ACL FEST 2007

Gravel-voiced Dylan wraps ACL

2007 fest marked by cancellations and fire still provided some great music

It was an Austin City Limits Music Festival right out of a Bob Dylan song.

Jay Janner
AMERICAN-STATESMAN

(enlarge photo)

Bob Dylan performs at the Austin City Limits Music Festival on Sunday Sept. 16, 2007.

ACL MULTIMEDIA

• Photos: 1 | 2 | 3
• The A-List: 1 | 2 | Paste party
• Reader pics | Share yours
• Video: Scenes from Zilker on day 3 | Day 3 wrap | Day 2 intro | Day 2 wrap | The M.O. recaps day 1 | Welcome to ACL 2007
• Live clips: Bloc Party | Lucinda Williams | STS9 | Robert Earl Keen | Arctic Monkeys | Blue October | Blonde Redhead | Spoon | Gotan Project | LCD Soundsystem | M.I.A.
| More video
• SoundCheck: Austin at ACL playlist

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REVIEWS

Bob Dylan | GLO | The Decemberists | Wilco | Billy Joe Shaver | Lucinda Williams | Common | Muse | Arcade Fire | Clap Your Hands Say Yeah | Björk | The Killers | M.I.A. | QOTSA | LCD Soundsystem | More reviews

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ACL FEATURES

• It's a wrap
• After fire, show goes on | Video | Photos
• Back at the studio...
• Destination: Festival
• Sound and Jury contest winner | Photos
• For Austin's under-20 Steps, long strides
• The National: An overnight sensation since 1999
• ACL meets ASL
• Fans, faith keep Shaver onstage after shooting
• Sharing the language of Dylan
• Hot Freaks and more: ACL after-shows
• ACL Festival: A look back
• ACL style: ACL veterans, I need help
• Björk: Independence is precious
• White Stripes cancel, Muse takes slot
• LCD Soundsystem's live charge
• Raul Malo's supper club jazz
• 'Supermoon' orbits the world
• He's with Dylan
• Going green for the fest
• A Dylan primer
• Full coverage

It was a circus with eight rings (or stages), tens of thousands of colorful fans and a couple of mysterious, mythical sideshows.

There were the mighty bands who never arrived (White Stripes, Amy Winehouse, Rodrigo y Gabriela). There was the exploding recreational vehicle and the trucks that went with it. And then there was Dylan himself, the living bridge between the old, weird America and the iPod age.

A dark sea of listeners swarmed the AT&T stage in Zilker Park on Sunday as Bob Dylan opened his set with "Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35." Right away, crowds pushed forward because there were no zoom shots on the big screens, just static group pictures, while the band sounded muddy from a distance.

Nevertheless, a gravel-voiced Dylan, dressed in black and topped with a cowboy hat, sang "everybody must get stoned" to a delirious response.

Earlier in the day, rock-ribbed Dylan fans raced to secure the best spots by the stage as soon as the gates opened. One pregnant woman wore a T-shirt that read "Baby's First Dylan Show." Still, plenty of people poured out of the park only 30 minutes into the set, as they often do during the festival's final acts, trying to beat the outgoing traffic.

Audiences — officially estimated at 65,000 each day — hid their disappointment about the big-name no-shows by massing around the stages for headliners such as Muse, Björk and Arcade Fire.

"Arcade!" chanted half the crowd Saturday, and the other half added "Fi-ya!" With six enormous neon pipe cleaners dividing the 10 or 11 players onstage (it was hard to get an accurate count because there were so many arms flailing all at once), Montreal's majestic, rhythmic collective hypnotized the audience but were equally as biting, as on the bleak song dedicated to "Gov. George Bush."

Despite relatively clement highs in the low 90s, heat remained a much-sweated topic for the sixth edition of the festival.

"Sure, it was hot," said Sarah Banks of Seattle. "But I just got back from Granada, Spain, where it got up to 122. I tell you, the air-conditioned toilet (in the VIP area) was a godsend."

Increased environmental sensitivity, well-tended turf and widespread availability of drinking water, along with the usual carnival eats and drinks, helped lower personal temperatures at the festival this year. That, and production planning has grown more sophisticated with each iteration.

Chris Conley of Fort Worth has been to ACL Fest the past four years and says the organization improves every year.

"The fire on Friday was a drag, but the response was impressive," said the military veteran, who has first-response training. "The cooperation by the crowd and the swiftness of the organization prevented a bigger tragedy."

Still no official word on the cause of the RV fire — which sent an ominous plume of smoke over the park, but all four of the service employees who were injured have been released from the hospital.

Austin/Travis County EMS spokesman Warren Hassinger said that more than 300

festivalgoers were treated over the weekend, mostly for minor problems related to heat, but fewer people (18) were taken to the hospital than last year.

Conley liked the expanded "no chairs" zone this year. "It just makes for a better overall flow. We could get around from stage to stage a lot easier."

Donna and Jeffrey West, who've been coming from Maryland for ACL Fest the past four years, were mildly disappointed that the "no chairs beyond this point" signs were set back more than 50 feet from last year's boundary. They came early Sunday and set up about 100 yards from the AMD stage.

"I think they've got it backwards," Donna West said. "It should be chairs in the front and standing in the back." Jeffrey West added that, despite the setback, they'll bring their chairs again next year: "It's still our favorite festival. We just wish we were a little closer."

Material from staff writers Joe Gross, Michael Corcoran, Patrick George and Matthew Odam.