ACL Fest – Zilker Park

This is a little late, sorry, but here is my overview of this year’s (upcoming 2006) Austin City Limits Festival. First though, a qualifier: I’ve been lucky enough to go to all 3 days of all 4 years of ACL Festival so far, most of those days with significant backstage access – not because I’m someone important, but because sometimes it just pays to work for the Man.
The reason I point this out is that I know this festival about as well as anyone who doesn’t work for CSE, Charles Attal or Austin Parks and Rec, so you might actually find some useful info in this gargantuan post.
The schedule block isn’t out, so you there will probably be some time conflicts, but here are my early thoughts. I’ll mention mostly acts I want to see or recommend, and only mention non-recommended acts if they are especially crappy or if they are nearly headliners. I’ve linked a few of them to videos on YouTube as reference. After covering some of the bands I’ve got a little info on other aspects of the festival.

Who I’d see even if they were in the 2 0′clock slot and I had no money for beer
Tom Petty – I’ve seen him once, half a dozen years ago, should do pretty well in this environment. Like others, I’m not sure he’s of the caliber of recent festival closers. I personally like him better than Coldplay, but relevancy has to count for something. Regardless, I’ll be watching, only edging towards the bike racks during the encore.
Van Morrison – Honestly, other than Brown Eyed Girl I can’t recal any of his tracks off the top of my head. But my Dad lists him as on his “lifetime ‘to see’ list”, so that’s good enough to me. Springsteen, Neal Young and U2 are the only concerts he’s been to since I’ve been cognizant, so that’s a pretty good, if short, record.
Ben Harper – Easily the best show I’ve seen put on at ACL (in 2003, 2004 was too gospelly). Without a doubt a must-see

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists – he’s shows up far down the list, but I’m probably looking forward to this show more than any other. I wasn’t able to see them at SXSW this year, but picked up a couple of CD’s and they have been in near-constant rotation ever since. It’s punk/rock/pop with smart lyrics and a lot of musical creativity. And when I say punk and pop in the same sentence I’m not talking about the crap from all those jackass kids running around MTV with eyeliner on.
Gnarls Barkley – Might be huge by then, but as long as they don’t have a song as the theme of the NBA Finals I shouldn’t be exposed to them enough to be burned out.

Who I’d like to see if they don’t conflict with any of the above
Kings of Leon – well recieved show last time they played, looking forward to this one too
The Flaming Lips – I can take or leave 90% of their music, but the live show is supposed to be very creative, and if their set takes place after sundown I could see this being a very chill experience.
Massive Attack – I don’t have any of their stuff, but when I’m in the right mood it can be cool. Not sure how well it goes over in this type of open, outdoor setting though. Where’s the couch and the shag?
Willie Nelson – hmmm, this is your call. He’s a local and I haven’t sought out any of his shows, so I can’t say I’m psyched, but he is a good fit for the vibe of the festival. Plus the air is bound to smell pretty sweet while he’s onstage
The Secret Machines – OK, so they are a little hard to get into, maybe a little pretentious, but still could be a good show
What Made Milwaukee Famous – These guys are locals and Trying to Never Catch Up is growing on me, but I have yet to catch a show, so I’m making it a point this time if I haven’t seen them by September.

Only if they are really convenient, nobody I want to see is playing then, and I don’t have to eat, wizz, reload or sleep
Matisyahu – yeah, so he’s Jewish, and he raps, and he sings reggae. If I didn’t have the sneaking suspicion that he was contrived I’d like him more, but I still remember when I liked Vanilla Ice back around ‘90, then after he released that motorcross movie I swore I would never forget the lessons learned. Sorry Matisyahu, but I’m going to need to see at least 3 solid albums first.
The Raconteurs – The White Stipes are at least catchy, but replace his not a sister/not an ex-wife but sure to be craptastic drummer with an upgrade and you have – really boring, indulgent, uninspired trash from someone who read his own press. These guys will probably have buzz, but I’d have to have more than a buzz to enjoy their set (that was my attempt at some kind of catty/gay/American Idol style insult, best I could do)
Los Lonely Boys – I’m jaded because I’m a local, so I’ll withhold comment
Nada Surf - one hit wonder from the late 90’s makes a comeback that is recieved well by most critics. I’ll probably check them out.
The Shins – haven’t seen them live, but you know how when Jet (whom I like) tries too hard to sound like the Beatles? What if every 3rd song sounded like the singer thought he was in an emo band but the rest of the band didn’t know. Hey, I’ve been wrong before, but still…
Ween – I’ll probably check them out, not a favorite, but I am kind of interested in seeing them live

Not unless Pearl Jam or Pink Floyd are a late addition to the line-up and I need to camp out at this particular stage all day
John Mayer – Sure, maybe I’d like him if he was my friend or something, but the whole trust-fund-frat-boy-who-plays-earnest-music thing just doesn’t work for me. So unless Taylor makes me go, count me as being on the other side of Zilker
G Love & Special Sauce – see above, I’ve been forced to endure his crap twice. Good chance Taylor and I will be at different stages at this point.

