Now, for a massive brain dump of the experience. I've edited this some, but for the most part this is just the raw thoughts of each show and what happened in and around those shows.
FRIDAY:
It is honestly hard to believe all the stuff I just did this weekend. Like, trying to think back to Friday afternoon feels like it was a month ago. We walked in the park and went straight to see Band of Heathens for their final two songs (really good, I like those guys a lot), and then walked over to see MuteMath. They put on a good show, we were pretty relaxed during it, just stayed off to the side and chatted during the show. They definitely stuck more to their good alt rock sound and less to the electronic stuff, which was very nice. We left there after the final song (great, clean take on "Typical") and wandered over to the new Barton Springs stage for Hamilton Leithauser, who also sounded really good. At that stage, we hooked up with a friend who works for C3, and so she got us into the cool kids zone for the 4:15 Vulpeck show at American Express. We didn't stay there for long so that we could get over to Royal Blood, but it definitely felt like I was an extremely popular and important person to be watching in the private fenced area. Royal Blood rocked it out, although they had a few technical difficulties that sapped some energy from the show right at the start and then again about halfway through. I'd really like to go see them play in a club - I think their brawn and thump rule, so it would be fun to see it in a better sound environment.
Best show of Friday was the Revivalists, who not only did a great job on their own tunes, but also did a fantastic cover of Tom Petty's "Refugee" that had the entire crowd yelling along. See above for an OK recording of it. Highlight of the show. They put so much energy and fun into their show overall, but that cover absolutely killed it. I know I am biased because of knowing the pedal steel player in the band, but I really think they did it up right with a funky rock show. Here is where I made a mistake, because after this show, we went backstage for a bit to hang with Ed, which meant that I entirely missed out on Ryan Adams. Bad move, and I'm mad at myself, especially because backstage was not all that cool.
After some time back stage, we cruised over and actually got pretty dang close for Jay-Z. Who absolutely mailed it in. It is one thing to know that he's getting a huge check for doing the show no matter how it goes, its another thing for it to literally seep out of his pores the entire time. It wasn't all bad, as I had fun jamming along to "99 Problems" and "Big Pimpin" and "N's in Paris," and "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," and even the Linkin Park Numb/Encore thing was good, but the fun was being in the crowd and bouncing with the people around me. Watching Jay just stand there and look bored during the tracks was not the fun part at all. Weak. Several times, during the show, I just turned around to look at the crowd, and most people were just standing there, looking bored, not knowing the song or even moving along to it. The hits were worth it, but the rest was pretty lame. And man, I really hate that "Forever Young" song.
SATURDAY:
Best day of the weekend for sure. Woke up feeling pretty solid, not too sore, and went to eat a big pile of smoked meat at Freedman's before getting to the park around 1. We went straight over to the Barton Springs stage to watch Mondo Cozmo, who put on a really great show. At one point, the lead singer said something to the effect of how he had written these songs in his bedroom and never really expected them to be a big deal, and that this is what "not giving up looks like." The crowd gave him a big roar of approval. After about half an hour of that show (including "Shine," which was great, and my friend and I decided that it is actually not just Dylan, the vocals sound like Dylan in the verses, but then like Petty in the chorus. I like it.) we wandered over to the BMI stage because my friend had been told to check out Traveller. Great move, they had a much better sound than the two jenky songs I had reviewed months ago. Robert Ellis is awesome anyway, but the rest of the band was damn fine as well.
For the 2 o'clock hour, I had to convince Jason to just trust me, as taking him to see something called Car Seat Headrest was just weird sounding. And on top of that, the bass from A$AP Ferg was like a siren call to the deepest darkest recesses of our souls. Seriously, the A$AP bass was super loud on the other end of the park. Anyway, totally worth it, as Jason loved the show and they did it up right. The funny thing is how non-charismatic the band is, with Will Toledo just moping over his guitar in sunglasses and his bassist gently plugging along in two shirts despite the million degree heat. The guitarist and drummer were doing their best to inject some life into the set, but honestly I didn't care, the tunes were so solid that it all worked out. We then did a few of Benjamin Booker's tunes from the back of the audience, which of course sounded great, but then had to skip the rest so that we could go get up front for Live and allow the 90's nostalgia tour to start up in earnest.
Live absolutely killed it. They played nothing but the hits, and sounded perfect doing it. On top of that, they looked so damn happy to be there and still able to hold a crowd in the palm of their hand. My buddy befriended a twenty-something year-old dude behind us who had never heard of Live before, and by the end of the show we had him fully converted to the old man rock and roll jams. Literally, look at their top ten songs on Spotify, and they played #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, and then one extra from Mental Jewelry and Throwing Copper each (and, of those two, "White, Discussion" was freaking awesome, calling out Trump 20+ years after that song came out, and also the hard jam at the end of that song was greatness). They also covered an Audioslave song as a tribute to Chris Cornell, and did Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line." Very good rock and roll show.
