constant narrator

Hot. So hot. So terribly terribly hot. A day of foolishness and heat.

We got a late start. We are weenies. M and I hopped a bus at 3 and got there in time to hear the last couple of songs from The Frames while we were walking towards Death Cab for Cutie. The Frames sounded good, I think I’ll track down some more of their music.

Death Cab for Cutie came on and M and I were trapped in a sea of camping chairs. How I loathe the camping chairs. They are full of people who are there to hang out with friends and drink beer and obscure the delicious sound of Death Cab for Cutie with their obnoxious conversations. Half-way through the show we pushed further up, ignoring the many dirty looks from the camping-chair-people and finally got near some people who actually seemed to care about what was happening on stage. Which was good, because what was happening on stage was phenomenal. Death Cab gave a fantastic show, much better than what I had heard on their studio albums. I would love to see them in a smaller venue.

Death Cab for Cutie (ACL Fest photo)

The chair people were killing us. We’d decided to stay to check out Jet so when Death Cab finished we pushed our way forward and got about 40 feet from the stage. And there we would spend the next four hours. We sat and talked and waited for Jet. Jet was weird. The crowd were young kids, many of them wearing Ray Ban sun glasses with no hint of irony. The crowd loved Jet and acted as if it were their first rock concert ever, which was cute and endeared them to me. Plus, they didn’t have camping chairs. Jet is 1973 rock music. They have some musical talent and you can bounce around to them. Their drummer believes in sweaty drumming, which I can get behind. They were fun. I wouldn’t buy an album.

Then M and I made a terrible mistake. We reasoned that since we were so close to the main stage already, we might as well stay for Oasis, the closing headliner of the night. There was no chance we’d get back up close for them and it was an ocean of humanity behind us. We stood, and waited. And waited and waited and waited. Now, the fatal mistake we made is this: neither of us are really into Oasis. When they finally came on, I learned a few things. I will share them with you now:

1. Jesus plays keyboards for Oasis.
2. The drummer has potential as a small kit drummer if only he could conceive of drumming a song that didn’t have either the kick or the snare on all four beats.
3. All members of Oasis except the lead singer are required to stay within a 2×2 foot area on the stage. If they move, their explosive belts will detonate.
4. The lead singer is a wanker and obviously doesn’t give a fuck. He is an energy vampire on the crowd.
5. The band is truly mediocre.

And, also a note, in case lead singer Liam Gallagher happens to be reading this:

Rock stars have been inciting crotch worship for decades, dating back before Chuck Berry, Elvis “the pelvis” Presley, Iggy Pop and even M.C. Hammer. What you did last night was neither inventive nor entertaining. It was dull. It was so dull that if you had actually pulled your dick out I think I would have yawned.
B O R I N G.

But, dear readers, don’t fret! M and I left about halfway through the show, indeed convinced of the mediocrity of the band before us. We walked across the street to Barton Springs and took a dip, where the icy grip of the waters washed away all of the 100 degree heat and sadness. When the springs closed we ambled to Flipnotics where the Asylum Street Spankers were playing, paid a small cover, got dinner and drinks and had a lovely time listening to songs with titles like “Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer” and “We’re Winning the War on Drugs”.

On the way home our Nigerian cab driver cheered me even more by knowing where Iowa was and that we grow corn there. This Nigerian immigrant knows where my home state is, while half of the Texans who ask me where I’m from have no idea at all.

I slept hard. Today is a new day! Many good bands on the line-up including The Bravery, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire and Coldplay. Wish us luck: the forecast high for today is 104.

Oh momma is it hot. It was about 100 degrees as M and I took the bus down to Barton Springs Road and walked towards Zilker park with the masses. Flipnotics was handing out free iced coffee and we got all hopped up while talking to the cute coffee-chica. The line to get wristbands and entry wasn’t too bad. We headed straight for:

Mates of State
M’s product manager had recommended this band to him and as we were walking toward the stage M commented that they sounded like a three person Polyphonic Spree. Once we got there we saw that they were actually two people: a woman on an organ and a guy on drums, both singing. They were silly and bouncy and using some old-skool synth sounds. There were a lot of unusual rhythms and time signature+tempo changes mid-song. I liked them a lot. We heard the last 40 minutes of their set and at the end I declared that they Could Come to Dinner.

Mates of State (ACL Fest photo)

We headed from Mates of State to hear Lucinda Williams. Lucinda gets played on the radio a lot here and while I wouldn’t say it’s normally my kind of music, I’ve always heard she and her band were awesome live. I also dig on her extremely cultivated whiskey voice and old-country lyrics. (Sample song topic: you stole my truck and now you’re in jail — I’m cryin’ and heading down to the corner store to get a cold 6-pack.) Her guitar player was phenomenal.

We left a couple songs before the end of her set to see Theivery Corporation. They had a big band with them and the first tune was one of their better known instrumental songs (I rarely remember Theivery Corporation song titles). Then out came a singer who sang “Lebanese Blond”. She was OK. Then she left and another singer came out and sang in French. She was mediocre. She left and another singer came out who was smokingly hot but also so of ‘eh’ on the singing. She left and a couple of rasta guys from DC came out and the energy picked up again. Then they left and an instrumental song happened which was probably the best song of the set. Then they rotated singers some more. I had never realized how much I rely on a front man, any front man, even if it’s just the guitarist-who’s-not-singing to maintain a rapport with an audience throughout the performance. 1/3 of the set I really liked and the other 2/3 I just wanted then to settle on someone and quit playing with my attachments.

After that we took a break and headed to Flipnotics for dinner and sitting (AH!) and too many cookies. We came back in the dark to hear the Black Crowes.

Once again, the bastard chair people were the bane of our existence. It’s dark and there are 30,000 folding camp chairs between us and the crowd of dancing folks. We wandered up to a point where we couldn’t go any farther and resigned ourselves to watching the jumbo-tron for most of the action. The people around us were drunk yahoos who talked through the show. The highlight was a great version of “She Talks To Angels”. The band was solid, there was a lot of southern-rock Grateful Dead style jams and breaks. We left before they were finished.

We made our way with the throngs down Barton Springs Road again and managed to hop on a bus as it pulled up. Everyone was filthy, as Zilker has turned into a dust bowl without rain and 200,000 feet on it all day. Michael instigated a friendly crazy drunk into singing Willie Nelson songs and the back of the bus had a loud sing-a-long as we travelled up Lamar. It was a priceless Keep Austin Weird moment.

I just listened to President Bush speaking live from the New Orleans airport. It was pathetic, it made me weep.

“I’m about to fly out, but I want you to know that I won’t forget what I’ve seen.”

Yes, and neither will any of the people who have seen the rapes, murders, deaths, corpses and crying, screaming, starving babies. What has happened in Louisiana this week is beyond an outrage, it is racism in action, and it was completely preventable.

A damning article from National Geographic on the state of New Orleans’ hurricane preparedness: Gone with the water.

The war in Iraq is terrible. But this is fucking criminal. New Orleans looks like Haiti. This is in our country, these are our people. We are the richest, most armed, ballsiest country on the planet and this is our response to the horror and suffering in our own country? Sick. Pathetic. This administration was doing its best to ruin us overseas, now they’re doing a fine job of it on our own soil as well.