Austin City Limits Festival-Day Three

ACL FEST- Day Three

In this, the third and final Austin City Limits Music Festival blog, I’ll tell you what’s up with the acts I caught (and didn’t catch) and try to boil the whole weekend into a top 5 favorite performances. Unfortunately, there weren’t nearly as many cool t-shirt quips to take note of, so there’ll be no more of those. In lieu of that, I’ll recall a shirt I saw at a Mountain Stage taping in Charleston, WV on the back of a balding, 40-something man who, remarkably, showed up alone.

“Feminist Chicks Dig Me”

And when I told him I liked his shirt (b/c I’d like to think they dig me, too) he said “Yeah, and I dig them right back!”

Onward with the show reviews!

Because of a night of moderate (yet responsible) alcohol consumption, we weren’t exactly up and raring to go by 11 o’clock Sunday morning. Which only meant one thing; I didn’t get to catch Rachael Yamagata. This girl is from Chicago I think and her debut EP blew me away. Her full-length debut wasn’t as artistically forward thinking as I’d hoped, but it’s a great batch of songs anyway. So, still having no live performance validation for my support of Rachael Yamagata, I suggest you give her a listen. Start with the EP if at all possible. It’s a mellow, slow-boiling mix of piano and electronic loops that will put you to sleep or put you in the mood, and it’s great for both. The standout tracks on her full length “Happenstance” are “Letter Read” (think of Fiona Apple’s “Criminal Vol. 2”) and “Be Be Your Love” (will make you think of Carly Simon and Alicia Keys).

The first act I did see was Rilo Kiley. Their last album was their first on a major label I believe, but they started out in the Omaha indie-rock scene that spawned Cursive, The Good Life, and Bright Eyes. The first song I ever heard of theirs, “The Evolution of All Things,” went over really well live, and the other stuff swerved between jangled guitar driven rock to synthesized drum loop pop, and they’re not afraid to drop the F-bomb every now and then either. And, for all you dudes, their singer, Jenny Lewis, is a skimpy little red-headed fire-ball, which helps to get press if nothing else.

It has to be mentioned that Rilo Kiley went on at 2:30 in the afternoon on a record high day. And when it’s a record high in the state of Texas, that means 109 degrees; the highest temperature for that date since 1923. This is why, as you’ll see in my pics, I carried my Bentley-inspired black umbrella with me and unceasingly waved my free Heineken fan while I watched every drop of alcohol perspire through my skin. The guitarist told a story about how the band had been using a “mint conditioner” on their hair. As UN-rock & roll as that sounds, he said “It’s sweating into my eyes and . . .fucking really hurts!”

In my “Day Two” blog I mentioned one of my favorite music journalism tools, the 3 Song Treatment, or 3ST for short (abbreviation-another great tool of the pen-wielding music snob). While I utilized the 3ST for Death Cab the previous afternoon, on this day I chose to apply it to another one in the long line of brit-dance-rock buzz generators the Kaiser Chiefs. First of all, none of these bands sound any different than the Franz Ferdinand I’ve heard, so they will undoubtedly become faceless one-hit wonders just like hair-metal 80’s bands and the “Boy & Girl” quartet singers of the Brill-Building songbook of the late 50s/early 60s.

*Flash Forward to a coffee shop conversation 20 years into the future*
“Aw Man! Do you remember that song “I predict a Riot” by Franz Ferdinand back in the Aughts Decade?”

“Naw, dude, I’m pretty sure that was the Kasabian.”

“You’re both wrong, dudes. Don’t you ever watch VH-1? It was the Kaiser Chiefs, you fools!”

This 3ST yielded an opposite effect as the Death Cab set. Whereas three songs by Death Cab can take upwards of 15 minutes, a 3ST for the Kaiser Chiefs lasts barely 7 or 8. So I decided, since I wasn’t having a bad time, that the Chiefs deserved something more like a 5ST. The most entertaining part of this set was listening to the Brits whine about how hot it was. “Like Mork,” the lead singer said, “This is how I drink now” as he poured a bottle of water over his ear.

I had to wonder how many people remember “Mork & Mindy.” I just remember Mindy saying “Mork, why are you stacking cheerios?” to which he replied “Because they stack easier than corn-flakes.”

Anyway, it was water down the back and Heineken down the hatch for the singer who wouldn’t let the heat stifle his drinking. So, if you’re not a fan of cheesy, pogo-inspiring, disco-drum punk-guitar rockers that sing plenty of “oohs” “ahhs” and “na na nas” then the Kaiser Chiefs are not for you. Or maybe you liked this stuff back when it was called Gang of Four.