One cool bit that happened (I can't remember if this was before Live, Cube, or the Chilis, but I was at that stage) was when they replayed a Tom Petty concert footage bit from 2006, him jamming Free Fallin', and the crowd roared it back, as three skydivers jumped out of an airplane overhead and fly down over the park. Pretty neat touch. RIP Petty.
We ran over to the food tents as quickly as we could to get back up front for Cube, and got right back up to almost the same spot, about 25 yards from the stage. Cube was SO good. He brought WC (Dub C) with him along for the show, who was one of the guys who had been in Westside Connection with him back in the day, and Dub C was a great hype man. When you are just a single rapper up on stage, it sometimes helps to have a foil, a partner to bounce stuff off of, and someone to rap the side lines of a track that might normally have had a second rapper on it. Dub C did that perfectly. Cube just stalked the stage, getting everyone going and involved. He was legitimately funny a few times, and got the crowd into it in between songs. My only quibble with him would have been song selection, in that he started the show with "Natural Born Killaz," which was a Dr. Dre song that isn't on any of Cube's albums, it was from a soundtrack for Murder Was the Case, and he did about 3 other more recent tracks like "Gangster Rap Made Me Do It" or "Why We Thugs." I would have rather just heard the classics from Death Certificate than those, but they were still pretty fun. And he kept the crowd totally engaged, even on those tracks that people didn't know as well. Just a great show.
This is the part in the Jason and Jack story where taking care of ourselves really should be more of a consideration. At the end of the Cube show, all of the people around us just pushed and shoved and crushed their way up about another 5 yards, carrying us with them. Well, the Chilis didn't start for another hour, and now we were so packed into the crowd, about 20 yards from the stage, that no one could really move or sit or do anything other than just stand right there and breathe all over each other. On top of that, it was still really damn hot. Not only had the day been warm, but after jumping around and getting sweaty during Ice Cube, and now being touched on all sides by warm little humans, I could have easily wrung a cup of pure sweat from my shirt. It was kind of brutal. But, the security guards were handing out free waters (thank God for that) and we couldn't get fresh beers, so it was almost like a free sauna where we got to sweat out all the toxins and get clean for the Peppers.
By the way, a quick shout out to those security guards. First, for being good about passing out waters and looking out for folks, but also there was one big dude who kept poking holes in the caps of two water bottles, and then as Cube started up a bouncing jam, the security guy would throw his arms up and bop down the center security section of the crowd, squirting everyone with water and laughing. Loved it.
The Chili Peppers have been one of my favorite bands for many moons. I was highly excited to see them, and by being as close as we were, I could really watch Flea's fingers pop and bounce and fly all over his bass, which was super cool. He is probably one of my favorite musicians of all time. The last time they came to ACL, we were more like 100 yards away, so it was fun to be so close and get to really watch the band without using the screens. The band sounds great, including the new-ish guitarist who, although he played with his hair in his eyes like a generic teenager character on a Pixar movie, can jam the hell out. Some of his solo flourishes were unbelievable. He also came out and did the band's Tom Petty tribute moment, a solo, quiet, lovely, spare rendition of "Face in the Crowd." Each member of the band looks to be in top shape and just handled their business - I couldn't complain about any of the playing. Although, again, if I can quibble it would be with the song selection and choosing "The Zephyr Song," which is just not that great of a song. The band came out and fired up a wicked jam, playing off each other and getting the crowd up into a frenzy, and then charged into "Can't Stop" and "Dani California," so the crowd is going nuts and bouncing all over the place, for them to go into this lame, soft song about flying away on your zephyr. I just thought it deflated the energy of the show to rein it in right there, only three songs in. BUT, they did play "Suck My Kiss," which was pretty rad. Other quibble would be that they left a lot of time on the table that could have been filled with other great songs. They ended early, about ten minutes before ten, stayed off before the encore for too long, and they did a ton of random jamming. Some of the jamming was fun, but at least one of the times started to feel forced. Take those extra minutes and play "Higher Ground," "Me and My Friends," and "Sir Psycho Sexy." Really fun show overall.
SUNDAY
We took it a little easier on Sunday morning, in part because I somehow pulled a muscle in my back or something and I thought I was going to die of old age. You know, standing there for hours, bobbing your head, can be very strenuous work. But also because it has become a fun tradition to take it easy Sunday and go watch football and have a few drinks before we go into the heat. And holy hell, Sunday was a scorcher. The car said that it was 95 when we parked, but in direct sun, with all the grass dead as a doornail in the park, it sure felt hotter than that. My shirt was dripping wet by the time we had made it in through security. I was sad to miss Deap Vally and Middle Kids, but we made it in time for Rainbow Kitten Surprise, who were one of my favorite new bands coming to the fest this year. They had a really big crowd, and I thought they were a lot of fun. I think they would have been more fun if I had gotten there earlier to be up in the crowd, but we had a good show hanging out with some friends and enjoying the rock.
