the sky opened up and the wind kicked in. The rest of the song unrolled against the backdrop of a badly needed shower, as the crowds at Zilker Park cheered and the band’s four members held their arms up and out to touch the rain.
“Ha Ha Tonka’s gonna make it rain!” shouted Roberts, briefly pausing before adding “That’s the first time that’s actually worked.”
It was something of a transformative moment for both crowd and band. When Ha Ha Tonka first stepped on stage they quickly launched into two of their best songs, “St. Nick On the Fourth in a Fervor” and “Caney Mountain,” both off breakout album, and first for Bloodshot Records, “Buckle in the Bible Belt.” They were solid performances but lacked the bone-shaking thump needed for those songs, songs so thunderous that they mic’d the studio floor when recording them just to capture all the stomps. There were some moments of brilliance — particularly “Westward Bound,” a highlight off this year’s life-assessing “Death of a Decade” record. Roberts has a yell that out-Caleb Followills Caleb Followill.
But whatever mojo the band lacked the rain restored. They seemed to grow more enthused, embracing the best quality — the galloping Southern energy — of their songs. Drummer Lennon Bone, who has perhaps the best drummer name currently going, began to pound, and the audience no longer needed pushing to break into rhythmic claps, particularly during finale “Usual Suspects,” a synthesis of all the best bits to be found in “Death of a Decade.”
Ha Ha Tonka’s growth — in popularity, mind you, not quality — has been gradual, organic and at times halting. I fully expected the band to explode after “Buckle in the Bible Belt” and its bevy of great singles. That didn’t quite happen, but radio — KUT are strong supporters — and other outlets seem to be catching on; their surprise appearance in Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” was a particular highlight. If the band can keep pumping out albums like “Death of a Decade” and playing shows like this, there’s reason to expect larger and larger audiences will grow hip to the band’s synthesis of singer/songwriter humanity and rock band stomp.
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ACL Festival Review: Cults
The last time I saw swoon-worthy New York pop duo Cults, they were playing an unseasonably warm mid-afternoon set at last year’s Fun Fun Fun Fest.
Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion were then surfing a wave of popularity that was only just beginning to crest. Cults was one of those 21st century musical phenomenons that have grown increasingly common — the tiny, unknown musical outfit (in their case, two friends from New York University) that throw a few songs online and then veritably explode overnight.
They released a single, “Go Outside,” backed by “Most Wanted” and “The Curse,” without much fuss on Bandcamp. A sort of lilting hipster lullaby, the song went viral — its power resembles that alien bug from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn” that burrows into Chekov’s brain and takes over his mind. It was picked up on scores of blogs, and the lack of information about the band online, combined with its then-difficult-to-Google name, only further stoked the fires of music nerd curiosity.
So the duo were relatively green when they played the Fun Fun Fun Fest, still fairly new to live shows and recent signees to Columbia Records who’d yet to release an album. It showed — the performance was loose and lacking in momentum. Follin and Oblivion seemed very much in the process of gelling with their live band, which includes Gabriel Rodriguez on guitar and other instruments, Marc Deriso on drums and Nathan Aguilar on bass guitar.
Less than a year later, though, Cults stepped onto the Honda stage — both appropriately and hilariously, to theme from “Twin Peaks — having grown almost immeasurably. A solid year of performing and living under the microscope after the release of their stellar self-titled debut has had a startling effect; Cults are now a remarkably effective unit live, wrapping pretty pop songs in a dreamlike haze of noise, that was more effective in the A.M. hours than one might expect.
Madeleine Follin kicked off the band’s lean 10-song set with single “Abducted.” You could never confuse Follin for a pristine, technical singer, but there’s a yearning and sincerity to her voice that carries songs like “Abducted,” which are heavy with heartbreak. And she has an underrated and impressive howl that was on full display on “The Curse,” alternately cooing and condemning.
All that extra road time has fashioned Cults into a much more cohesive live unit; though Follin is the clear star Deriso’s drumming has grown vastly more impactful and propulsive, and Rodriguez’s versatility — I’ve never been more appreciative of the xylophone in a live setting — makes him something of a musical jack of all trades. Even Oblivion has grown more confident as a guitar player, laying into a solid solo on set closer “Oh My God.” The band’s slower songs, like “Most Wanted,” have taken on an impressive rattle and hum live. And the speedier pop numbers, like “Bumper,” have very nearly become dance songs in the live setting.
“Is it Friday today?” Follin queried of the audience just after bringing ‘Never Heal Myself’ to a close. “Why aren’t you people at work? Or school?”
A question has rarely answered itself so easily — between an album that’s a strong contender for Record of the Summer 2011 and live chops that have developed at impressive speed, Cults probably made for one of the stronger 11 a.m.-hour sets the ACL Festival’s yet seen. Worth ditching work/class for? That’s no question at all.
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9-year-old has been to every ACL Fest
You think you know how to rock. Hah.
Nine-year-old Cash Robinson has been to every single Austin City Limits Music Festival, starting when he was 9-months-old. Cash, who says he is most looking forward to Stevie Wonder and Arcade Fire, is the subject of this week’s Raising Austin column.
Says Cash of the festival, “I like that it’s so big, and they have a ton of stuff everywhere.”
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September 13, 2011
Austin City Limits Festival announces webcast schedule
If you’re not attending this year’s ACL Fest but want to keep up at home, YouTube will stream live footage of performances on two channels throughout the weekend. Click here to view the ACL Fest channel and see the schedule of performances, which doesn’t include headliners Kanye, Stevie Wonder or the Arcade Fire but does include Coldplay and My Morning Jacket.
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September 12, 2011
No smoking at ACL
Don’t light up during the Austin City Limits Music Festival.
That’s the word from the city’s parks department, which has prohibited smoking, as well as charcoal and wood grilling, in all city parks due to extreme drought conditions. That ban, which was put in place in April 2010, includes Zilker Park, site of this weekend’s three-day ACL Fest.
City officials say recent wildfires that devastated parts of Bastrop, Spicewood and Steiner Ranch have shown just how quickly fire can spread. That, they hope, will be on the minds of festival-goers.
“We have more people who are aware,” said fire department spokeswoman Michelle DeCrane. “The awareness is very high right now.”
Park rangers will first ask people caught smoking to stop, said parks department spokesman Victor Ovalle. If they don’t, they’ll be asked to leave. Refuse to leave, and Austin police will get involved.
“At that point, officers would issue a trespassing citation,” said Lt. Todd Smith. “We hope it wouldn’t get that far.
“We just want everyone to have a good time.”
The ban is a directive from parks director Sara Hensley — not a city ordinance — which means officers can’t issue citations for smoking alone, Smith said.
Smokers with three-day passes have the option of leaving the park grounds to light up, then re-entering after passing through a security checkpoint, according to an ACL Fest spokeswoman.
Festival-goers with one-day passes can’t do that.
With signs posted around the park — inside and outside the gates — Ovalle says he doesn’t expect a problem with compliance.
“People know how bad it is right now,” he said. “It’s been all over the news.”
Cars parked on bone-dry grass are also a concern for parks officials, Ovalle said. The heat generated by a car’s underside can — and frequently does — start fires.
“The last thing anyone wants is a fire in our parks,” he said.
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September 9, 2011
Austin City Limits Festival contract with the city increases fees, adds burn ban
Update: The city now says a smoking ban will be enforced.
Not much has changed in C3 Presents’ contract with the city for the Austin City Limits Music Festival from last year, when the number of allowable tickets was bumped up to 75,000 from 65,000 in 2009. The main differences in this year’s contract are an increase in fees — $29,560 plus $1 for every ticket or three-day pass sold, up from $24,830 plus $1 for every ticket last year — and a burn ban, which according to the contract, bans the burning of solid fuels, including cigarettes.
Before all the smokers out there freak out, the city says that they’re not enforcing a ban on cigarettes, even though the contract says as much. Victor Ovalle with the parks department explains that the smoking ban is voluntary, and while the city will be posting signs outside the festival asking people not to smoke, they won’t be stopping anyone from lighting up.
C3 marketing director Lisa Hickey said that starting at the beginning of next week, the festival will be warning people about the risk of fire on email lists, social networks and press releases. “We are asking that patrons do not discard burning cigarettes on the ground and to avoid parking on grassy areas,” Hickey said in an email.
Read the entire contract here.
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September 7, 2011
ACL Fest expected to have $73 million impact on local economy
This year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival is expected to pump $73 million into the local economy, according to a study commissioned by C3 Presents, the event’s organizer.
An estimated 53 percent of the people who attend the three-day festival, which runs Sept. 16-18 at Zilker Park, are out-of-towners, according to figures from Angelou Economics, filling to capacity a number of hotels downtown and elsewhere across town.
“The ACL brand is a major contributor to international awareness of Austin as a music city,” said Jennifer Walker, director of marketing communications for the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Around 70,000 attendees are expected each day to check out a total of more than 100 performers, including Alison Krauss and Union Station, Arcade Fire, Coldplay, Kanye West, My Morning Jacket and Stevie Wonder.
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Coldplay 'ACL' taping giveaway info
Unlike the rest of the ‘ACL’ tapings taking place during next week’s music festival, the ticket giveaway for the Coldplay taping at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 15 is being handled as a joint venture with Coldplay.com. ACL has allocated 165 pairs of floor-level passes for the drawing. Sign up here before noon (CST) on Sept. 9 to win tickets.
