10.11.06

Festival Review - Austin City Limits

Posted in Music Reviews at 2:38 am

Update: Found the lost pictures, thanks to tech-hints.org and Restoration for saving my deleted images from my flash card!

Better to post this late than never.

My brother Nick flew in to town Friday at around 5, and we got settled and had our first of many drinks throughout the weekend. Our liquor of choice was Stoli Vanilla, snuck in with water bottles. We mixed it with the “Coolah” energy drink, which I enjoyed a lot.

Despite our collective smarts (mine: mostly booksmarts, Nick’s: mostly streetsmarts), we got confused between the AT&T Blue Room and the main AT&T stage, and missed a few big acts. We instead saw Sparklehorse, which honestly wasn’t that bad. We shared a drink with DQ and Spears and went off to the main stage.

Van Morrison came on, and was fun, but nothing incredible. I’m not a big fan, but I’m happy I got to see Brown-Eyed Girl before he kicks the bucket. The rest of the night was spent adventurously trying to get rid of some girl who had attached herself to us, which we successfully did at The Ginger Man.

Saturday, we went to the OSU alumni bar, watched the Buckeyes win with Allen, then headed back to the festival. The set of the day for me was Los Lobos, which I guess you could call a Rock-and-Roll Tex-Mex band. All sorts of influence, just fun music. I should definitely grab some albums.

Many drinks later, my brother met tons of my friends: Trash Talkin Tom, Mansfield, Jordan, Mo, Kate and the girls. It was finally time for Willie Nelson, who put on a fun show. I don’t know any of his music, but it was very enjoyable — another guy to see before it’s too late. It is unfortunate that he was arrested on drug charges later on.

Saturday night was a drunken mess, with Newquist and Bassett coming out with us.

Sunday morning, we were back at it again, watching the Browns lose at Aussie’s, and then off to the big day of it all.

First was Ween. This band is hilarious, with songs such as Piss Up a Rope. Their closing song, Doctor Rock, was the best for me. Quite fast, very entertaining band.

Next was the best of the weekend - The Flaming Lips. They might not have the best music, but I’ll be damned if they don’t put on a show! He came out in a blow-up “hamster ball”, ran around on top of the crowd on it, then began playing music. Confetti and enormous balloons were everywhere! He drenched himself in fake blood, not to be outdone by another musician who had a bloody nose all over the place during one set (cocaine, anyone?)… and then asked women to throw tampons on stage to clean it up. Absolute ridiculousness, and I did like the music too!

To close things down was Tom Petty, who put on a decent set. It rained, and the losers all went home, leaving more space for us. What’s great about seeing a Tom Petty set is that you know all of the songs - they’re all hits. But at the same time, it didn’t seem like he wanted to be there, and the Heartbreakers carried him through the set.