ACL Fest 2011 Reflections:Bobbing the Heads, Wiggling the Fingers, Climbing the Ladder
Photo: Ashley Garmon
Austin City Limits Music Festival is officially ten years strong, three days long, and considered a holiday by its dedicated armada of 70,000+ music enthusiasts, both Texan and foreign alike. These sojourners come to indulge their passion for music, drink stadium-priced beer, and claim the right to boast, “I saw Pretty Lights at ACL this year! It was ill-tastic.” Of course, they pay their dues dearly in the face of intense heat within the desiccated Zilker Park, pre-sacrificed sick days, and strategic crowd pushing in order to secure a spot front and center to one of eight stages. The festival shuffle endures over 72 hours. Roadways shut down due to foot-traffic, 24-diners make more eggs and hash browns in ten minutes than your mother will in her lifetime, and food carts prop into expansive culinary trailer parks. Not surprisingly, every hipster bum in town advances their resume by starting a new career as a pedi-cab driver.
It is a dirty, loud, and trying holiday, so thank the good lord for the people who sacrifice themselves to pick up trash and bottles in exchange for free merch, tents that blast cold mist, and the diversity of music that is the biggest Christmakah gift in the world. In fact, I’m waiting for the Charlie Brown special on it.
The truth is, we hold the Live Music Capital of the World to high expectations, and it rises to the challenge almost every time. This was my first three-day ACL experience, so my thoughts encompass the best and worst of the fest, but in the context of this ACL alone. Fortunately, I’m not as naïve as the young dude who collided with me on my way to inspect the Foster the People set, the guy reeking of sweat and frustration. He looked out over the thicket of bodies, impenetrable for a quarter-mile to the stage, and asked, “Are all these people here to see just one song?” Yes, yes dear sir they are. Condemned to bob their heads mutely during the whole set until they hear the one song they know, the smash hit of the summer. Sigh. But props for buying your T-shirt and wearing some charming pumped up kicks!
Foster The People: Steve Wrubel
Here’s my breakdown:
Amongst Friday’s highlights, Cults performed one of the best sets on the Honda stage. Vocalist Madeline Follin sang tunes as bright as her yellow sundress, her mass of hair perhaps an influence to every other bandmate, each sporting identically long brown locks. Soaring to every note, “Go Outside” captured the Friday morning shtick of the corporate crowd, apparent when Follin shouted, “why isn’t anyone at work right now?” during the bridge. In the afternoon, Beardyman juiced up his eclectic viewers during his beat-heavy beatboxing set on the BMI stage. He brainwashed everyone into thinking they were hearing dubstep, when he was actually using live looping equipment to insert thick reverberations from his mouth, generate percussive claps, and even overlay sounds of water-drips and ambulances. The wonky Brit even covered Lennox’s “Sweet Dreams.” And, actually, I mean more than covered. He used his full vocal range, sounds of the air between his lips, and the poofs of microphone feedback to reconstruct every layer of the dance party classic. Santigold, my last Friday pick, made their first reappearance at ACL since catalyzing the You-Tube-famed dance mob several years ago. Their crowd was mesmerized by the glitz of their sequined-costumes and dance moves transported from Africa.
The best of Saturday’s line-up occurred within an hour and a half window in the early afternoon. The Antlers poured out their souls to us in performing the high “oohs” of their concept album, “Hospice” as well as a few more recent numbers. Truly, the emotional oeuvre they have achieved has moved friends of mine to tears. For me, their complex show solidified them as a band that transcends the “emo-indie” genre. The Belle Brigade debuted at ACL as well; the warm energy they exuded was the perfect balance to the beautifully tragic void The Antlers left. Their folk-rock sound was made possible by the bluesy performance of keys and guitar played simultaneously by Ethan Gruska, while harmonizing with his sister, Barbara. Later, Fitz and the Tantrums played a show that harkened back to big band sounds of the 30s, complete with tambourine, and treating us to a brilliant “Steady as She Goes” cover.
Sunday served several notable performances as well. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. dazzled us with neon quilted jackets, stunning harmonization, and a power-pop sound to rival the speed of the Winston Cup racecar driver himself. Elbow summoned the rain in their incredibly attuned performance, straight from the UK. At one point, they even called for the crowd to raise their hands towards the stage, wiggle their fingers, and touch the shoulder of the person standing in front of them. In this act of unison, headman Guy Garvey exclaimed, touch is “one of the best things about love!” and we believed him. Second to last slot of the night, Empire of the Sun gave a rare and electronically infused show with digital imagery, Cirque-Du-Solei inspired costuming, and stage dancers dressed a swordfish. Vocalist/lead guitarist Luke Steele ascended to the stage like a bird in flight, with a sculpture of feathers adorning his head.
Empire Of The Sun: Dave Mead
After listening in on the buzz about this year’s festival, I’ve decided that ACL has become a microcosm for a noticeable climacteric for present-day music. The word “climacteric”, though sometimes used to describe the start of menopause in women, means a major turning point or critical stage. It literally comes from a Greek word that means: “rung of the ladder”.
That said, what does this climacteric mean for where are we now? We are in a music world that embodies not only DJs, but digital beat-boxing DJs. It applauds avant-garde costuming, facilitates one man named Kanye to grasp us from a vacant stage, and 15 members of Arcade Fire to sweep us into the realm of shared patterns from our childhood. ITunes’s specification of genre is approaching the obsolete – this climacteric signifies a genre blurring, especially when indie-alt and electro-experimental cannot classify the sound of Twin Shadow. ACL doesn’t just mean discovery of the new and viewing of the known, but a climbing of rungs to a quickly changing state of both live and recorded music. ACL provides comparison from Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” to Coldplay’s “What If”; themes that bridge decades continue as the presentation, digitization and reconsideration of music evolves.
Kanye West: Dave Mead
Arcade Fire: Jack Edinger
At this critical intersection of genres, creativity, passion and overall newness in sound and image will be what pushes music through this climacteric into uncharted territories. This is an exciting time for holiday-like festivals like this, as well as for artists who are envisioning new sounds and sharing them with us. If only we can brace ourselves to deal with the overweight chair-sitters arranged in labyrinths of beer-holding apathy yards from the stage, we can start the climb.
I’ll see you at ACL next year.
photo: Steve Wrubel