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Ticket drawings for 'Austin City Limits' tapings open
Ticket giveaways for “Austin City Limits” tapings of performances by the Head and the Heart, the Arcade Fire, Randy Newman and Gomez are now open over at austincitylimits.org (the site appears to be overloaded at the moment, but the drawings will be open for the rest of the week). The tapings will take place next weekend at ACL Live. No word yet on a drawing for the Sept. 15 Coldplay taping. The schedule is below:
Sept. 16 - The Head and the Heart
Sept. 17 - The Arcade Fire
Sept. 19 - Gomez
Sept. 19 - Randy Newman
In other ACL weekend news, tickets are still available for many of the ACL Fest aftershows, including new additions Foster the People and Federico Aubele, as well as Delta Spirit, Twin Shadow, Manu Chao, Empire of the Sun, Bright Eyes and Iron and Wine/Jim James. The full aftershow schedule and tickets are available here.
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Win a pair of passes for all 3 days of ACL Fest
Update: Start hunting again. The first week three word is on the site.
Our ACL scavenger hunt is back for another year, and one lucky winner will walk away with a pair of passes good for all three days of the festival.
The contest runs for three weeks, beginning Aug. 22 and continuing through Sept. 11. Each week, we’ll hide three hidden code words within our stories. Once you’ve got them all, email austin360contests@statesman.com with the three words and you’ll be entered.
You can enter once each week, giving you three chances to win. We’ll announce the winner Sept. 12.
Read our complete contest rules here.
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September 6, 2011
KUT announces schedule for Austin City Limits Festival pre-show broadcast
If you weren’t planning on going to the Austin City Limits Festival or were and want to see even more music, you’re in luck. On Friday, Sept. 16, KUT will broadcast lives sets by Ha Ha Tonka, Charles Bradley, Hayes Carll and the North Mississippi All Stars from the back lawn at the Four Seasons Hotel. The show will be open to the public. Tickets, which are $10 and include a breakfast taco, will be available at the door. Proceeds will benefit the Shivers Cancer Center at Seton Hospital. People attending are welcome to bring chairs and blankets.
Performance schedule:
9am: Ha Ha Tonka
10am: Charles Bradley
11am: Hayes Carll
12pm: North Mississippi All Stars
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Meet the artist: Hudson Moore
Are you planning anything special or different for your ACL set?
My plan is really the same as always: Have fun, perform with passion and communicate the songs in the most authentic way possible. That’s really what it’s all about, just having a great time on stage and staying true to your music. What’s really special is the ACL platform itself. Just being part of this amazing festival is going to take our energy as a band into overdrive. I’m really excited to just feel the vibe from the people and give them a great show.
How will you deal with the heat?
Stay hydrated. For these hot summer shows you have to treat your body right. I’ll be drinking water on stage and saving the cold beers for later, and hopefully share one with Stevie, Kanye, or the guys from Coldplay!
What other sets are you excited to catch?
All the headlining acts are amazing, Stevie Wonder, Coldplay… I’ll be in the crowd jamming out with everyone for those. I’ve become a fan of My Morning Jacket upon the release of their new album, and I hear their live show is really great so I’m excited to see them as well. But I enjoy getting a little taste of everything from Americana to dance music, so I’ll be catching Ryan Bingham, Iron and Wine and Pretty Lights. That, to me, is the beauty of this festival. There’s something for everybody, and it’s all quality music.
What Austin must-do would you recommend to touring bands?
In town for a few days? Get some delicious grub. One of my favorite restaurants is County Line BBQ on the hills. You can eat some ribs and have a cold one as the sun is going down over the hill country — great food and great atmosphere. Or go strum on some six-strings down at vintage guitars. My favorite thing about playing in different towns is checking out their music stores. And Austin has some damn good ones!
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August 30, 2011
ACL pre/aftershow update: No Old Crow replacement; Skrillex, DFA 1979 among sellouts
With Austin City Limits Festival fast approaching, figured it was worth taking a cruise through the C3 Presents site to check on how the various pre- and aftershows are doing and see what’s still available. The good news is there are still some great shows with tickets left (seriously people, that Sept. 17 Fitz and The Tantrums/Aloe Blacc show at La Zona Rosa is going to be sick). Bad news is if you’re a procrastinating fan of Skrillex, The Head and The Heart, Smith Westerns, Death From Above 1979 or Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. then you’re out of luck because tickets for those shows are long gone.
Still no announced replacement for the Sept. 15 pre-show at Stubb’s that was supposed to be headlined by the now-inactive, possibly disbanded Old Crow Medicine Show but we’ll be back with any news on that front, should any develop. And the DFA 1979 show will be changed a little bit since scheduled opener The Vaccines scrapped two months worth of shows on Tuesday.
As for what’s still available, read on. Tickets to everything but the Stubb’s gospel brunches (which are door admission only) available through C3.
Thursday, Sept. 15
- Pretty Lights w/ Nas & Run DMT - Austin Music Hall
- Delta Spirit w/ J. Roddy Walston and the Business, Futurebirds - Emo’s Outside
- North Mississippi Allstars - Antone’s
- Sahara Smith @ Lamberts
Friday, September 16
- Twin Shadow / Cut Copy DJ set w/ Theophilus London, Diamond Rings - Emo’s Inside and Outside
- Gary Clark Jr. - Antone’s
- Manu Chao La Ventura - Stubb’s Outdoors
- Lance Herbstrong - Stubb’s Indoors
Saturday, September 17
- The Lee Boys (gospel brunch - 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.) - Stubb’s Indoors
- Empire of The Sun w/ Mayer Hawthorne & The County - Austin Music Hall
- Bright Eyes w/ Kurt Vile and The Violators - Stubb’s Outdoors
- Fitz and The Tantrums w/ Aloe Blacc & The Grand Scheme - La Zona Rosa
- Wild Beasts w/ Telekinesis - The Parish
- Phosphorescent w/ little hurricane- Stubb’s Indoors
Sunday, September 18
- Tyree Morris & Hearts of Worship (gospel brunch - 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.) - Stubb’s Indoors
- Iron & Wine and Yim Yames- Stubb’s Outdoors
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ACL Buzzmeter: Matt Reilly weighs in, and a look at Sunday's numbers
Some slight jostling this week in our ACL Buzzmeter leaderboard - Cold War Kids and Ray LaMontagne swap spots, as do Fitz and The Tantrums and The Airborne Toxic Event - but otherwise things look pretty stable. Arcade Fire pads its lead on Coldplay a little bit, and there’s a couple other clusters of acts - TV On The Radio/My Morning Jacket, Cut Copy/Santigold, Nas & Damian Marley/Young The GIant - who will probably flip-flop each other one or two more times before the festival starts in just over two weeks.
Since the Sunday single-day passes are still (as of this writing) not sold out, these numbers seemed like a decent tool to look at what’s going on with that lineup versus the other days. Not surprisingly, only five acts in the top 25 (Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, Broken Social Scene, Empire Of The Sun and The Airborne Toxic Event) are playing on Sunday, as opposed to 10 each for Friday and Saturday. And in terms of raw numbers, Sunday only accounts for 21 percent of the total fan base of the top 25, which suggests that even if Sunday boasts a great slate artistically, it’s not a lineup your garden-variety music fan is responding to in a strong way. Given that, along with temps that are almost guaranteed to be in the triple digits all weekend, it’s not a shock that tickets remain.
After the leaderboard, some thoughts on the fest and its lineup from this week’s music expert, KUT’s Matt Reilly.
- Arcade Fire 14,776
- Coldplay 12,667
- Stevie Wonder 12,472
- Kanye West 10,957
- Foster The People 10,414
- Fleet Foxes 10,051
- Iron And Wine 9,770
- Cee Lo 8,996
- Ray LaMontagne 8,691
- Cold War Kids 8,690
- My Morning Jacket 8,210
- TV On The Radio 8,124
- Bright Eyes 7,836
- Santigold 6,717
- Cut Copy 6,658
- Broken Social Scene 6,364
- Empire Of The Sun 6,328
- Nas/Damian Marley 5,993
- Young The Giant 5,931
- Fitz and the Tantrums 5,661
- The Airborne Toxic Event 5,609
- Sara Bareilles 5,419
- Big Boi 5,341
- Alison Krauss & Union Station 5,247
- Chromeo 5,218
Anything in these number surprise you?
Cold War Kids ranking higher than My Morning Jacket, that’s a surprise.
You’re probably seeing the Stevie Wonder effect there (My Morning Jacket plays opposite acknowledged headliner Stevie Wonder, causing a drag in their numbers).
True. Seeing Foster The People do so well isn’t really surprising because they’re getting good blanket coverage all over radio and have lots of blog love. Radio is also something that I think really plays into AWOLNATION (No. 30) doing so well, because for a while you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing that song (“Sail”), but they’re a band where I don’t know anything other than that one song.
I’m tempted to go see AWOLNATION purely for the sociological curiosity; Who’s into that band? What are they like?
It’s interesting, because it feels very dude-bro-ish, like you go there and could be seeing the latest generation of what had been Fred Durst fans. At work we were watching a bunch of Ratt, Cinderella and Warrant videos one day and The Cult came up. The Cult were basically a hair metal band too, but were one notch away from being a Warrant or a Ratt, so it was cool and OK to like them. AWOLNATION feels like a modern version of that with the dude-bro rock, that they’re just off enough to play a festival like ACL.