My friend wanted to go watch the Cowgirls lose to the Packers, so he went to the TV tent and I walked over to Barton Springs to watch Whitney. Funny thing about them. I was generally enjoying the show, but after a while I started to get tired of the constant falsetto vocals. Seems to me that a band, all bands, should use the falsetto as an accent, something to emphasize a word or line or something, not as the entire vocal section. So I was going to give up on them and wander over to another stage, when I ran into two good friends who were loving the band. The power of suggestion, man. I complained about the constant falsetto, they said they kind of liked it, and dug the horns and cool vibe, and all of a sudden I was like, oh, yeah, I do like this. I reviewed this well for a reason. The human brain is a weird thing. So I stuck around for the rest of that show and then went to go check out Milky Chance. Which was terrifically boring. I gave them three songs and then walked off to check out what else was happening. GoldFish sounded stressful, so I kept going and met up with a couple of friends at DRAM, which was so very much not my thing that it ended up being funny. I just do not care for R&B singing at all. I don't know why, but no thanks. But then he played "Cash Machine" and I was bouncing around enjoying myself for a minute or two. Whatever, don't judge.
After that, I went to go find my buddy in the football tent to talk him into getting set up for Run the Jewels. He was not pleased, as exhaustion and the joys of shade and cheering with the other nerds in Cowboys jerseys had a strong hold on him, but my powers of persuasion are well-honed, and so he came along. We walked through the Growlers crowd, and they sounded much better than what I remember. Once my buddy realized that I had somehow snookered him into going really close to another stage, he was annoyed all over again, but I think he ended up enjoying RTJ enough that it was cool in the end.
Run the Jewels are something else, man. I have probably listened to their new album 50 times, and yet my ability to keep up with their absolutely breakneck, rapid fire flow is freaking just not happening. My brain would be saying the rhymes along with them but like 3 seconds after they'd already hit that part. I read something the other day saying that they top 100 words per minute in their raps, and although I can't confirm that, I know that they keep their stuff way more complicated and quick than most others right now. I loved this show, thought they sounded great, kept the audience engaged, and seemed to be having fun with the crowd. As they did at Lolla, they invited a guy up on stage to rap a few of their verses. It didn't feel as organic and cool as the one at Lolla, and again they made the poor guy do the verses without the benefit of the beat, but the guy actually killed it and the crowd went wild. My only beef with this show were the idiots who started a mosh pit right next to me. I had to get after them like at Liberty Lunch back in the 90's and started adding an elbow to their back if they felt like they could come over and mash our side of the pit. Dorks. After they moved up, the show was much more enjoyable. I think the reason I love RTJ so much is that they are just doing the real rap thing. None of this sing-song R&B junk, no hooks from Rihanna or Rihanna-copycats, no Chris Brown verse, just straight hard, thumping beats and staccato, angry rhymes. I'm fully on board right now.
I heard the first song of Vance Joy, and felt like I had made a good call to go over to see Portugal. The Man. Vance just sounded washed out and weak after hearing an hour of RTJ. Not so sure about Portugal. The Man, in the end. I feel like, if I had been further up in the crowd, I might have gotten energized by it and more into the sound, but from the way back where everyone was talking and using their phones, I didn't get much out of it. So, after a few songs, I hooked up with some other friends and went over to the Killers' stage and got ready for their show. Overall, I'd say that they put on a really good show. From yet another solid Petty tribute, to some of their best hits, they sound really solid. The start was very promising, from "American Girl" right into "Mr. Brightside," but then they went right into "Spaceman," a mediocre song from 2008's Day and Age. Ended up that we got about 4 or 5 songs from Hot Fuss, and a few from Sam's Town, but almost equal representation from the new albums (and other covers). Here is my thing - the band sounded excellent, and Flowers voice is still wonderful, but I just felt like the crowd just lost all interest in tracks like "Bling" or "Runaways" or "Spaceman." Although, I'm sure there were people in the crowd who couldn't wait for some tracks from Battle Born, so I'm sure they can't please everyone. But in my opinion, you play the best songs from the two albums that are universally lauded as being amazing, then a few Petty covers, and a few tracks from your new album, and then you bail. Anyway, I'm glad I got to see them and croak along to "Mr. Brightside" and "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine."
So there you have it. I'm working on listening to the Saturday artists that I never reviewed, so I'll have an abbreviated post about that up soon. Let me know what you loved about the Fest this year, I'd love to hear about it.
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