Seattle Subsonic

Austin City Limits Or Bust, Part Deux

October 6th, 2008

Last week, you might’ve caught my first impressions of Austin during a quick, three-day jaunt for the City Limits festival. After a debaucherous night on the town swillin’ Tecate and tequila, it was time to get on with the gettin’ on. Under time and money constraints, we only bought tickets for Saturday—each day was eighty-freakin’-bucks, for cryin’ out loud. Two words on the environment: hot and crowded. Like, 92 degrees hot and 75,000 people crowded. But given that ACL was the most organized music festival I’d ever experienced, we still had a great time and I’d do it again; provided I’d already been to SXSW first, and especially if the smuggling was just as easy. Everything from the free shuttle to massive Zilker Park where the concert is held, to the well-staggered lineups, to the many misting machines, to the lack of security made it no fuss/no muss for almost any concert-goer. Of course, if you’re not careful, you might get frantically lost for fifteen minutes if you forget to go anywhere without your companions. And don’t use the flags as landmarks—they will move.

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We arrived around 2pm just in time to do a once-around of the eight stage outdoor venue, and headed over to watch Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings funk the place out. This band, with their dapper, bygone-era makeup and their popular diva as the primary draw, put on an exuberant, entertaining set of classic funk, soul, and rhythm & blues. Ms. Jones kicked her shoes off and burned up the stage with her dance moves, twice beckoning clunky white guys from stage left to freak with her to the beats. Just like the Godfather of Soul, it was hot and it was FUNKY.

Our view from the waaaaaaaaay back. We still got funky.

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Next up we saw Brazilian spaz-rockers CSS. I’m an avid fan of both of their records but had never seen them live. While the sound at their stage was not the greatest, the playfulness and the organic nature of their performance were, as Lovefoxx would exclaim, TOTALLY AWESOME! Hotter than Brazil, she even said. The Bjork-esque frontwoman came out in a hilariously ridiculous flowered spandex one-piece—which she’s done before—and played the crowd like a fiddle. The band rocked their way to fan-pleasing set and finished far too soon for my ears.

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AP Photo Balloons!

Apparently, Brooklyn’s latest favorite sons MGMT had the largest non-headlining crowd of the festival. I do not doubt it. While resting our feet and waiting for the show to start, we were abruptly stepped on no less than 10 times by fleshy, inconsiderate jerk-offs. But, after a slow start, the band picked it up and had the crowd enthralled. Theirs is a sound difficult to pin down, but spacey guitar pop comes to mind, and when they played “Electric Feel” from Oracular Spectacular, the chorus (”Ooh girl / Shock me like an electric eel / Baby girl / Turn me on with your electric feel”) was stuck in my head all week long. Give their album a whirl, it’s pretty tight.

MGMT on the TV The massive crowd

After scarfing some delicious Texas BBQ (regrettably sans Texas Toast) and three or four 24 oz. Lone Stars, we were well lubricated for the burning, yearning blues rock from the Black Keys. I’m pretty much a casual fan of this band—heard all the records but don’t own any, seen them once before back in ‘04—but they delivered an astonishingly immaculate performance that I won’t soon forget. I guess they’ve come a long way since that Bumbershoot set I witnessed, because Dan Auerbach crooned so passionately and wailed on his guitar with such an incautious power that only his drummer Pat Carney could possibly keep up. Honestly, I was pretty blown by that point, and really only recall “Psychotic Girl” specifically being played, but I do know that their set wasn’t dominated by Attack & Release. Best show of the day for me.

We ended the night watching rock demigod Robert Plant fill out his leather pants while making sweet musical love to Alison Krauss (too crass?). It was somewhat of a pinnacle experience for me, having never seen any live Zeppelin members in concert. The two were combined greatness, and I didn’t even recognize “Black Dog” when they played their alternate version of it. I guess I need the album. Unfortunately, this is about the time when I got lost and never quite recovered to full concentration on the show. What I remember was pretty rad, though. ACL or Bust, right??