What do you make of the South By Southwest 2011 pedigree on this lineup, and how will those bands do?
First, it’s interesting to see just how many South By bands are returning. You’ve got TV On The Radio, Bright Eyes, FItz and The Tantrums, and even Kanye made a stop at South By this year. Of all those, I think Fitz could go up another notch because they’re kind of the perfect fun band for a festival like that and they just work really hard at it all the time. I also think Foster The People needs to be careful and keep working to get as many appearances in as they can all over because they could go away very easily. You need to see them follow up this run, and look at what happened to a band like MGMT as an example, where the first album was amazing, then they couldn’t really follow it up and fell off because of it.
What bands are people around the station excited about seeing?
Ha Ha Tonka is a big one, and I’d have said that even before we got them for our Four Seasons show on Friday morning. Great band who we liked a lot with their first record, and they’ve gotten even better with the second.
What Austin or Texas acts are going to make a big impression and impress a lot of new people at this year’s fest?
Gary Clark Jr. is a hot commodity right now, and that will only go up after he plays ACL. I think he reached that 10,000 hours level (author/sociologist Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that anyone who spends 10,000 hours working/practicing in a given field is nearly guaranteed success at it) by kicking around clubs for a decade and now got signed to Warner Brothers. That’s the machine that can get you into a Rolling Stone and get you those high-profile appearances. It’s hard work meeting infrastructure, and it’s great to see that happening for him.
Any time slot grudge matches?
Nothing really head to head, but there are some cases where you can do 15 minutes of someone like Foster The People, then do the 10 minute hustle to catch the end of Charles Bradley’s set. So there are a few of those, which are kind of a drag. I’m getting more OK with coming out of each day being happy if I saw two or three really good things, rather than running around trying to see everything, especially since if you do that you’re dead by Saturday afternoon. I’d rather kind of stay in one spot. I’m not a chair and flag person yet, but I’m getting closer.
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The Vaccines cancel slew of shows including ACL appearances
Grungey, British rockers the Vaccines have canceled all shows for the next two months due to vocalist Justin X’s ongoing problems with his throat.
“Unfortunately, the Doctor has now confirmed that, this week, he will be operating on my throat for a third time this year,” the singer wrote on the band’s Web site today.
“We understand any anger or upset,” he continued, “but we hope you all understand that we are completely devastated by this problem that has continued to plague us personally and professionally during the best year of our lives.”
The Vaccines were scheduled to appear at ACL Fest at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 18. The band was also slotted to open for Death From Above 1979 at a sold out ACL aftershow Saturday night at Emo’s.
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August 29, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: Young the Giant
From:Irvine, Calif.
In 30 words or so: Well-scrubbed rock that might be branded alternative if mainstream rock was a thing that existed anymore. Either charmed or confused many watching the MTV Video Music Awards by being a rock band.
Could fit on a bill with:the Killers, Kings of Leon
You might not know:: They started when some of the members were in high school back in 2004.
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August 25, 2011
Meet the ACL artist: Lennon Bone of Ha Ha Tonka
Are you planning anything special or different for your ACL set?
We’ve been trying our best to work in as much of the newest material as possible, so I would expect that you’ll hear a set pretty heavily weighted with tunes from our new record, “Death of a Decade”. Other than that, we’re all so excited to be playing ACL that I’m sure it’ll be a pretty high energy performance. Nothing too out of the ordinary, just trying to do what we do and hope people like it!
How will you deal with the heat?
Lots of water is key, but we’re not terribly worried about the heat. Kansas City has been in the 100s for the past few weeks, so we’ve already been thinning out our blood. Let’s just say there won’t be any bowing out of a performances due to a case of swamp ass. I’m just sayin’.
What other sets are you excited to catch?
Where to begin? Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, J. Roddy Walston and the Business, Coldplay… there’s too many to list! I’m hoping to catch a few bands I’ve never heard of. Festivals are the perfect chance to discover new music.
What Austin must-do would you recommend to touring bands?
Austin is amazing. So much to do. You have to hit Waterloo which is one of, if not the best record stores in the country. After a long night of drinking, take a dip in Barton Springs the next morning and I promise it will wipe away any hangover.
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August 23, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: Kurt Vile and the Violators
From:Philadelphia, Penn.
In 60 words or so: Enigmatic popcraft from an oddly underrated singer-songwriter. His music has moved from a sort of eclectic, somewhat kitchen-sinkish anti-fi aesthetic to something more crystalline, forward-moving and delicate.
Could fit on a bill with: Neil Young, Sebadoh, Iron and Wine, Ted Leo, Smog
You might not know: as Wikipedia puts it, Not to be confused with Kurt Weill or Curt Vile. I would have also added Ewan McGregor character from this movie, but it turns out his name was “Curt Wild”
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ACL Fest turns 10, throws a free bash
(2002 AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
On Thursday, September 8, ACL Festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary by offering Austinites an opportunity to take in a few bands, redeem wristbands early and sample the insane, overwhelming heat we will all experience a week later at the fest. And something about munchies and movies.
The shindig takes place downtown at Republic Square Park from 6 to 10 p.m. Local artists Barton Hills Choir, Fresh Millions and Cowboy and Indian will provide tunes and the Alamo Drafthouse’s Rolling Roadshow will be on hand to screen best of the fest nostalgia videos.
For a more low-key, thoroughly air-conditioned trip down nostalgia lane, check out Michael Corcoran’s ACL Fest history.
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Meet the ACL artist: James Blake
(Kelly West AMERICAN-STATESMAN)Are you planning anything special or different for your ACL set?
Yeah we’re adding a couple of new songs to the set this month. It has been really fun to play tracks from my previous EP’s and dance floor orientated tracks in general, so I think the sets in the future are going to reflect that.
How will you deal with the heat?
I’ve done a few weeks of climate training sticking my head in an oven.
What other sets are you excited to catch?
I’d love to see Randy Newman. I find him fascinating.
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ACL Fest student ticket sale on Friday, Sept. 2
(Ralph Barrera AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
As in years past ACL Fest is releasing a handful of the long sold-out 3-day passes to valid I.D. carrying students. The sale will take place at the H-E-B Plus at 2508 Riverside Drive on Friday, September 2. 3-day passes will be available for $185, cash only. Sunday tickets (which are still available online) will also be available for $90 and a limited amount of aftershow tickets will also be on sale. No word yet on when ticket sales will start, but they tend to sell out fast, and in past years the students who walked with wristbands were the ones who got in line early. Very, very early.
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August 22, 2011
Meet the ACL band: Kate Cooper of An Horse
Are you planning anything special or different for your ACL set?
This is our first ACL. I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. I would like to say we were going to BBQ on stage or something awesome like that (I get pretty hungry when I play) but I think we will just do the usual which is project light and happiness and make magic.
How will you deal with the heat?
Damon and I are originally from Brisbane, Australia, which has very similar heat to Austin except it has a more tropical, I-am-dying-in-the-jungle vibe. I dealt with this by moving to Toronto and revealing in the -30c during December. I love ringing my friends in December only to have them tell me they can’t hear me over the crashing of the waves and the seagulls. Damon moved to Melbourne. However because we spent our youth practicing life in the heat, we are very good at it. Damon will definitely take his bikini to Austin.
What other sets are you excited to catch?
The lineup is amazing. I am going to make sure I catch Wanda Jackson. If I do that I will feel like I have succeeded at Austin City Limits. I would also love to see the Walkman. That band is amazing. Damon and I spent many days listening to their records in the record store we worked in. Neither Damon and I have ever seen Arcade Fire so no doubt we will do our best to catch them, too.
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ACL Buzzmeter: Andy Langer <3s Stevie!
Are people jumping off of Coldplay’s bandwagon? Hard to say, but in what I’m pretty sure is a Buzzmeter first, the chart-topping U.K. band actually lost a few hundred fans in our rankings compared to last week. No idea if this was a glitch - no other act lost votes this week, calculated using the personal schedule function over at the ACL Fest website - or if a whole mass of people decided they’d rather go see Kanye West at the same time or turn in early on a Friday night. In any case, they’re still No. 2 in our weekly rankings, though the gap separating them from Saturday headliner Stevie Wonder has now narrowed considerably.
One other minor bit of news; country singer Brandi Carlile has been tapped to fill the Friday afternoon slot vacated by Old Crow Medicine Show earlier this month. More on that situation here.
This week’s Buzzmeter expert Andy Langer - who’s been to more festivals than all your Deadhead cousins combined - after a look at the leaderboard.
- Arcade Fire 13,956
- Coldplay 12,002
- Stevie Wonder 11,761
- Kanye West 10,415
- Foster The People 9,708
- Fleet Foxes 9,518
- Iron And Wine 9,234
- Cee Lo 8,547
- Cold War Kids 8,245
- Ray LaMontagne 8,192
- My Morning Jacket 7,766
- TV On The Radio 7,698
- Bright Eyes 7,418
- Santigold 6,367
- Cut Copy 6,254
- Broken Social Scene 6,012
- Empire Of The Sun 5,962
- Nas/Damian Marley 5,648
- Young The Giant 5,476
- The Airborne Toxic Event 5,273
- Fitz and the Tantrums 5,244
- Sara Bareilles 5,162
- Big Boi 5,044
- Alison Krauss & Union Station 4,946
- Chromeo 4,930
Any thoughts on why there are still single day tickets left for Sunday?