For anyone who likes Queens of the Stone Age (and I don’t particularly, but there are definitely worse rock bands) you might get a kick out of the Austin grunge/metal/country (!!)-trio Grady. The guitarist even had a double-necked monster like Jimmy Page or Steve Vai. They came off like a redneck QOTSA, or Chevelle after too much whisky and a bottle of chill-pills.During Grady’s set a plane advertisement flew over head. “US Out of Iraq Now” it said. “Somebody paid for that,” my new friend Andy said “Maybe John Prine.” (See ACL Day 2)

I realize that I type way too much about the acts I don’t like and not enough about the really great ones. A paradox, I know. Honestly, if it’s good beyond words, you just need to find somewhere to listen to it, as is the case with Arcade Fire. You’ve probably read something about this motley crew from Montreal, and you probably thought “could it be THAT good?” The answer is an unequivocal “YES!” It’s art-rock like this that makes bands like the Kaiser Chiefs seem completely irrelevant and imbecilic. But that’s not fair to either band. There were 9 people on stage and they were all switching instruments between songs; standard stuff like guitar, bass, drums and keyboards mixed with xylophone, two violins, French Horn, tons of extra drums (including motorcycle helmets and the shittiest sounding splash cymbal ever) and ACCORDIAN!!!! And I didn’t know that slamming a tambourine against the pickups of a hollow-body electric guitar could sound so cool.

For the love of all that is good, someone re-establish the validity of the Grammy award by giving these guys one.

The tall and short on these guys is they wrote an incredibly artistic album inspired mainly by some deaths in the member’s families. The album art folds out like a program at a funeral service, hence the name of the CD, “Funeral.” But it’s not a mopey or depressing album. It’s an album that will reward you every time you listen to it, and you’ll be listening to it until you’re 40. At one point in the show, there were dueling xylophones! Who does that!?!?

They perform in tuxedoes, cocktail dresses, and nice ties and the girl who played keys and accordion even jumped behind the drums. One of the percussion guys wailed so hard on the above-mentioned shitty cymbal that he collapsed on the stage. The camera guy stuck to him too, perhaps trying to coax him out of what could’ve been a dehydrated catastrophe caught on tape. These guys aren’t so much a band as an avant-garde indie-art-rock orchestra, and every single member put their ass into the set, despite the heat. Not only did they make it look easy in suits and ties in the sweltering heat, they made it look like they were having fun. I hope these guys are still making records this time 10 years from now.

I saw some of the Decemberists, and I couldn’t tell who sucked more, the band or the guy doing sound. It could’ve all been blamed on him, but throw a terrible sound mix in with some quirky, REM style cryptically vague-ass lyrics and Andy and I decided on a trip to the merch tent to buy “Funeral.”

I’ve never been into Wilco too much, but I prepped myself by listening to “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” on the way to the airport. Tweedy puts on a great show and he’s an amicable front-man now. I’m sure things were slightly different when he was on drugs. He told the crowd he was coming out of his shell by asking them to scream on cue. Everyone obliged and Tweedy concluded “All right! Groveling is the new Asshole!” “Life’s too short,” he yelled, “Please, God, show some enthusiasm!”

Their music covers so much ground. One minute they’re sounding like ZZ Top with a fuzzy guitar riff, the next it’s a bouncy piano rag tune. The highlight tracks that I actually knew the names of were “Handshake Drugs,” “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart,” and one that I think is called “Jesus Ect.”

In-between Wilco and Coldplay was The Black Keys. This is a drum/guitar duo from Akron, Ohio that have no problem shoving Hendrix inspired rock down your throat until you choke. The drums were so wailin’ and the guitar was so raunchy, it makes you want to take a shower. Or was that the incessant clouds of dust whipping through the air? Either way, not too many bands are doing pure, unadulterated rawk the way the Black Keys do it. Take their last album “Rubber Factory” and put it next to the most kick-ass guitar album you can think of, and see if it doesn’t eat the Black Keys dust.

The reason I love this group is the way the guitar sounds like Hendrix. Its more than just the fuzz too, it’s in the way the singer mimics his own vocal lines on his guitar just like Hendrix did. I don’t know if this is because Hendrix was certifying his pitch, but it comes across as pure genius to me. And the Keys do it as a supplement to song structure, which I totally dig. One highlight of the entire festival was hearing them do “She Said She Said” by the Beatles “You’re making me feel like I’d never been born”.

And then there’s Coldplay. The video wall was all we were seeing since we waited through the entire Black Keys set, but there isn’t too much to see at a Coldplay show except Chris Martin over working himself at the keyboard. I wanted to hear how the new stuff off of “X&Y” came across live, but aside from the opener “Speed of Sound,” the rest were all hits from the previous two albums. I didn’t stick around for the entire set, so I’m sure there was some more new stuff, but “Politik,” “Yellow,” “Clocks,” and “Everything’s Not Lost” were all huge crowd pleasers. Martin is a good entertainer though. He couldn’t stop talking about the Arcade Fire and how they inspired Coldplay to keep writing songs (after an initial shock that told them to quit forever) and he even threw in some Austin-specific lyrics that thanked the loyal for sticking it out in the heat.

So, two weeks and 3,000+ words later, the moment of truth has arrived. Here are the top five ACL performances as chosen by Dr. Sickness . . .


1. Arcade Fire
2. Gov’t Mule
3. Aqualung
4. Black Keys
5. Thievery Corporation