ACL Festival 2011 - Day 3 Punt

Punting after the watching the game

I started out Sunday by heading down to the Tavern to watch the game. Unfortunately, my Ravens laid an egg this week. A huge let down, after last week's drubbing of the Steelers.

I had planned on arriving to ACL late in the afternoon, and had only really wanted to see Fleet Foxes, and Randy Newman. However, I was not in the best of moods after the game. I had also woken up the past two mornings and was extremely congested, after inhaling a huge amount of ragweed pollen during the previous two days, at Zilker.

So, I decided to head home, missing the opportunity to sweat, worsen my blisters, pay exorbitant amounts for parking, food, and drinks, and infect my sinuses. I can watch Fleet Foxes on the webcast, and won't get to see Randy Newman, but it doesn't seem like much of a loss.

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Some Observations about the ACL Festival after 5 years

• Zilker Park is too small for the Festival in my opinion. During the past two years, C3 has upped the number of tickets they sell. It was impossible to maneuver around or through the Stevie Wonder crowd last night. There are other bottle necks, that make it difficult to move around between the AMD and Honda stages. (This is a real bummer).
  

  I can only hope that they consider changing the location in the future. Perhaps out to the Formula 1 track.
  

• I really detest the Cattle Chutes that they set up to funnel the foot traffic to and from the shuttles. At times, it seems like some sort of weird Pavlovian experiment, where they're trying to see what we'll put up with.
  

• A small number of the food vendors are down right criminal in their pricing. There was one stand in particular, where as I was waiting in line, everyone returning from the counter was audibly complaining (rightfully so), because of the amount of food.
  

  Well, I left the line when I saw what they were talking about.
  

• The Porta-Potty situation is disgusting. I count my blessings that I'm a guy.
  

• The trains! We wasted a shit-load of tax money on these things, why the hell are they not running during ACL and SxSW?
  

ACL Festival 2011 - Day 2

Sleeping In

I don't remember ever having a hard time sleeping after a day of ACL. Knowing that feeling of exhaustion after 5 straight years, it leads me to wonder, Who the hell goes to the After-parties?

So, I got late Saturday morning, not leaving home until 1PM, and finally arriving on the ACL grounds around 2:20PM or so.

City and Colour

Having seen Dallas Green at St. David's during SxSW, I was anxious to see him again. City and Colour didn't disappoint, delivering a great performance to an attentive crowd.

Abigail Washburn

I then headed over to the Vista Equity Pavilion to catch Abigain Washburn. Mrs. Fleck, the reigning Queen of the Banjo, delivered an outstanding set of music. While she played, a gentle rain was falling outside of the pavilion.

Gillian Welch

I stayed put at the pavilion, in order to catch Gillian Welch. Since I only have one degree of separation with her, through Pat Pattison, it seemed like it was time to see her play.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band

After catching a bite to eat, I hung out for some more Cajun cooking. The Preservation Hall Jazz band delivered a raucous set of New Orleans' music.

TV on the Radio

Leaving the Preservation Hall band a little early, I worked my way over to the Google+. Although not being familiar with TV on the Radio, I was pretty quickly drawn in. This is a band I will have to check out more from, and I will be looking for them to be on tour.

Stevie Wonder

I almost feel like this is false advertising. I didn't actually see Stevie Wonder perform, it was more like I happened to be on the grounds, while he was on stage.

Leaving the TV on the Radio set a little early, I attempted to slide up front, attacking from the Porta-Potties on the right side, like I did last year with Ron and Alissa for the Eagles. It seemed that everyone else was on to that trick, and even getting there early, did not help.

In fact, this show was most crowded I have ever seen this stage during an ACL. Realizing that my first plan would not pay dividends, I started working my way back out, with the intention of cutting out 3/4ths of the way through Stevie's set, so I wouldn't have to wait too long for the shuttles.

Even this did not work as planned. I ended up much further from stage than anticipated. Fairly far from the stage at this point, the crowd was still thick, and it was difficult enough just to see the large video screens on either side of the stage. When Stevie finally did come out, for some reason they had the PA very low, and it was almost impossible to hear. I'm scratching my head on this one, because it was capable of delivering more volume.

I attempted to listen to the first three songs, which were actually difficult to hear or discern, until i had had enough. I left early, got right on the shuttle, and drove home.