There are people toward the top of that day who, at best, are La Zona Rosa or Stubb’s-sized acts, and we’ve had multiple chances recently to see people like Fleet Foxes, Ryan Bingham and Manu Chao. Plus, there are people all over who don’t believe Arcade Fire are truly a headlining-level band despite holding 70,000 people at Bonnaroo for two hours just a couple of months ago.
The way this festival has been advertised, Stevie Wonder is really your headliner, so it must have been a scheduling situation that kept him from getting that Sunday night spot when he’s not playing against anyone else. But I still think Sunday will sell out, there’s still plenty of time.
There are a lot of bands who were hot during this year’s South By Southwest who aren’t high in these rankings. Any idea why that is?
South By has a different directive than a consumer-driven festival like ACL, so that’s one thing. People were really excited to see an act like James Blake or Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., those bands were playing in small packed rooms and they were hot because people wanted to be the ones that saw them first. It’s not like a festival in a park, which is a much more casual proposition. Still, Fitz and The Tantrums, and The Head and The Heart will play to huge crowds at ACL. Those are the two acts who are definitely “bigger” than they were slotted and Fitz especially it seems has been slotted to have a big day because all they’re really playing against is Skrillex, who they have nothing in common with.
What’s your biggest grudge match scheduling conflict?
Definitely Stevie Wonder versus My Morning Jacket. If My Morning Jacket was playing against anyone else they’d be the band I go see, but Stevie Wonder is an absolute unequivocal can’t miss, and I’d say that no matter who he was against. I saw him at Bonnaroo (last year) and it’s the single best festival set I’ve ever seen, and that’s including every ACL, six Lollapaloozas and seven Bonnaroos. He needs to be seen, period.
The other one is Kanye versus Coldplay. I think Coldplay are a competent and consistent, entertaining band and you’ll get exactly what you expect from them. But at the same time I don’t know anyone who’s frenzied to see them. But Kanye at a festival brings a nature of unpredictability, artistry and potential for something truly memorable.
You were there for his famous Bonnaroo meltdown in 2008, right?
Yes, but he seems to have evolved since then into a reliable performer, and think he’s more reliable at this point than Cee Lo, who was late and had all sorts of problems at Lollapalooza. Right now Kanye’s a better performer than Eminem and not quite as good as Jay-Z, so you’re getting arguably the second-best mainstream hip-hop show out there right now.
Anyone you think will really surprise people this year?
Aloe Blacc is definitely a sleeper. He’s got a huge hit in the U.K. on a two year old record, and he’s the kind of performer where people who had no idea who he was coming into the festival are going to walk away as big fans on Saturday.
The other one is the fact that at Lollapalooza the big success was everything in the Perry (Farrell) dance tent, and a lot of that dance stuff is figuring heavily here this year with acts like Skrillex, Pretty Lights, Santigold, Chromeo and Empire Of The Sun figuring very high in these rankings. It shows more of a younger component than maybe you’d normally think of for ACL and it’ll be interesting to see how big that whole dance scene becomes as a part of this festival.
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August 21, 2011
Brandi Carlile, Electric Touch fill Old Crow Medicine Show's ACL Fest spot
Austin City Limits Festival organizers have patched the early afternoon hole in their opening-day Sept. 16 schedule (caused by the abrupt hiatus of roots band Old Crow Medicine Show) by shuffling country songwriter Brandi Carlile from her Austin Ventures Stage appearance later in the day into the 2:10 p.m. spot on the larger AMD Stage. Austin indie rock band Electric Touch have been added to the lineup and will take Carlile’s 3:45 p.m. spot at Austin Ventures.
Check the whole schedule here.
Still up in the air is the fate of what had been a kickoff side/after party with Old Crow Medicine Show on Sept. 15 at Stubb’s. Keep an eye on the club’s listings here or just check back with the Music Source on the regular, since staying on top of this stuff is what we do.
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August 18, 2011
Big Boi to play the Mohawk during ACL Fest
(Larry Kolvoord AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
ATL rapper Big Boi, formerly of OutKast, is turning into a usual suspect on the ATX club scene. With at least 3 local appearances under his belt since first swinging through the East Side Drive-In to support his excellent solo debut last December, he’ll be supplementing his Friday afternoon ACL appearance with an aftershow at the Mohawk on September 16. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m., presumably through Front Gate Tickets. I predict both a sell out and a wild party. Sir Lucious is a consummate performer and, as we all know, dude goes hard.
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August 15, 2011
ACL Buzzmeter: Ray Seggern goes through the numbers
You’ve already heard our piece when it comes to judging the buzziness of this year’s ACL Fest lineup. Foster The People continues to be this year’s big buzz band (more on them in a bit), Kanye West would probably blow multiple gaskets if he knew he were No. 4 on this list (even if No. 3 is the untouchable Stevie Wonder) the numbers below suggests interest is healthy in all of the festival’s many genres and not just the Americana/songwriter stuff the fest was founded on.
So it’s time for some new insight into the numbers and this year’s lineup. Our first expert invitee is longtime Austin radio host Ray Seggern, whose Sunday morning “Chillville” down-tempo indie and electronica show on 101X was the first place in town that lots of folks got to hear some of the more promising bands playing Zilker Park this year. Seggern’s thoughts on various segments of the fest, after this week’s leaderboard, compiled based on the number of people who have “added” a band to their personal schedule on the ACL Fest Web site.
- Arcade Fire 13,378
- Coldplay 12,475
- Stevie Wonder 11,256
- Kanye West 9,986
- Foster The People 9,142
- Fleet Foxes 9,104
- Iron And Wine 8,829
- Cee Lo 8,220
- Cold War Kids 7,882
- Ray LaMontagne 7,770
- My Morning Jacket 7,439
- TV On The Radio 7,361
- Bright Eyes 7,097
- Santigold 6,063
- Cut Copy 5,941
- Broken Social Scene 5,740
- Empire Of The Sun 5,634
- Nas/Damian Marley 5,413
- Young The Giant 5,131
- The Airborne Toxic Event 4,996
- Fitz and the Tantrums 4,940
- Sara Bareilles 4,939
- Big Boi 4,831
- Alison Krauss & Union Station 4,761
- Chromeo 4,679
Music Source: Did you see Foster The People getting this big?
Ray Seggern: It’s sorta crazy how big they’ve become behind that one song, but from Day One it was clear that’d be a big hit. But if I am being honest—not to hate or anything—but it’s more about the song for me than the band at this point.
Who are some Chillville artists on this bill that you’re excited to see in a festival setting?
I have been a fan of Elbow for awhile and am looking forward to seeing them for the first time. My dream set list would include more older material than what I am seeing in their recent shows at setlist.fm. Still, I’m excited about seeing them. Chromeo does well for us on the radio show, and I’m looking forward to catching them live for the first time as well. Pretty Lights is certainly a Chillville staple. They stole my heart at SXSW 2010 at La Zona Rosa and it will be fun to see how well they translate in the larger Zilker setting (although honestly, I am more excited about the AMH afterparty on 9/15)
Can you explain to me the tremendous popularity of Empire Of The Sun? Seems like that came out of nowhere.
I’ll always remember that the CD showed up in the same package as the last Pet Shop Boys CD in late 09. That was a smart move on EMI’s part, because the band’s are similar sonically. So they’ll always be linked in my mind in that regard. I also remember they got some choice TV and ad placement for the song “We Are The People” (Jamie Lynn Sigler pimped it up on Entourage, and they were everywhere for a minute in that Vizio commercial). Their live shows, I believe, also fuel the fire. Although I’ve never seen them in person, there’s no shortage of footage online and it suggests that this will be a good fit for the big stage at ACL.
Here at Austin360 we think this is one of the strongest lineups ACL has ever had. What’s your impression of the three days?
I am all about the Sunday lineup…it really surprises me there are still tickets available. This may be the nicest slice of ACL action ever (for me anyway): Broken Social Scene into Joseph Arthur into Elbow into Gomez into Fleet Foxes into Empire Of The Sun into The Arcade Fire. I hope to also find time Sunday to get twangy with Ryan Bingham and Hayes Carll, at least a bit, along the way.
What’s your biggest time slot grudge match/scheduling conflict?
I’d be grimacing at Social D and Hayes against Empire if I hadn’t already seen them both in the last year. I really wish Gomez and Fleet Foxes weren’t overlapping…but I’ll make do.
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August 10, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: Empire Of The Sun
From: Australia, kinda. The duo floats around a lot and are rarely even together, so this is a muddled question.
Mathematically speaking: ((Sleepy Jackson frontman Luke Steele + Pnau honcho Nick Littlemore) + costume castoffs from a shuttered stage production of “The Neverending Story” or “Labyrinth”) x lots of keyboards and effects boxes = Empire Of The Sun
Actually speaking: After meeting through common management friends a decade ago, Steele and Littlemore started actively working on songs together in 2006, coming up with a type pf synth-pop that envelopes listeners like a fog and has a more other-worldly/extraterrestrial vibe than what you’ll get from contemporaries in the genre like MGMT, Cut Copy or Yeasayer. After a sort-of hiatus/breakup that was later attributed to Littlemore’s globetrotting, the pair have started work on the followup to 2008’s “Walking On A Dream.”
