I had been checking the Weather Channel app on my phone
frequently. Rain had been coming in the form of scattered showers throughout
the day Saturday, but the sight of the radar Sunday morning made me smile. The
green line of rain showers were moving off to the east and leaving nothing but
blue skies behind. This was a welcome sight as I prepared to spend the day in
Zilker Park in downtown Austin for the Austin City Limits Live festival.
ACL
Live is an annual three-day event here and I had a pass for Sunday. It was a
good day to be going. My favorite band, the Old 97’s, were playing there, and
the rest of the lineup was impressive including Gary Clark Jr., the Avett
Brothers, the Civil Wars, Iggy and the Stooges and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
My supervisor Lindsay had hooked me up with
the pass and I was excited about going. I also had a tag for the parking lot by
our offices, but I showed up early to make sure I got a spot. As it turns out I
was probably over-anxious as the lot was almost empty. I grabbed breakfast and
a coffee and hung out downtown for a while until it was time to meet up with
Lindsay (she had the writstband) and Isabel, a co-worker who had won her pass
in a merit-based drawing at work (she’d done the most work so she had the most
tickets in the drawing).
It was
an easy walk over to the park, and even easier getting in. There was no
gridlock. The entrance area was spacious and had plenty of tables for bag
checks (I wasn’t carrying one so I was waved right through) and then plenty of
stations for scanning wristbands so we were inside quickly.
Stages
were spread throughout the vast park. The massive Bud Light stage, where the
headliners were playing was at the end of a vast stretch on the far side of the
park. Two of the other larger ones were by our entrance, with several smaller
ones around the park’s center. Most of the acts we wanted to see that day were
playing at those two larger stages by our entrance, so we found a good spot in
the middle of the park and plopped down for a while on a shower curtain liner
Lindsay had brought to keep the dirt and mud off us (there were still some
swampy areas after the rains Saturday). There were virtually no clouds in the
sky and the temperatures were in the mid-80s, which made for a warm but very
nice day to be outside. After a trip to
the beverage tent and a round of sunscreen, we settled in.
I was
quickly impressed with how well the festival was put together. There were vast
open spaces, making it easy to make the walks from one stage to another, yet
there were plenty of portable restrooms (I only had to wait a few minutes) and plenty
of tents selling drinks and food. Despite being one of over 70,000 people at
the festival that day, I never had a line of more than five people in front of
me for anything. They also had plenty of trash can recycling bins throughout
the park and even had volunteers walking around collecting aluminum cans and
other trash so the place never got too cluttered.
The timing of the acts was impressive too, and
it ran like clockwork. Just as one act was ending, another was starting on a
stage nearby and the timing and angles of the stages made it so you never felt
sandwiched between the sound coming from two different places. Each band had
the crowd’s attention.
We
arrived around 1:30 pm so we were just in time for Gary Clark, Jr., a rock-blues
guitarist who seemed energized by the large crowd and sounded terrific. Things
were off to a good start. After his set we decided to grab a bite to eat, which
presented the first challenge. In a sea of humanity like that with no
designated seats it can be almost impossible to find your friends if you got
separated. Cell phones helped but trying to use them to navigate through a
large crowd proved tricky. For instance, saying you were next to the guys in
cargo shorts and tank tops would only narrow the field down to about 35,000.
Saying you were by the group sneaking hits off a joint only did marginally
better.
To paraphrase Eddie Izzard, we conquered this
problem through the clever use of flags.
Recognizing
this issue beforehand, hundreds of people had arrived at the park bearing flags
or other decorations on long poles they either carried or had attached to their
backpacks. These ran the gamut from traditional country flags or sports team
flags to the more creative (the Canadian flag with the maple leaf replaced by a
marijuana leaf was a personal favorite) such as loudly colored feathered boas,
stuffed animals and windsocks. These came in handy not only for them as their
group could scan the skies to locate their friends, but served as points of
reference for us and led to some wonderful texts between Lindsay, Isabel and
myself when trying to meet up after separating:
LINDSAY: We’re next to the
purple boas in the air.
Me: I’m right by the boas.
And
later…
Me: Where are you?
Lindsay: By the left side, green
flag that looks like Arabic writing.
Me: Got it.
Lindsay: Golden Fish behind us
too.
Me:
The fish walked away.
So that
was handy.
The
food was terrific. Normally at these types of events you expect the usual fair
food. Corndogs, funnel cakes, etc. Not at ACL Live. Most of the Austin food
icons were represented, including Amy’s Ice Cream, both Stubbs and Salt Lick
BBQ, P. Terry’s burgers, Torchy’s Tacos and a host of others. You honestly
could not go wrong. I had a Stubb’s chopped brisket sandwich and a lemonade,
which hit the spot after downing a few beers in the heat of the day.
The
Civil Wars were next, a low-key duo who sounded good, although some of the
subtleties of their vocals were lost going out over a vast field. Still, it was
enjoyable until Lindsay and Isabel made the fateful decision to head to the
other stage to see Die Antwoord.
In case
you don’t know, Die Antwoord is a white South African rave/rap group. Yeah,
right up my alley.
The
group consists of a DJ (a techno term for a guy that clicks a mouse on a stage
and blares bad music stolen from other artists in case you were curious) along
with a tiny, squeaky-voiced female that seemed like there was a an alarmingly
profane middle school cheerleader on stage and a guy who called himself “Ninja”
but looked a lot more like Max Perlich had gone on a four-year tattoo and meth
binge.
If
you’re wondering which Die Antwoord song was my favorite, the answer is
whichever the hell the shortest one would be. They all seemed like they were an
hour long anyway. Before it all mercifully came to an end, there was a strange
moment. On the platform stage left during the show, a couple of cameramen
appeared along with a couple of rather familiar faces. After taking a good
look, we determined indeed it was Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender filming
a scene for an upcoming Terrence Malik movie set in Austin, so that was a
random interesting item. I’ll be looking for my big bubble head in the
background when that comes out. After taking an even longer look at Natalie (I’m
a guy, sue me), I bailed out on Die Antwoord before I jammed a pocket knife
into my ears.
The
Avett Brothers were next. This is a band I really enjoy and one I was looking
forward to seeing, although it created a conflict as one of my favorite bands,
the Old 97’s, was playing on another stage at the same time. Since I had seen
the 97’s numerous times over the years I decided to stay down by the Avett
Brothers. The park was really beginning to fill up by that time and the sun was
starting to sink down in the sky, which created more of a concert atmosphere
than a festival feeling as the stage lights started to take effect and the
bigger crowds made for louder reactions.
The previously mentioned big crowd for Avett Bros.
The
Avetts put on a terrific show, and I even made it across the park to get to the
last few songs of the Old 97’s before moving off to meet up with Isabel and
Lindsay again (thanks to the flag system) to catch Childish Gambino (actually
Donald Glover, the actor from Community). By then the lights, smoke and glow sticks
were in full effect as darkness descended.
The Red
Hot Chili Peppers were headlining and were the last band playing on the Bud
Light stage. There were tens of thousands between us and the stage, so after
nine hours at the park we hung in the back, listened to a couple of songs and
decided to call it a night. As we walked back across the park to our exit, the
spotlights converged on one spot to form a pyramid above us, a cool effect to
end the evening. We drifted out of the park a bit sunburned, quite a bit worn
out, and very glad we had spent the day out at the festival. Enthusiastic kudos
go out to all the planners and workers involved in putting on such a
well-executed event. I look forward to seeing what they have planned for the festival
next year.
