SATURDAY.
Saturday was stinkin' hot. We parked and walked down with the kids, arriving just after the first bands started at 11:30. We went straight to the food court area and picked some vittles - the wife got a rice bowl from Kababeque that was legitimately awesome. Really flavorful and spicy and filling. I did the Burro grilled cheese (good), while the kids kept it boring and did pizza and burger. After eating in the shade, we went to the Tito's tent and watched about half of Paul Cauthen's set, he was really very good. Classic country sound, lots of electric guitar, left him straddling the outlaw country line in a good way. The kids seemed unimpressed, but the wife and I had fun.
We then walked over to see Grace Vanderwaal, who was fantastic. The crowd was pumped up for her, chanting her name and screaming for her, and when she came out, she just looked so very pleased, just innocently and humbly overjoyed to be there, that you couldn't help but root for her. She had a band - electric guitar, keyboards, and drums - there for some support and oomf, and she really sounded good. A few songs of her with the uke, a few songs with the full band going after it, and throughout she just danced around the stage and smiled and looked to be having the time of her life. A funny moment to me was when she tried to get super serious (for a 14 year old) and talk about how the Vegas shooter tried to make music festivals scary, but she was here to bring love and happiness back to the people! It wasn't cheesy, and you could tell she was being sincere, it was just funny to me, coming from a teenager. As an extra special surprise, a friend was able to get us up on the side of the stage for the second half of Grace's show, and the kids were loving it. Both of my girls claim that Grace waved at them (and one has video proof that she is very proud of), and they sang along and really had fun. That one bit made the whole day worth it, to get them to the fest and spend the money, just to see them really have fun at a show that they loved. (although now I'm likely on the hook for tickets for all of eternity for my kids, so maybe not the best plan...)
I negotiated a break from the kids at this point, so that I could go watch A$AP Ferg and not feel bad about the language issues. Of course, the kids went in to Kiddie Limits (which they said was lame, BTW) and could hear every single word that Ferg yelled from the AmEx stage that was located right next door. Which led to a kind of funny exchange of my middle kid giving me side eye and asking if I really liked that guy. When I said yes, she responded that I was inappropriate. So very true, love, you don't even know. Anyway, Ferg put on an OK show, most of the young folks around me seemed to enjoy it very much. A few funny anecdotes: (1) he said he was from New York, and how nice it was to come out to the "country" in Austin; and (2) he told the fans to make the biggest mosh pit ever, clearing out a big circle up near the stage, and told everyone to go crazy in there when the music dropped, but when the beat dropped, like 1 person kind of danced through the pit and a few other people wandered around the edge. They need pit lessons from the master! But more than the funny stuff, the set was marred by technical difficulties as the heat apparently messed up the laptop being used by his DJ to make the music, and so it kept glitching out and stopping. Ferg left the stage a few times to let them get it right, and after the last one I just decided to leave. Which, of course, led to him playing his two biggest hits "New Level" and "Shabba" once I had found my family and could only whisper rap my favorite parts. But I did get to impress them with my knowledge of the parts about gold rings, bad bitches, and gold teeth. And MASTER BRUCE!
About now, a friend of my wife spotted her and she and her husband hooked us up with some passes to go to the HomeAway lounge next to that stage, which was pretty cool. Free drinks and snacks and the kids got to sit for a little bit while we watched Dreamcar on the screen. We tried to go sidestage for that one, but the crowd was too big for the kids to see. I don't much care for the music, so we recharged for a bit and then moved on. I can't say it was bad music, but I didn't like the lead singer's sound and was just kind of bored by the 80's derivative sound. We walked from there over to see Benjamin Booker for a few songs, which I loved, but the kids were starting to unwind a little, especially the 7 year old. Booker sounds much better than he did a few years ago, much more polished, really smooth guitar work and good vocals. With the kids feeling tired, we made a deal with them that Mommy would get to see two songs of Live, and then we'd leave. Funny thing is that the younger two still didn't want to leave - they were loving staring at all the people. So, we heard three Live tracks (really good, yet again, super tight for a band I had given up for dead long ago) and bailed out. About 5 hours in the park with kids, and it worked out really well. Of course, now the kids are spoiled and think we get backstage for every show, but they'll learn soon enough that we are front-of-the-stage type people.