Could fit on a bill with: Erasure, Ghostland Observatory, MGMT, The Cure, New Order
Why they’re playing late on Sunday: A stage show heavy on lighting, costumes and other effects - there’s a reason why Littlemore was commissioned to write music for Cirque de Soleil - has made Empire Of The Sun a big-time festival draw all over the world despite its thin songbook, or the fact that Littlemore has rarely ever accompanied Steele on the road. He’s said he’s on board for their fall U.S. tour, though, so expect an even bigger spectacle on the Zilker stage as a warm-up for Arcade Fire to close out the weekend.
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August 9, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: TV on the Radio
From:New York City
In 60 words or so: America’s answer to Radiohead (yeah, I said it) delivered their fourth studio album in April, but their strongest work might be on-stage where, if the mix is good, they can be a eye-poping live act, with prog rock, dance-punk and soul blending into a blipping, bubbling sound-stew. (See also the amazing version of “Young Liars” above — turn it up loud for best effect.)
Could fit on a bill with: Wilco, Radiohead, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Shabazz Palaces,
You might not know: The band lost bassist Gerard Smith to lung cancer less than two weeks after the album was released. Oddly, TVOTR multi-instrumentalist David Sitek is the new bass player in Jane’s Addiction. The two events are unrelated.
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August 8, 2011
ACL Buzzmeter: It's official - Big Boi parties better than everyone
We’re going hodge-podge/potluck style on this week’s Buzzmeter, partly because the week didn’t have a ton of schedule traction - if an act grew by 5 percent this week that was good enough to keep pace - but mostly because acts playing ACL Festival in a scant five weeks found themselves in the news a bunch over the weekend.
But first, a look at the top 25;
- Arcade Fire 12,880
- Coldplay 11,074
- Stevie Wonder 10,847
- Kanye West 9,608
- Fleet Foxes 8,777
- Foster The People 8,696
- Iron And Wine 8,489
- Cee Lo 7,952
- Cold War Kids 7,570
- Ray LaMontagne 7,465
- My Morning Jacket 7,163
- TV On The Radio ,7061
- Bright Eyes 6,825
- Santigold 5,812
- Cut Copy 5,685
- Broken Social Scene 5,508
- Empire Of The Sun 5,406
- Nas/Damian Marley 5,210
- Young The Giant 4,838
- Sara Bareilles 4,799
- The Airborne Toxic Event 4,788
- Fitz and the Tantrums 4,706
- Big Boi 4,660
- Alison Krauss & Union Station 4,560
- Chromeo 4,476
Not much movement with the leaders, save for some down low shuffling between Sarah Bareilles, The Airborne Toxic Event and Young The Giant, whose 6.5 percent growth was one of the largest this week. Up higher, Foster The People keep their lofty position that was in large part a result of a contest last week by ACL Fest organizer C3 Presents that offered free passes to the fest to new schedule users who added the buzz band to their schedule. Shrewd move, since FTP was a big hit during a recent visit here and the band’s got a great sound and vibe for their early Friday evening set. No other huge jumps this week, but we’ll keep an eye out for any other similarly inflated one-week numbers.
As of this writing the C3 folks were still in Chicago from the weekend’s Lollapalooza festivities (another one of their efforts), so we didn’t have much luck getting any further info on the apparent dissolution of roots band Old Crow Medicine Show, who were sitting at No. 26 in our rankings, a strong total for an early afternoon Friday band. Not a whole lot going on at that 2:10 - 3:10 p.m. slot, so at least 4,300 fans are going to be wandering, depending on who C3 slots into that opening. Keep an eye on the Music Source for more info on that.
Another thing we learned over the weekend; Big Boi does not mess around when he plans on partying. I mean, wow, that’s some serious supply. And not your garden-variety hip hop weekend either. That selection of MDMA, Viagra and Ecstasy suggest the OutKast alum had an, ahem, specific goal in mind when he set out and raided something akin to a tackle box beforehand. On a serious note, we’re all hoping this little matter gets cleared up legally so Mr. Patton can make his way here for what’s sure to be a killer performance. And as for the after parties… there won’t be a better one in this town all year.
Lastly, Kanye West is still very very disturbed.
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Old Crow Medicine Show goes on hiatus
According to a message posted on their website, the Nashville-based Americana group has decided to go on hiatus: “Old Crow Medicine Show is on hiatus as we seek health and wellness over the coming months. Thank you for your continued love and support.”
OCMS was scheduled to appear at the Austin City Limits Festival and an aftershow with Hayes Carll at Stubb’s on Sept. 16.
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August 7, 2011
Lollapalooza expands to Brazil, Big Boi lands in jail
C3 promoted Lollapalooza, which is currently wrapping its 20th anniversary festival in Chicago, will launch a sister festival in Brazil in 2012. Building on the success of its 2011 South American debut in Chile, Lollapalooza will revisit Santiago from March 31-April 1 of next year, followed by an inaugural appearance in Sao Paulo on April 7-8. More on that here and here.
In barely related news, Altanta artist Big Boi, who is scheduled to appear at our very own C-3 promoted festival— Austin City Limits— next month, was arrested in Miami today. The OutKast rapper a.k.a. Antwan Patton was charged with illegal possession of Viagra and Ecstasy pills, MDMA powder and paraphernalia and intent to use. Here’s hoping Sir Lucious Leftfoot sorts out his legal troubles in time to hit the stage at Zilker Park.
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August 4, 2011
ACL Artist of the Day: Alexander
From: Los Angeles
In exactly 89 words: Alexander is the performance and real name of Alex Ebert, who’s been banging around the indie world for close to a decade now. After leading the dance punks and difficult haircuts in Ima Robot in the early part of the ’00s, Ebert stormed back last year with the boho dropout-folk group Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, whose hit single “Home” was a great bit of melodic magic. “Alexander” feels and sounds like ES&MZ if the commune packed up the tents and left him a “Dear Alex…” letter.
Could fit on a bill with: post-“Sea Change” Beck, Josh Ritter, Calexico
One more thing: While Ebert’s solo profile is considerably lower right now than it was last year - when he was constantly being referred to as “Edward Sharpe” - remixes by Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA and placements in film and TV (“Truth” made it into the season premiere of “Breaking Bad”) should bring him a sizable crowd by the time ACL Fest rolls around next month.
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August 1, 2011
ACL Buzzmeter - Foster The People surge ahead, lead the "silent majority"
(John Pesina FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)We/I called it last week when the first edition of this year’s Buzzmeter made the prediction that Foster The People would burst onto the scene at this years Austin City Limits Festival. That was after our first reading of the festival’s online scheduling tool (and the total number of fans who had added the band to their personal schedule) put the Los Angeles band at No. 13 and on the heels of festival vets like Bright Eyes and TV on The Radio.
A week later and, wow, FTP tallies more than 2,700 new fans for a 49 percent gain and a seven-spot jump in the rankings to No. 6 overall. More on that jump after a look at this week’s leaderboard;
- Arcade Fire 12,300
- Coldplay 10,628
- Stevie Wonder 10,356
- Kanye West 9,121
- Fleet Foxes 8,395
- Foster The People 8,210
- Iron And Wine 8,119
- Cee Lo 7,627
- Cold War Kids 7,204
- Ray LaMontagne 7,128
- My Morning Jacket 6,851
- TV On The Radio 6,738
- Bright Eyes 6,538
- Santigold 5,562
- Cut Copy 5,424
- Broken Social Scene 5,246
- Empire Of The Sun 5,136
- Nas/Damian Marley 4,969
- Sara Bareilles 4,640
- The Airborne Toxic Event 4,543
- Young The Giant 4,541
- Fitz and the Tantrums 4,468
- Big Boi 4,420
- Alison Krauss & Union Station 4,376
- Chromeo 4,264
If that jump isn’t the biggest once-week move since I started tracking festival buzz in 2009, it’s certainly close to it and we’re nearing the point where you lump them with bands like Vampire Weekend and Phoenix, who hit ACL fest (in 2008 and 2009, respectively) during the swell or crest of their first big wave of popularity. An interesting note about FTP is their inclusion in a loose fraternity that Onion AV Club writer Steven Hyden this week termed “silent majority rock” that he said are…
distinguished by their lack of press coverage and blog buzz—two indicators typically used to determine the reach and status of “cool” groups—and stealth ubiquity on the radio. Mumford & Sons is the defining band of silent-majority rock; Airborne Toxic Event and Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeroes also belong in this unfashionable but lucrative category. If you get your music news exclusively from Pitchfork and Stereogum, you’d have no idea these groups even existed. (That’s not so much true for Mumford at this point, but that group was already huge before major music publications started paying attention.) The latest example of silent-majority rock is Foster The People’s “Pumped Up Kicks,” which has been a major radio hit this summer.