FOOD – the food and art booths really stand out at ACL compared to other festivals I’ve been to. Lots of really good stuff, but I’m addicted to the spicy, crunchy chicken cones from Hudson’s on the Bend, I eat at least a couple of them each day of the festival.

Getting There – If you have a way to do it, bike to the festival. There are plenty of bike racks, and you will get home much quicker than any other form of transportation.
Busses – really easy when arriving, park downtown and a bus seams to leave every few minutes. But at the end of the night, the line for the busses is incredibly long, looking at a 30 minute wait if you leave close to 10. But this is actually incredible when you look at the volume of people they are moving. That 30 minute wait is in a constantly shuffling line as they keep the busses moving in an orderly manner. For those of you who don’t speak public transportation, the busses are all in good shape, confortable seats, air-conditioned, etc.
The line for cabs is much slower than the line for busses, I wouldn’t try it unless you arrived by a cab and hence aren’t parked at the park and ride.
You could also walk to one of the restaurants on Barton Springs Dr. and wait it out over chips and a margarita.

Supplies – wear a large hat, sunscreen, sunglasses, a shirt you wouldn’t mind dumping cold water on, bring a collapsable chair (I have one that turns into a backpack), a coozie, hand-sanitizer (hey, I’m 31, I don’t give a shit if that’s dorky or not) and if you want to bring a blanket it serves well to mark out some territory in the vast crowd. They also allow soft-sided coolers, which I’m considering bringing this year, then you could load up on enough water and beer to get you and yours through a set or 2, because it’s a bitch to leave your people to make a beer run, if it’s a crowded stage it’ll take 5 songs to find them back. They also have a little booth that sells all manner of misc. items for a little more than you would pay at a corner store, so you don’t have to bring .

VIP Badges - If you don’t buy tickets until close to the festival, look on Craigslist and you may see some VIP badges being sold, probably for way too much money, but just so you know – they get you into the festival all 3 days, unlike wristbands a different person could use the badge each day, but they aren’t transferable within a single day. They get you access to the VIP Grove which has free beer, wine, Sweat Leaf tea and Tito’s vodka based drinks, and a usually mediocre but sometimes good buffet of food available around meal times. But importantly they have lots of seating in the shade, as well as AIR-Conditioned, mobile bathrooms. Seriously. From the Grove you can hear the Heinekan stage (which plays the harder rock bands in the line-up), or the singer-songwriter stage, depending on which one is playing at a given time (see scheduling below), but I wouldn’t recommend actually intending to listen to a band from there.

Backstage Badges – Like the VIP’s, these get you in and are transferable from day to day. These do not get you into the VIP area and VIP’s don’t get you back stage. Backstage is a fenced in area to one side of each of the main stages. Depending on the size of the stage, they have a covered area with almost neverending free beer and with catered food around meal times (more often than not BBQ). Some sponsors reserve the free beer just for those with Sponsor badges (see below) as too many mooching artists were enjoying themselves on kegs that run many hundreds of $$ apiece. There are also port-o-cans in the backstage area for those keeping count. Most importantly you can get onto the side-stage, where they have little bleachers set up to accomodate maybe ~30 people on the larger stages, SRO on the smaller. This is really cool, as it puts you as close to the band as the guitar techs. There are aproxx 18 different types of Backstage passes – Sponsor Badges are the most prolific and get you backstage, but just to the stage of that sponsor (i.e. AMD badge gets you back at the AMD stage but not the ATT stage). Artist Badges will get you in at most of the stages, at the discretion of the stage sponsor. Then there are All Access badges which get you back at every stage, although the Sponsor badge has priority at each stage, so like last year All Access probably had a hard time getting back for Coldplay because it was full of SBC people. Also, All Access isn’t really all access, since, as noted above, backstage is really side-stage, and on-stage/behind-stage is for the various Producer badges of the festival organizers/bookers/more important people than me.