ACL 2019: Weekend Two: Sunday Schedule and Thoughts

Sunday during weekend one RULED.  Cleopatrick was heavy and hard and super awesome even though it was still morning when they took the stage.  Thomas Csorba sounded good.  IDLES were kind of terrifying and, in that way, pretty awesome.  Billy Strings was absolutely jaw-dropping.  Those dudes can jam on some instruments.  Kacey Musgraves was great, as usual (although, playing nothing from Same Trailer Different Park bummed me out.  I like Golden Hour a bunch too, but come on, "Merry Go Round" is classic).  Mumford was great too - excellent musicians and a fun show.

Sunday is usually a slow day for me, just because I'm old and tired and I'd probably rather watch some football and drink beer in air conditioning than mess around and watch the 11:30 band at ACL.  But last week I got motivated because of cleopatrick and Otis the Destroyer.  Worth it (even though it was so hot I thought I was going to die - right about 12:30, when I raised my hands to clap for cleopatrick, water sprayed off of my hands and forearms like I'd been soaking them in a pool.  it was insane).

A few prelude thoughts:

• The comments for each band are those "One Liner" things that I added to my reviews. It helps me to remember who they are (sometimes) and provides some detail on the kind of music they play.  
• I've made each band name a link so that you can go read the full review and listen to some tunes if you are unswayed by the One Liner.
• The first column in each box is the stage where the band is playing (in case you thought I was just playing a weird word association game).
• MUCH BETTER WEATHER!  Although the grass is deader than dead, so you might consider a bandana.

Here is a playlist of my suggested tunes for Sunday.

Here we go.

11:45

Miller Lite	Caroline Rose: Alt country gal turned pop rock indie blast
VRBO	Kady Rain: Local pop music following a Kesha and Katy Perry blueprint
Tito’s	The Gospel Stars: Gospel
BMI	Sego: Low rent version of LCD Soundsystem
T-Mobile	PNTHN: Surprisingly excellent rap from San Marcos

Caroline Rose is good.  She's come up on my Spotify Daily Drive playlist a few times and I like it each time.  But I also really liked PNTHN.  I'd probably choose them.  Well, maybe not - early Sunday, some indie niceness might be sweet.  Nah, gimme the dope beats.

12:30/12:45

Honda	Julia Jacklin: Pensive indie folkie stuff very much like Big Thief from last year.
Kiddie Limits	School of Rock: Kids jamming cover tunes based on what they learned at private lessons
Tito’s (12:45)	Ley Line: Local ladies making bilingual indie tunes
American Express	Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors: Gentle Americana love song mastermind

I heard a little bit of Julia Jacklin while walking past her stage last weekend, and it is very pretty stuff.  But I'd choose Holcomb in this slot - he's pretty great.

1:15

Miller Lite	Still Woozy: Mediocre electronic indie that reminds me of that awful "Gooey" song.
VRBO	Mallrat: Lesser Lorde
BMI	Kat Dahlia: Cuban-American girl doing angry pop and rapping some.
T-Mobile	Duckwrth: Surprisingly good rap and mediocre R&B

Real talk, before re-reading their one liners, I couldn't have told you what the top three of these were.  I probably spent a day listening to each at some point, and yet now they all could be EDM or acoustic girl groups for all I recall.  I remember Duckwrth, but the problem with Duckwrth is that while two or three of his raps jam, his R&B stuff (which is the majority of his tunes) is blah.  My Spotify mix keeps trying to get me listen to more of his music, and I don’t want any of it.  That being said, "Start a Riot" is super duper dope.  Don't know what to tell you about this hour.  Go check the Cowboys' score or something.

1:45 / 2:00 / 2:30

Honda (2:00)	Idles: Semi-punk English dudes making catchy blasts with humor
Tito’s Tent (1:45)	Shandon Sahm: Son of Doug Sahm doing psych rock and cosmic cowboy country covers
Kiddie Limits (2:30)	Resonate: Percussion Troupe
American Express (2:00)	Joseph: Beautiful harmonies from a trio of sisters

Joseph is the best actual music of these four, but Idles might win just because I might want to go get my face bashed in for a while instead of hearing angelic harmonies.  I could see you making a different choice though.