We kind of nosed around that point last week, calling Foster The People an eerily perfect festival band, to the point where it seems like they’ve been engineered in a lab for this type of outing. And Hyden’s point about Edward Sharpe (last year’s Buzzmeter rookies of the year), The Airborne Toxic Event and Mumford & Sons is spot in, to the extent that Mumford absence on this year’s lineup seems kind of glaring. Just spitballing here, but swap M&S with a tier-two headliner like My Morning Jacket and there’s a decent chance they’ve got more fans at this point in our rankings. That band is huge right now with casual music fans who couldn’t even name three music blogs, let alone tell you what bands those outlets have been pimping of late.
Other Buzzmeter heavies that deserve consideration for “silent majority” status: Cold War Kids (started as blog faves, graduated to 6th St. dude-bro rock), Young The Giant and Fitz and The Tantrums, the latter two of which each moved up two spots this week for the only other gains in this week’s survey. So basically the only festival bands that have any buzz right now are the ones who are pretty much being ignored or treated with casual disdain by the people whose job it is to cover music in the first place. There’s a certain sick poetry in that, and perhaps a little insight into why both industries (music and journalism) are in such a bad way right now.
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July 26, 2011
ACL Buzzmeter - Arcade Fire earns their top billing; and picking the newcomers
Seven weeks. That’s how long we’ve got between now and the 10th anniversary of Austin City Limits Festival. And with the schedule grids out for a few weeks now ticketholders have had a reasonable amount of time to make their custom schedule on the fest’s Web site.
Using the numbers of schedule “adds” for each band is what lets us embark on another yearly tradition, the ACL Buzzmeter, where we do a weekly rundown of what acts are proving to be the biggest draws are on this year’s schedule.
With all of that explication out of the way, here’s this year’s early leader board.
- Arcade Fire 10,797
- Coldplay 9,413
- Stevie Wonder 9,209
- Kanye West 8,183
- Fleet Foxes 7,411
- Iron And Wine 7,138
- Cee Lo 6,861
- Cold War Kids 6,569
- Ray LaMontagne 6,236
- My Morning Jacket 6,118
- TV On The Radio 5,897
- Bright Eyes 5,734
- Foster The People 5,504
- Santigold 4,884
- Cut Copy 4,705
- Broken Social Scene 4,565
- Empire Of The Sun 4,465
- Nas/Damian Marley 4,441
- Sara Bareilles 4,163
- The Airborne Toxic Event 3,959
- Big Boi 3,940
- Alison Krauss & Union Station 3,917
- Young The Giant 3,858
- Fitz and the Tantrums 3,801
- Chromeo 3,776
Not much surprise up top, with recent Grammy winners and Sunday night headliners Arcade Fire pulling a healthy lead over Friday co-headliners Coldplay, followed by Saturday co-headliner Stevie Wonder, Friday co-headliner and frequent Austin visitor Kanye West, and Fleet Foxes setting the table for Arcade Fire with a 6:30 p.m. Sunday spot on the Bud Light Stage.
Arcade Fire’s lead is no doubt helped by having no across-the-park act to compete for eyes and ears - Sunday night headliners traditionally get the spot to themselves - but a lead of more than 1,300 people suggests they’d have the top spot all to themselves even if there were someone else of a respectable caliber playing at the same time. In other years the top three or four acts have usually been bunched up within a couple hundred fans so it’ll be interesting to see how their interest holds, especially since Sunday is the only day with single-day tickets still available (as of this writing, anyway).
One of the more enjoyable parts of this exercise is trying to pick out which newer acts will charge toward the front of the pack and draw a “How’d that happen?”-sized crowd. Last year it was The Black Keys and Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros capitalizing on, respectively, years of road dogging and solid albums, and a once-in-a-career single and feel-good boho vibes.
This year, the smart money is on Foster The People (No. 13), Young The Giant (No. 23) and (possibly) Fitz and The Tantrums (No. 24) . With a bouncy single (“Pumped Up Kicks”) that just won’t go away and an album full of more of the same whenever it does, FTP is basically your perfect festival band; carefree, sing-along fun that can pretty much only be dampened if the mid-September temps reach the triple digits. (Side note: please God, no.) With only 600 fans separating them from a spot in the top 10, they’re officially a band to keep an eye on.
Young The Giant is one of those bands that’s seemingly been on every blog and in every magazine for months and has probably opened for a major act in this market in the last six months, but I couldn’t name or hum one of their songs if either my life or a million dollar lottery ticket depended on it. That’ll change as the fest gets closer, but for now based on buzz alone, we’re IDing them as a possible top 20 band.
As for Fitz, something in the wind feels like that band’s wave crested just a little bit after this year’s South By Southwest Festival, and that most people are already hip to the uber-fun funk and R&B they’re bringing to the party. The No. 24 spot they’re in right now feels just about right and they’ll have to hold off newcomers Skrillex (No. 29) and Pretty Lights (No. 27) and familiar names Chromeo (No. 25), Old Crow Medicine Show (No. 26) and Social Distortion (No. 28) to keep that standing.
In the curiosities department, we have Sara Bareilles (No. 19 and an early favorite for this year’s Pete Yorn Honorary “People Still Listen To Them?” Award), Empire Of The Sun (No. 17 - I’m totally stumped and open to theories) and The Airborne Toxic Event (No. 20), who have worked the system like a gang of pre-housing crisis investment bankers and leveraged one hit single from 2008 (and a new album that’s done not much of anything) into a ludicrously big fan total for a band playing at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. Outliers or aberrations? Check back next week when we’ll be a little closer to figuring all that out.
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ACL Fest announces after-show lineup
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Thurdsay — online only at www.C3Concerts.com. (Update: If you’re an email subscriber to C3 Concerts, there’s a pre-sale on Wednesday.)
Thursday, September 15
Pretty Lights
w/ Nas & Special Guest Run DMT
Austin Music Hall
Old Crow Medicine Show
w/ Hayes Carll
Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
Delta Spirit
w/ J. Roddy Walston and the Business and Futurebirds
Emo’s (Outside)
North Mississippi Allstars
Antone’s
Friday, September 16
Manu Chao La Ventura
Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
Skrillex
w/ Chiddy Bang
La Zona Rosa
Ages 16+
Twin Shadow / Cut Copy DJ Set
w/ Theophilus London and Diamond Rings
Emo’s (Inside and Outside)
Smith Westerns and Cults
The Parish
Gary Clark Jr.
Antone’s
Lance Herbstrong
Stubb’s Indoors
Saturday, September 17
Empire of The Sun
w/ Mayer Hawthorne & The County
Austin Music Hall
Bright Eyes
w/ Kurt Vile and The Violators
Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
Fitz and The Tantrums
w/ Aloe Blacc & The Grand Scheme
La Zona Rosa
Death From Above 1979
w/ The Vaccines
Emo’s (Outside)
The Head and The Heart
w/ The Moondoggles
Antone’s
Wild Beasts
w/ Telekinesis
The Parish
Phosphorescent
w/ little hurricane
Stubb’s Indoors
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
w/ Yellow Ostrich
Lamberts
Ages 21+
Sunday, September 18
Gospel Brunch:
The Lee Boys
Stubb’s Indoors
11 am and 1 pm seatings
Call 512-480-8341 for reservations
Iron & Wine and Yim Yames
Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
Gospel Brunch:
Tyree Morris & Hearts of Worship
Stubb’s Indoors
11 am and 1 pm seatings
Call 512-480-8341 for reservations
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July 21, 2011
ACL Artist of the Day: Courtney Jaye
From: pretty much everywhere. Born in Pittsburgh, Jaye has called Alpharetta, GA, Flagstaff, AZ and Hawaii’s Kauai island home, that is when she hasn’t been kicking around in music/showbiz meccas like Los Angeles, Nashville and Austin.
In 50 words or fewer: Lab quality-distilled, radio-ready female country-pop music, chased with bits of local influence (particularly that of Hawaii) from the many places where Jaye has dropped her suitcase through the years.
Could share a bill with: KT Tunstall, Jewel, Sheryl Crow, Colbie Caillat
Before she makes it to Austin: Jaye, an independent artist, has to raise $10,000 to pay for gas, food and lodging for she and her four band members, as well as a rehearsal space in Nashville. To reach that goal, she’s launched a Kickstarter campaign - with an endearingly goofy street busking performance - that lets benevolent music fans throw a few nickels her way.
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July 20, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: Theophilus London
From: Brooklyn, NY
In 50 words or less: A savvy rhyme slinger and who drops verses over everything from breezy, accessible pop to cavernous, euro-cool electro beats. With hipster-friendly grooves and dapper duds, dude seems sprung from the pages of the latest issue of Fader. In the best possible way.
Could share a bill with: Kid Sister, A-Trak, Kid Cudi, Miike Snow
Nice kicks: Known for his razor sharp urban fashion sense as well as his music it’s no surprise that Theophilus London was able to compile a list of his 25 all-time top sneakers for Complex Magazine.
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July 19, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: Kanye West
From: Chicago, Ill.
In 50 words or fewer: You might recall Mr. West from such singles as “Jesus Walks” and “Golddigger,” amazing productions for everyone from Jay-Z to Snoop Dogg, last year’s planet-busting album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” freaking out Taylor Swift and generally being one of popular culture’s prime movers since about 2003 or so.
Could share a bill with: anyone he likes at this point.
You might not know (oh, you probably know) that: The last time Kanye stopped in Austin, he almost had a riot on his hands, such was the excitement at the Seaholm Power Plant. See above.
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July 18, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: Randy Newman
From:Los Angeles, Calif.
