Friday, October 10, 2008

ACL Day One

"Haven't you heard 'Keep Austin Weird'?" Veronica, of the Austin Clarion Inn, asked with an uneasy smile.

Honestly, I had not: this was my first time in Austin, for my first Austin City Limits festival. In fact, Leslie and I were so unfamiliar with the bohemian Austin spirit that we were shocked to find the small problem with our hotel room that had Veronica nervously pondering her computer: all the furniture had been piled on-top of the unmade beds.

After traveling all day it almost made sense in my disorientated, just-get-to-a-bed state. Yeah, it's one of these arrange the furniture and make up the bed rooms. Of course.

It was bad enough to be in a smoking room(another mysterious Clarion mistake), but this? At least Veronica was friendly. She quickly found us another room(still smoking). As she handed us the room "keys", I noticed the little plastic card had an ad for Domino's Pizza on it. Ha! I was in Austin; I was here to enjoy genuine Texas food! Why would I eat something I could get back in New York? She handed me a separate key for the hotel's "fitness center". The treadmill was also something I could do back in New York, but considering all the barbecue I expected to eat over the next few days, I thought it was best to at least have the option of keeping that habit up.

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The next day Leslie and I almost took the bus in the opposite direction of downtown Austin. Thankfully before taking a ride to only God knows where, we realized we needed exact change for the bus. One dollar. So we went back to the Exxon station(I had just been there in a futile attempt to find sunblock, which I had to find soon or it would be short, red and painful festival for me), bought some bottled water, and upon our return were turned around by some helpful locals.

One dollar for the bus? I liked Austin already. Fellow festival-goers rode awkwardly with blankets, backpacks, and outstretched maps. Being totally unprepared, I had no such encumbrances. The locals sat looking bored and used to the annual invasions of their city(in addition to ACL, South By Southwest is held in Austin). Passing the state capitol building, we eavesdropped on a conversation between a local and couple with folding-chairs and wide-rimmed hats for any useful festival information. There wasn't any.

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Before walking to the festival pickup point downtown, we had breakfast at a "funky" coffee house. Funky means the waitresses have tattoos and local art hangs on the walls. This seems to be the minimum requirement for any establishment to be "funky" or "quirky" regardless of where you are in the country. Conformity doesn't only come in Starbucks green and brown.

We had to pay at the register before sitting. I ordered some french toast, a side of bacon and the very inviting freshly-squeezed orange juice. Maybe the oranges are from just across the border, I thought, from the orange groves Conor Oberst sings about on "Cape Canaveral". The ones he saw in Mexico while recording his last album; a song he would probably perform when we saw him on day two. How fitting. Before handing us our table marker, the nice girl behind the counter poured my orange juice from a carton.

Sipping my freshly-poured orange juice, I talked with Leslie about who we were excited to see the first day. I was only hyper-familiar with one band on the docket, Vampire Weekend(who I like, though I find it interesting Peter Gabriel managed to somehow split himself into four Columbia students). I was really looking forward to The Mars Volta, because I'd only heard of them, but never actually heard them. I had a sound in my head; a heavy, terribly chaotic but beautiful sound that I imagined was theirs. I was a little uneasy, because the sound I end up hearing almost never matches what I imagine, but I was eager to see how closely reality matched what I had culled from reading about the band.

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I still didn't feel like I was in Austin. We had redeemed our tickets for wristbands(which we would have to wear during the entire three-day festival, which I thought odd), and were on the bus to the festival grounds. I imagined it would feel strange to be in Austin, a place I'd never been, so far away from home. Outside, the city could have been a summer day in any American town. The only clue I had was the Texas license plates and the slightly higher proportion of cowboy boots to all other forms of footwear.

At the grounds, it finally hit me. The huge, sweeping fields were filled with people walking around with banners and flags flying from long poles sticking out of their backpacks, looking like hipster-samurais. The cheering mixed with thundering bass-lines from the nearby stages came from all sides. I was in Austin, finally. At the first stage, watching a Brooklyn band called Yeasayer, the joy and excitement culminated in the defining existential crisis of concert-goers: do we really just stand here?

In the dry, Texas heat listening to Yeasayer's unique brand of wandering, spacey indie rock, excited, anxious, sweating...do I really just stand here? Should I try to dance? This is a festival, shouldn't I be a little more festive? Freak-out at every good part, jump up and down flailing my arms like a maniac or something?

No. I'm white(like most here), so I'll just stand, swaying and bobbing slightly(like most here).

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Watching Vampire Weekend, I was getting a little pissed off. Not at the band, but at their fans. They weren't belligerent, stuck-up, or graham-cracker boring and they weren't talking mindlessly through the set. No, they were throwing up the horns.

For. Vampire. Weekend.

The demonic sign of heavy fucking metal, for Vampire Weekend, makers of hyper-literate ivy-league dance pop. Look people, that's not fucking Slayer up there. I don't see Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax or even Billy Fucking Idol. What the fuck is wrong with the world that people are calling on Satan during "Oxford Comma"?

A frequent offender was an attractive woman dancing on top of a security fence during most of VW's set. The guard nearest her didn't mind, in fact, he was obviously enjoying the view. She was dressed like a neo-hippie: a hippie's wardrobe but modern hygiene. Enticing, but then two other security guards came over and made her get down. Behind me, I heard another woman say 'Thank GAWD!'

The men were silent.

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M. Ward was my favorite show of day one, and not just because he played away from the sun under the tent at the WaMu Memorial stage. In his arresting acoustic opener, Ward handled his guitar like a lover, holding it low, leaning over it attentively - almost drunkenly - as he played. Later in the set he switched to a black electric guitar with silver accents, and as he and his band thundered through some great country-rock songs, Ward and the guitar became an iconic image in my mind of what a rock musician should look and sound like.

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It was dark by the time the Mars Volta came on, and they were everything I expected. Within five minutes I could see why their hardcore fans love them(super-technical virtuoso musicianship, extraordinary stage presence, and a mind-blowing hard, loud sound) and why so many other people hate them(musical indulgences that would make even Led Zeppelin say, hey, that's a little much. Seriously, I was there for thirty minutes and they got through maybe two and a half songs).

We left early because Leslie wasn't feeling too well. Back at the hotel, I ordered Domino's, and wondered what day two would bring.

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