Sunday, September 16, 2007

Day 2 of ACL Fest

Today was a lot of fun at ACL, even if we didn't head out to until a little later today.

Let me start by saying: I have never text meassaged so much in my life as I did today. Keeping up with people at ACL would be a night mare if not for the magic of the text message.

The first show we got to was Steven Marley. I'm not too much into the reggae, but Steven made a good call and played as much of his dad's stuff as he played of his own. We ran into Heather Wagner and her brother, and despite the fact I've known Heather for what seems to be forever, met her dad for the first time.

We packed up and I headed over to the Austin Ventures stage on my lonesome where I saw the last half of Butch Walker and the Let's Go Out Tonite's. Butch has a terrific amount of energy, and while his music itself wasn't totally crazy, he was having enough fun on stage, that it was sort of infectious.

After that I hung out and found the middle-aged crowd at ACL Fest joining me for Kelly Willis. I'm getting old and I've lived in Austin and with KGSR long enough that I figured I should go check her out. While certainly much more mellow than virtually any other act at ACL, she put on a great set, and I'd certainly consider seeing her again.

I then sought out Team Crack under the Crack flag (which I had previously been accused of losing pieces of the flag pole. I take exception to my blame, but, really, there is no one else to blame. So, hell... looks like I lost part of the flag pole). They were supposed to be on the right of the stage during Arctic Monkeys, so I caught the end of their set while looking for the flag. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah played a nearby stage, so I caught part of them while STILL looking.

I ran into former co-worker Chris Chimera and, pretty much simultaneously, Shannon Kahaelin (sp?) an old friend of Jason's from middle and high school.

Anyhoo, I did find Team Crack before Arcade Fire.

Despite Jim's warnings, Arcade Fire @#$%ing rocked. Serious. That was a kick ass show. The audience was very into it, and the band was amazingly entertaining.

Anyhow, I'll see them whenever they come in the future.

While we were leaving the park, I had a really weird panic attack/ claustrophobic attack like I haven't had in, like, a decade. We passed out the gate and people were walking in all different directions, and, suddenly, I kinda thought I was going to throw up. It was really weird. I felt fine right up until that moment, but I abruptly had the feeling I didn't want to move, and recall thinking "I can never do this again" as I saw Jason (who was walking slightly ahead of me) getting further away.

I suppose I bucked up and kept moving, and once we were with a crowd all walking the same direction, I was perfectly okay again. Sort of weird, but, hey.. at least I know it could happen again tomorrow, so I'll be ready for it.

I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

4 comments:

Michael Corley said...

I can get disdainful of Austin at times. Primarily saying things like, "Sure, it's great if you like drinking and live music". It's nice to be reminded that live music is, indeed, a good reason to be a place.

Anonymous said...

I think it may have been the venue and acoustics in Asheville that made the AF sound lousy, and when the band realized that early in the show, they lost some of their momentum and interest in the show. I can't imagine something like that happening at ACL. I'm glad it rocked.

Were there any big songs they did not play?

Anonymous said...

On my drive home from the in-laws, an XM channel replayed the Arcade Fire set, and I caught the tail end of it. I'm doubly jealous that you got to go.

Anonymous said...

Cahalan. Although your Gaelic spelling is nice also.