In 50 words or fewer:One of the great songwriters of his generation, Newman has a POV like nobody else, embodying the conflict of the deeply cynical cornball. He eviscerates with a line (the still-astonishing “Sail Away”) and he has written some moving, detailed songs (“I Think it’s Going to Rain Today”) — it’s often hard to tell the difference.
Could share a bill with: Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, but there’s really nobody else quite like him.
Most people don’t know that: He often conducts phone interviews while stretched out on the floor, so bad is his back.
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July 15, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: Phosphorescent
From: Brooklyn
In 50 words or fewer: Country-influenced indie rocker Matthew Houck gained national attention a few years back with “To Willie,” an album of Willie Nelson covers. Last year he returned with a pretty great followup record, “Here’s to Taking It Easy,” which took ideas from its predecessor to the next level.
Could share a bill with: Wilco, Okkervil River, Deer Tick, Fleet Foxes
He’s got his own album to do: The last time Houck stopped in Austin, he explained that Ron Wood’s first solo record was a big influence on his latest album.
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July 14, 2011
ACL Artist of the Day: Aloe Blacc
From: Los Angeles
In 50 words or fewer: With a voice that shifts effortlessly from a gritty baritone to a velvet croon, a fierce lyrical sincerity and a world weary scope of vision that belies his 32 years, Blacc’s second solo release “Good Things” establishes him as a solid leader in the new-school vintage soul movement.
Could share a bill with: Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Raphael Saadiq, John Legend, Talib Kweli
‘Mr. Frugal’: Coined a ‘recession-era artist,’ occasional emcee Blacc shuns the braggadocio that dominates mainstream rap music. He doesn’t wear jewelry, exults his second-hand purchases and considers ‘Good Things’ an indictment of social injustice in modern capitalist America. They love him in Europe.
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July 13, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: Skrillex
From: Los Angeles
In 50 words or fewer: Born Sonny Moore, the former singer of post-hardcore band From First To Last who had to give up that gig because of vocal strain. Moore then grabbed a laptop, did a crash course in dubstep techno music and before you know it he’s playing major festivals and a half dozen shows at South By Southwest.
Could share a bill with: deadmau5, Burial (if he ever played in public), Innerpartysystem.
Tantalizing tidbit: The latest edition to Moore’s long list of collaborators is alt-metal band Korn. In other news, Korn is still a band.
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July 12, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: Wanda Jackson
From:Oklahoma City, Olka.
In 50 words or fewer: Born in 1937, Jackson was rockabilly’s first female star. Her hit “Fujiyama Mama” was downright scandalous back in ‘57. (“And when I start erupting/ Ain’t nobody gonna make me stop!”) She released an album recorded with Jack White earlier this year.
Could share a bill with…White Stripes, Stray Cats, anyone who plays at the Continental Club, ever.
Tantalizing tidbit:She dated Elvis. That’s gangsta.
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Chat live with our music writers on the ACL grids at 1 p.m.
Join us today at 1 p.m. for a chat with Joe Gross, Peter Mongillo and Sharon Chapman to talk about the ACL grids that were released this morning.
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ACL Fest releases schedule grids
Update: Join a live chat with music writers Peter Mongillo and Joe Gross, and editor Sharon Chapman about the grids.
Stevie or My Morning Jacket? Kanye or Coldplay? These are some of the choices music fans will make at this year’s Austin City Limits Festival, which released its schedule of performance times at 10 a.m. today (the lineup was out in May). Though the grid isn’t going to make or break the Sept. 16-18 festival — if that were the case, it wouldn’t sell out every year before the lineup is even released — it will trigger some hard choices for festival attendees hoping to see sets by bands scheduled to perform at the same time. Some early impressions:
Odd headliner out. Unlike Kanye West and Coldplay, who are not as likely to have as many overlapping fans, My Morning Jacket probably will lose a lot of traffic to Stevie Wonder on Saturday at the fest. By most accounts, Wonder is still a great performer, and unlike My Morning Jacket, which has made a name for itself performing epic festival sets at Bonnaroo, he doesn’t tour. People who want to see both acts — and there are going to be many considering MMJ’s brand of heavily R&B influenced rock — are going to pass on Jim James and company knowing that they will most likely be able to catch them at Stubb’s or ACL Live in the future. (The list of ACL Fest after-shows is expected to be announced in two or three weeks.)
Most likely to be camped out: All day at the Bud Light Stage on Sunday, which begins with British garage rockers the Vaccines, followed by L.A. epic-rock band Airborne Toxic Event, Canadian collective Broken Social Scene, Fleet Foxes and headliner Arcade Fire.
Early sets for big names. The past two times Austin-based Iron and Wine performed at ACL, they played at night. This time around, they’re at 4 p.m. Saturday. Popular indie rockers the Walkmen have a 2:30 p.m. set on Sunday. Big Boi, Twin Shadow, James Blake and Alison Krauss also play in the heat of the day.
Ladies’ choice. As in, fans will have to choose among Wanda Jackson, Patrice Pike and Gillian Welch, all scheduled at the same time, as are Santigold, Sara Bareilles and Mavis Staples.
See the full grid schedule for Friday, Saturday and Sunday or at aclfestival.com, where you also can buy the only tickets left, single-day passes for Sunday.
We’ll have a live chat about the grids, the fest and anything else (music-related) at 1 p.m. today.
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July 11, 2011
ACL Band of the Day: the Cave Singers
From: Seattle, Wash.
In 50 words or fewer: Moving, melodic folk rock from three guys who come from far punkier outfits such as Pretty Girls Make Graves and Hint Hint. They seem one good song placement on, say, “Grey’s Anatomy” away from getting big. (The video is from their first album, “Invitation Songs,” from 2007.)
Could share a bill with… Shearwater, The Tallest Man on Earth, Bon Iver, Iron and Wine, James Taylor.
Tantalizing tidbit: the band put in a wonderful set at SXSW.
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May 19, 2011
Manu Chao, Kurt Vile added to ACL lineup
Manu Chao enters the lineup right below Arcade Fire on Sunday, perhaps in an effort to sell whatever remains of one-day passes for that day. Indie rocker Kurt Vile and the Violators will play on Friday. Three-day passes and one-day passes for Friday and Saturday have already sold out.
MORE ACL FEST
- Wonderous lineup for ACL Festival
- The best ‘gets’ of 2011 ACL Fest
- With lineup out, ACL Festival tickets nearly sold out
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May 18, 2011
Beware of counterfeit ACL tickets!
A former employee of ACL Fest/ Frontgate Tickets posted a comment on the Music Source blog. It’s worth reading. Some highlights:
“Do NOT buy an ACL ticket from a third party that you do not know! I can’t tell you how many people I witness just break down and cry because the ticket they purchased from someone on Craigslist was counterfeit!!! The scammers use the “sold out desperation” that makes some people lose their common sense! Tickets can be counterfeited! Most common are the “Print Pass” tickets! The way this works is someone buys a legitimate Print Pass ticket and makes hundreds of photocopies! First person (usually the purchaser) who gets to the Festival and gets the bar code scanned gets in!…after that, any ticket scanned with the same bar code is out of luck! … Second typical counterfeit ticket is a real looking ticket (with hologram!) that has popped up in recent years! These are well done counterfeit tickets (not as many as the Print Pass…but still out there!) …DO NOT BUY A TICKET FROM CRAIGSLIST OR A RANDOM DUDE ON THE STREET CORNER!!!! …There usually are a lot of legitimate tickets for sell out there! Just use your common sense! Buy from a friend or someone you can get in touch with (make sure there is some sort of working phone, address, email, that you can use to get in touch with the person in case something funny occurs…
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Our take: 360 writers discuss the ACL lineup
The Austin American-Statesman’s team of music writers sat down with DJ LA Lloyd to discuss this year’s ACL lineup on the hour starting at 9:15 a.m. on austin360radio.com yesterday. You can listen to each of the interviews here.
Michael Corcoran leads off the discussion talking about the lineup. Listen
Joe Gross discusses the Indie Rock bands on the lineup with Arcade Fire headlining. Listen
Chad Swiatecki discusses Arcade Fire moving through the ranks with previous appearances in Austin. Listen
Peter Mongillo discusses seeing Arcade Fire recently as The Backyard. Listen
Michael Corcoran talks about reader’s comments on Stevie Wonder playing event. Listen
Everyone in the group discusses if ACL Fest is the Premiere outdoor festival in the U.S. Listen
Everyone in the group discusses if one day of ACL Fest is stronger than other two days. Listen
Everyone discusses if there is one thing fans can always expect at an ACL Fest. Listen
Everyone discusses what bands they thought almost made the list but didn’t. Listen
MORE ACL FEST
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Resellers have plenty of ACL tickets
Big-name acts such as Arcade Fire, Coldplay, Kanye West and Stevie Wonder have fans clamoring for passes to the Austin City Limits Music Festival.
Zilker Park can hold around 75,000 people each day, but that’s still not enough room to accommodate everyone who wants to attend. This year’s lineup was announced Tuesday, and within minutes fans were hitting the Web and contacting resellers to buy and sell tickets to the fest, which runs Sept. 16-18.
Passes for Sunday — when performers include Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes and Broken Social Scene — were all that remained early Wednesday at aclfestival.com, the festival’s official website.
