Three days. Five stages. Six bloody marys. 130 bands. 70,000 hipsters. Countless pork products. Yes, it's going to take some time to process my magical experience at the 2011 Austin City Limits festival this past weekend.
Rock Turtleneck (seen here taking in the Mavis Staples show in the Gospel Tent) will be recapping ACL over the next week or so but in the meantime, here is what business school grads would call an Executive Summary of what I learned:
• Many of the best sets were by people I’d only vaguely heard of before I got there: Seattle-bred country spitfire Brandi Carlisle; Elbow, from Manchester – like Peter Gabriel with a sense of humour; and J Roddy Watson and the Business, who provided the ideal musical bed on which to play hacky sack with hipsters in skin tight blue and green body suits (long story).
• Nonviolence is best achieved not through Buddhism or Pacifism but through free water bottle refills courtesy of Camelbak.
• Coldplay sucks. Admit it - in your heart, you've always known it. Their headlining set was boring and their top billing exposed them as poseurs to the Important Band crown. They are musical Brylcreem: a little dab'll do ya. If Gwyneth Paltrow was at ACL, she’s probably already left her Coldplay-fronting husband for J Roddy.
• Stevie Wonder, who looks, sounds and acts almost exactly like he did 30 years ago (he said he's lost some weight), gave the Festival’s best performance (that I saw anyway).
As the truly amazing clip below shows, Stevie is also the only person on Earth who can look like a badass playing the Keytar. His playing alone justifies the ludicrous invention.
All other Keytar players should bring their Keytars to the nearest Keytar redistribution center, where they will be immediately redistributed to Stevie.
Plans are already underway for ACL 2012, which will happen in October this time. I found the festival incredibly well organized and the concertgoers to be a fine bunch of upstanding citizens. If you are interested in live music, Tex-Mex cuisine, margaritas, BBQ, swimming holes, and people watching, you should book your flight now.
Way to TCB, ACL.
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