SUNDAY
Like last Sunday, I showed up at the park somewhat late, as I had a little kid soccer game and birthday drop off to attend to, but still made it in time to hear about half of the Rainbow Kitten Surprise set. I really like those guys, and the cold front that had blown in overnight made it so that they were able to rock out without sweating straight through their clothes. I'll keep this band around in my albums to keep listening to, I'm glad that I found them through the festival. There were a LOT more people there for this show last week than this week, which is weird, since the cooler temps should have brought the people out in droves, but I was able to get pretty close with no issue.
By the end of that set, I was starting to get a little hungry, so I went and got a Shake Shack burger, which was absolutely awesome. I recall being unimpressed when I got one at the store months ago, but that sucker hit the spot in the park yesterday. I met up with a friend then and went to watch a few songs of the Whitney show. They sounded really good again, but after a few tracks we both started to feel a little sleepy from the gentle tunes - my friend hit it on the head by saying that Whitney is the type of music that is great for chilling at the house or in the car, but not so much the thing to do when standing in a dusty field with a warming beer in your hand.
Although I did not give Milky Chance much of a vote of confidence last week, nothing else in that hour was appealing so I decided to give them a more complete chance. I'm glad I did, I thought they put on a good show. The crowd was huge, and folks around me knew a lot of the lyrics. My recollection of listening to their recorded music was that it was much more electronics driven than the live show that they presented to us yesterday. Much better in a instrument focused performance.
At the next hour, I knew that I wasn't much interested in anything, so I kind of thought I'd do First Aid Kit, but after grabbing another drink and walking to that HomeAway stage, the sound there was just awful. I don't know if they were having trouble with the speakers, but you couldn't hear them at all. Screw that. So we walked over to the BMI stage to catch a band I'd never heard of before, and it was a good find. White Reaper is the kind of ridiculous rock and roll band that makes me love rock all over again. This is that pure rock and stupid roll, fat riffs and basic low end and buzzy singing that isn't quite punk but could be right there. Their album is apparently named The World's Best American Band, which is kind of funny in its own way, and while their crowd wasn't that big, the people who were there knew the words and were in to it. Oh, and LOUD. So very loud. The keyboard player was cracking me up, kicking at the sky and holding his little keyboard up over his head and headbanging and generally rocking out. He even grabbed a pair of sunglasses out of the air, tossed up by someone in the crowd, and stuck them on his face without missing a beat. I don't know, there was something purely skuzzy and awesome about these dudes. I'll go hunt down their tunes and try them some more.
After White Reaper, well, I guess I haven't gotten enough Run the Jewels because I went back for my third show in a week (after seeing the ACL taping last night). It was good again, although I got an invite to go into the important people section, instead of among the crowd, and wish that I would have gone into the masses again. The show was still fun (although I'm pretty sure that there was zero song variance between any of the three shows I've seen) but that type of music just made me want to jump and yell and bump in to people, and the important people section was way more reserved. I got some appreciative raised eyebrows by knowing when to yell "we all dead, fuck it!" and "RTJ! RTJ! RTJ!" but I think the people grinding in the front were getting the better experience. A few observations from the show:
- El P gave an interesting Dad speech in the middle of the show, about helping people out of the crowd if they needed help or fell down or whatever, and about beating up anyone who made an unwanted advance at a lady in the crowd. Killer Mike's response was to support the bit about murdering anyone who touched a lady without permission, but then he pretty much told El P to take the stick out of his ass. It was a weird exchange.
- They literally forgot to include Danny Brown in "Bumaye." They song ended right as Brown walked out with mike in hand. El P was like oh yeah! Hey, let's do that song again, and the beat then dropped right into a random moment just before Brown's verse, and then restarted the chorus chant against to get everyone into it for Brown's guest verse - awkward!
- They do some slow/depressing songs at the end of their set, which I think is weird. They should get the crowd going, slow it down (if they need to), and then ramp it back up to leave everyone on a high. Instead they do the depressing ass sounding "2100" featuring BOOTS, "A Report to the Shareholders," and then the ode to those who have left us before they should have, "Thursday in the Danger Room." I think they should end with something hype like "Banana Clipper" or "Lie, Cheat, Steal" to get the crowd pumped up again, not let the air out of our balloon with a slow whimper...