I watched Idles last weekend, and they are freaking wild.  The lead singer would spit at the audience, and at one point was stomping his foot on the stage like he was literally trying to knock a hole through it.  They had a legit mosh pit, and the guitarist went down in there.  Crazy show.

3:00

Miller Lite	Bea Miller: Forgettable pop with indie pop girl voice
VRBO	Shura: Perfectly pleasant electronic indie pop songs for making out to.
Tito’s (2:45)	YOLA: Soul and country combined by a sweet sounding lady
BMI (3:15)	IDK: Ignorantly Delivering Knowledge rapper with some good stuff
T-Mobile	Koffee: Young reggae lady with a super catchy sound and a Rihanna co-sign

A bunch of weird one word names here - last week this hour was weak, but this week, you get YOLA, and you should absolutely go check her out.  She has the feel of someone who will be at bigger stages two years from now.  If, for some reason, you hate soulful country delivered by a lady with a strong voice, then IDK was pretty good rap and Koffee is interesting reggae-ish tunes.

4:00

Honda	Rosalia: Converting traditional flamenco into modern R&B, all in Spanish
Tito’s Tent	GoGo Penguin: Jazzy piano beat-focused instrumentals (is a phrase I never knew I'd write)
American Express	Rebelution: Reggae rock for the college bros to chill to.
Kiddie (4:45)	Imagination Movers: those Disney show guys

Another weak hour.  Come on!  Put Third Eye Blind in one of these slots for the olds!  I guess I would pick Rebelution out of these three?  Maybe go to Rosalia just to see the hype?

5:00

Miller Lite	Banks: Relatively generic alt R&B pop songstress
VRBO	Caamp: Folksy Americana with a bunch o' banjo.
BMI	Wrabel: Heartfelt love songs and support for transgender folks
T-Mobile	Fisher: Another EDM guy

Y'all missed out this weekend by not getting Billy Strings.  The dude (and his bandmates) can jam.  Out of these, I guess Caamp would be my choice, but I could also see trying out Banks for the hype.

6:00

Honda	Third Eye Blind: Doo Doo Doot!  Doo Doo Dooot Doooooo!
Tito’s Tent	Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers: Surprisingly jammy new tunes from the 80's piano soft-pop mastermind
American Express	Kacey Musgraves: Bad ass country chick with legit lyrics and cool sound

This is the hardest hour of the whole Festival.  On the one hand, it is actually pretty simple, because I’m seeing Kacey play any time that it is possible for me to see her play.  On the other hand, I would have really enjoyed both of these other two shows, which is just annoying.  Why y’all gotta do me like that?

As I mentioned above, Kacey was great last weekend, but I really wish she would have played more of her older songs.  "Follow Your Arrow" and "Merry Go Round" still resonate today - great, well-written songs.  Replace the Whitney Houston and Brooks & Dunn with those two songs and I'm a happy camper.

7:00

Miller Lite	Lizzo: Boss queen rapper, singer, twerker, and flautist extraordinaire
VRBO	LANY: 80's pop redux balladry like The 1975, but more 80's
T-Mobile	Griz: The EDM guy with the saxophone

Lizzo.  Don’t be stupid.  If you skip that show, then you are stupid.

Although, I will have to call myself stupid here, because I could not get to this show.  Like, it was physically impossible because I had stayed for the entire Kacey show, so the walk into a place where I could have seen the little side stage where they stuck Lizzo was physically impossible.  Very annoying.  So I missed out on one of the big things I wanted most from this year's fest.  SO, if you want to see Lizzo, you need to go there early.  And be prepared to be crushed.

HEADLINERS:

Honda	Cardi B: Unapologetically brash New York hip hop gal with some good tracks, some annoying sounds, and a bunch of forgettable lines.
American Express	Mumford & Sons: Roots rocking Americana revivalists with two great albums and then ...

I could see doing Cardi B, just for the pure spectacle of it all.  But if I’m doing it for the music, then I’m for sure going to go see Mumford again.

Mumford were fabulous.  They did this thing where they came out into the crowd some to jam on a little round stage about 50 feet from the normal stage, and so we ended up being very close to them for a handful of songs, and it was very cool to watch them blast on those instruments from right up close.  The crowd singing the "aahhhhh ahhhhhhh uuuuuh aaaaaahhhhh" part in "Little Lion Man" was beautiful.