photo : michael maly

I have seen Pete Yorn an uncountable amount of times and he without fail always delivers a solid performance. This year at ACL was no exception, yet the disaster which his performance was able to overshadow made it that much more impressive.

With a 2:30 Friday slot time, Pete definitely was not fortunate enough to garner one of the prime spots, but the giant fire which many fans thought would threaten to shut down the set, allowed him the fortune of having one of the most memorable moments of the festival. Not to say that without the fire the performance would have been lessened any, it certainly would not have.

Pete, masked in large white sunglasses, kicked off his first ever ACL performance with (almost literally) a bang, covering Jim Kimbrough’s “I Feel Good Again.” During Pete and Company’s second song, the always crowd pleasing “Life on a Chain,” the large for 2:30 on a Friday crowd began to murmur as clouds of smoke rolled above the vendor’s area. With looks of confusion and wonder, Pete and his fellow musicians played on, making it through song #3, Nightcrawler’s big single, “For Us”, of course not without some nervous yet lighthearted jokes from Pete himself. By the time an ACL staff member came out to make the announcement that the fire was contained, I, and nearly everyone around me, was busy planning an escape route. I find it more than impressive that Pete and his band, the only ones in the vicinity with a really great view of the fire, were able to play through the fire with such composure, while the rest of us were busy cowering beneath our respective freak flags, balloons, umbrellas, and whatever other oddball props we could concoct to make us stand out as unique festival goers.

The rest of the set went off without a hitch. Pete gave a respectful shout out to the fire fighters who were able to get the fire in check in very little time. I don’t believe he even paused to complain about the unbearably suffocating heat that the right-smack-in-the-middle-of-the-afternoon sun brought on. I will take this time to do the complaining and whining for him. Insert screaming, crying, bitching, etc…All-in-all the show was great. Surprisingly one of my favorites of the weekend, a great kick-off to the festival. Highlights for me were Pete’s cover of Peter, Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks” and my favorite song to sing along like a fool to, “Murray.”

Pete, we hope you had a great first ACL, and we welcome you back for years to come.

-Kristin Owen

Mp3>>Murray

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 at 12:26 am and is filed under ACL Festival 2007, live shots, mp3's.