Anyway, it was a good show again, they just pummel the hell out of you with bass and fast lyrical twists. Fun stuff. Glad that they didn't try to bring on someone from the crowd to rap for them again.
I wanted so badly for Portugal. The Man. to be a great show. After last week went poorly, I was hopeful that this week would be better, but again not good. The sound at the HomeAway stage was complete garbage. The band started the show in a super fun way, rolling out covers of Metallica (instrumental jam, I think from "For Whom the Bell Tolls") and Pink Floyd ("Another Brick in the Wall"), before tearing right into "Purple Yellow Red and Blue." But the sound at the stage was like going to a concert where the band was going to play in a submarine and you had to stand on the shore and see what you could hear through the waves. The conversations around me were much louder than the band. Such a bummer. Several people around me were talking about it, and finally I just decided to roll out and get closer for Gorillaz.
Gorillaz. Man, that was a weird damn show. I was waiting for them to start, and chatting up the folks standing around me. I was for sure the oldest in my little area. One guy said he had seen them three times before, but all more than ten years ago. That guy offered me weed. One guy had a huge cat head on his head and a tank top on that said You're Freaking Meowt. The two girls in front of me wanted to hear about the Killers last week, and mentioned that the new Killers album was "fire." When I asked them what they thought about the new Gorillaz, they said they loved it. One called it an "experience" and the other said it was real art that you needed to immerse yourself in. I have no clue what to do with that statement. But they also offered me weed.
I actually liked starting up the show with the Gorillaz (the album) track "M1A1," as the crowd got pretty hyped up yelling the nonsensical chorus. They had 13 people on stage by my count, including a choir of 4 or 5 people, which was pretty cool. The choir made it seem like the crowd was singing along more than they really were. And SO LOUD. I know I'm starting to sound like a grampa, but it was making my chest vibrate, and if you looked at the screens on the edges of the stage, the images were actually shaking. Crazy. Also, the super fan next to me needed to scream "wooooooooo" after every song at 129 decibels, and I wanted to die.
Mentally, I thought that the vast majority of the songs were from Plastic Beach (the lame 2010 album) and the new one (which I think is hot garbage). I was generally right (song count after some research this morning: Gorillaz: 4; Demon Days: 3; Plastic Beach: 4; Humanz: 7), but they did do 7 songs off of the older (better) albums. But even with those older songs, I was a little disappointed that we missed out on some of the older hit songs in favor of so much of the new album. No "19-2000," or "Dirty Harry," or "Kids With Guns," instead it felt like he tried to keep it very downbeat and chill feeling. I think Demon Days is the best album, and yet it got the least number of tracks. Weak. One thing that Gorillaz does really well are the cartoon videos, and those played in the background for several songs, and I thought that was pretty cool.
They also had a ton of guest rappers come out and take the stage to do their verses, which was cool, but for some reason DRAM didn't even come out when he had played that same stage a few hours earlier. Strange. They also played the big hit from the new album via an appearance from Popcaan on the big screen, not live. But they had De La Soul and Del tha Funky Homosapien come out for their hits, which was awesome. The weirdest of the night was for "Sex Murder Party," from the new album, which involved a scary looking rapper and a tall singer dude (apparently Jamie Principle and Zebra Katz) who screamed and moaned and yelled about sex and murder and party and it was awful. Damon Albarn just sat there and looked unimpressed and kind of depressed while these two freaked out on stage and the choir sang about murder and then started growling. It was seriously offputting. In my notes, I said "sex murder party holy shit scary and bad choir singing in devil voice about murder albarn looks depressed." This made me feel like I should have taken those people up on their weed, as watching this stuff sober was not cool.
But, if that was the low of the show, then "Super Fast Jellyfish," "Feel Good, Inc.," and "Clint Eastwood" were all really good stuff. So, I'm not entirely sure that I actually liked the show, but I guess I'm glad I went to witness it. Some truly great tunes, and then a bunch that I could have done without.
One final observation before I put ACL 2017 away for a year - while walking out of the park, the Killers were playing "Mr. Brightside," and the crowd was amazingly belting out every word, so loud that from the street outside the venue it overpowered the music, which sounded really cool. Another great year of fun stuff in the books.
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