“They always go pretty quick,” said Amy Carpenter with Austin-based Ticket City. “We’re seeing big demand for three-day passes and Friday passes in particular.”
Supply varies day by day, Carpenter says, with tickets selling almost as soon as they arrive.
On Craigslist, more than 200 people were offering to buy and sell passes at prices two times face value — or more. Three-day tickets that initially sold for $165 and $185 were priced as high $400, while one-day passes for Friday and Saturday that sold hours earlier for $90 were being offered to buyers for up to $200.
Demand should remain steady right up to the start of the festival, according to Carpenter.
“There are a few types of buyers,” she said. “There are people who know they’re going to go every single year and want tickets right away, and there are those who want to wait until a little closer to the fest to consider the lineup and see what the weather’s like.”
MORE ACL FEST
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May 17, 2011
Saturday ACL sells out as well
Is ACL Fest underpriced? It would seem so, according to the law of supply and demand. First, three-day passes at $185 each sold out in an hour last month. Today, single day tickets to Friday Sept. 16 sold out in two hours at $90 each. And Saturday also just sold out, at about the three and a half hour mark.
There are still tickets available for Sunday Sept. 18, headlined by Arcade Fire, but everything else sold out- that’s 75,000 per day - in under six hours total.
The early price from scalpers is in the $400- $500 range for three-day passes, though some can be found cheaper on Craigslist.
Here’s a question: Would you pay $215 (the price of Lollapalooza) for a three-day pass to ACL Fest, with this lineup? That question may not be hypothetical next year, though promoters C3 are more likely to go for slighter increases, like $195 for three-days and $95 for single day.
At any rate, it’s ridiculous just how fast these tickets have been snapped up.
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Friday ACL sells out in two hours, Saturday close
The Friday Sept. 16 opening day of ACL Fest, co-headlined by Kanye West and Coldplay, sold out in just over two hours today when single day tix went on sale. The Saturday, featuring Stevie Wonder, is expected to sell out any minute, according to C3 Presents.
Last year’s single day tickets took a little more than a week to sell out Friday and Saturday. While the Eagles-capping Sunday of 2010 took about a month. There are still tickets left for Sunday Sept. 18, with Arcade Fire closing out the entire fest. There is still a Sunday top tier slot to fill- and no it won’t be Radiohead,
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May 16, 2011
The Head and the Heart confirms ACL on Facebook
One of the standout acts at SXSW is coming back to Austin six months later. Here’s the confirmation.
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May 3, 2011
ACL Festival e-list presale tickets are gone
The headline pretty much says it all. If you slept in or your brain took a Rip Van Winkle, you likely missed the brief window of $185 3-day passes to ACL Fest. The passes, offered to subscribers of the ACL Fest’s e-list, went on sale at 10 a.m. and sold out in less than two hours.
Don’t believe us? Check out the Frontgate site, where the bad news is there in black and white (and some shade of yellow).
Single day tickets go on sale May 17.
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February 15, 2011
Panic, Buffalo Springfield, The Black Keys to play Bonnaroo
The lineup for Bonnaroo is out, and it’s packed with some heavy hitters. The festival, which takes place in Manchester, Tennessee from June 9-12, will play host to Buffalo Springfield, Arcade Fire, Eminem, Widespread Panic, the Strokes and My Morning Jacket, among others.
Austin acts on the bill include Explosions in the Sky, Iron and Wine, The Sword, The Black Angels, Ryan Bingham and Hayes Carll.
Austin City Limits doesn’t take place until the end of the summer, but it’s always fun to guess which of the bands on the summer festival circuit will show up here in September. Eminem is rumored to be headlining Lollapalooza, but he doesn’t seem like as much of a sure thing as Buffalo Springfield. MMJ, Arcade Fire, Iron and Wine and the Decemberists have all played to big crowds here too, so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see one or more of those groups again.
Which Bonnaroo acts do you want to see at ACL?
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October 20, 2010
ACL Festival 2011 early bird passes sold out
Well, that was quick.
Apparently too many folks weren’t dissuaded by the prospect of buying Austin City Limits Music Festival 2011 tickets blind, because the $165 early bird three-day passes sold out in fewer than 45 minutes this morning. That quick sell-out left many disappointed fans in its wake — the festival’s official Facebook page is littered with complaints from would-be buyers who ran into difficulty with Front Gate Tickets’ virtual line system. Whether your experience with buying tickets ran smoothly, difficultly or not at all, pop into the comments and let us know.
The next round of tickets won’t go on sale until next spring, after the lineup is released. The 2011 ACL Festival — its 10th anniversary year — runs from September 16-18.
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October 19, 2010
ACL Festival 2011 tickets on sale Wednesday
A public service announcement for anyone who hasn’t yet checked their e-mail: the first round of early-bird tickets for the 2011 Austin City Limits Music Festival will go on sale tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. If you’re subscribed to the festival’s E-List you should have received an e-mail by now containing a user name and password to buy the early bird passes, which cost $165. A small number of $50 “souvenir” tickets sold out quickly last week — seemingly as speedily as they were made available.
As with last year, there will be a limited number of the the early-bird three-day passes on sale. Once they sell out, it will be your last chance to pick up tickets until Spring 2011, when the regular three-day passes go on sale following the lineup’s release. For those who decide to pick up tickets tomorrow, pop into the comments and let us know how your experience is.
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October 12, 2010
Why it makes sense to move ACL back to September
It was recently announced that next year’s ACL Fest will be held Sept. 16- 18 and many fans who endured the brutal heat of ACLs past are wondering what the three Charlies are smoking. October rocked.
But during the years of September heat, ACL Fest still sold out. The dust storm of 2005 didn’t hurt ticket sales for 2006. Even after last year’s mucky dance with the Dillo Dirt, ACL Fest sold out three months in advance. It doesn’t matter what happens the year before, the combination of Zilker Park, Charles Attal’s booking savvy, C3’s determination to over-deliver on customer service and a general good vibe will keep folks coming back year after year. Oh, and the kicked-up food court.
But the key word is “attrition,” which is a way of saying that fans are coming and going all day long- arriving late Friday, leaving early Sunday and the like. Attrition was a key provision in Section 7. C of the 2010 contract between the city of Austin and C3 Presents to use Zilker Park which stipulates “daily public redeemed ticket attendance is estimated to be 65,000 persons at one time based on attrition of attendees compared to ticket sales. Therefore the maximum ticket/ admission issuance for this venue is limited to no more than 75,000 persons per day. In addition there is expected that are no more than 5,000 (staff, sponsors, musicians, volunteers) per day.”
How ‘bout it folks, did it seem like their were more than 65,000 people in Zilker Park at about 7 p.m. Saturday? Attrition didn’t happen.
Last year’s maximun number of ticket sales was 65,000 paid and 5,000 on the guest list.
In an interview Saturday with Charlie Jones of C3, he denied than an additional 10,000 tickets were sold and said the new language was drawn up to more accurately reflect the actual number of people coming through the park. He declined to say if any extra tickets were sold because, “we don’t discuss our business in public.” Jones said the rate of attrition was determined through company research that determined the amount of time three-day wristband wearers actually spent in the park.
But such research was never done after three days of perfect weather because that was an ACL Fest first this year.
Charlies Jones, Attal and Walker hope for great weather every year; no one was more devastated by last year’s mud bowl than these three. They want to put on the greatest music festival in the world and in many ways have succeeded. Austin has never looked lovelier than in the background at dusk when your favorite band is onstage.
But in a strange way, the promoters do better when the conditions are too much for many who bought tickets. It’s less crowded for everyone else and they can sell more tickets the next year, Based on attrition.
And let’s not forget, after last year’s thunderstorms and mud, ACL is only one for two when it comes to October dates.
[(Note: since C3 never books the fest when there’s a Longhorns home game due to hotel availability, the available dates this year were Sept. 16- 18 (at UCLA), Sept. 24-25 (bye week) and Oct. 1 (at Iowa State). Of those three options, Sept. 16- 18 is the worst, so there must be a band they’re hot for that’s only available then.]
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October 11, 2010
ACL 2011 has a date
The Austin City Limits Music Festival will move back a couple of weeks and return to its mid-September origins in its tenth anniversary year in 2011, taking place from September 16-18, according to the festival’s official website.
As Chad Swiatecki mentioned last month, the first round of early-bird tickets will go on sale October 20. Subscribers with an E-List profile on the ACL website who verify their profile by 11:59 p.m. tonight will receive an e-mail with information on how to get first crack at the tickets.
Update 1:45 p.m. The festival has announced further details in an e-mail sent out to subscribers. A very limited number of “souvenir” tickets — priced at $50 — will go on sale sometime this week. Details will be announced via the festival’s tickets page, as well as its Facebook and Twitter feeds. $165 early bird tickets, meanwhile, will go on sale at 10 a.m. Wednesday, October 20. E-mail subscribers will receive a unique password to buy tickets on October 19.
ACL 2010
» SUNDAY: PERFORMER PHOTOS |
A-LIST PHOTOS |
REVIEWS, SCENE REPORTS
» SATURDAY: PERFORMER PHOTOS |
A-LIST PHOTOS |
REVIEWS, SCENE REPORTS
» FRIDAY: PERFORMER PHOTOS |
A-LIST PHOTOS |
REVIEWS, SCENE REPORTS
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