Austin City Limits

Every year, music fans flock to Austin for a 3-day festival called Austin City Limits. Thousands of people. Hundreds of bands. And at least this year, less dust and more rain. People get three day passes and while away the hours sitting on the lawn, rocking out to bands from 11am to 10pm. Just thinking about it is exhausting!

By the time I tried to get tickets, the 3-day passes were gone -- probably a good thing. I got myself a one-day pass for Sunday. KT Tunstall, Buckwheat Zydeco, Matisyahu and the BoDeans, among others... sounded like a great plan. But of course, it was HOT. and muggy, and raining on and off. I went to my favorite class at the gym (20/20 hindsight: either go to ACL or the gym, but not both on the same day!) came home and showered, and finally moseyed down there by about 3:30pm -- Marcia was nice enough to tell me where to park in walking distance to the festival. I heard a little bit of Jack Ingram, then had some food and went to hear Patrice Pike. She used to be in a band called Sister Seven, and was on Rock Star Supernova last season. She has an amazing voice, and was great in concert. (She's from Austin, so she's very popular here!) This was the sea of people I saw when I arrived --->

I had to leave Patrice's set to go listen to Matisyahu. My mom saw him when she was in Israel in April, and she liked him, so I thought "why not?!" I am not much of a reggae fan, but he's very easy to listen to and you find yourself nodding to the beat whether you mean to or not. So I might have to add that to my ever-growing Amazon wish-list. :)

ACL is really a city inside the park, with shopping and food and free water stations. Unfortunately, there isn't much in the way of seating or shade. and it was HOT (did I say that already?) so I wasn't feeling too well by the time I made it to Ben Harper's set. I tried to find Marcia and her sister in the crowd, but only proceeded to get myself stuck in the middle of a huge gaggle of people smoking something other than cigarettes. In fact, I went up to someone I *thought* was Marcia and gave her a little bump with my shoulder, only to realize that it wasn't her! D'oh! After that, I couldn't stand much more of the pushing and shoving, so I negotiated my way to the back of the crowd, and listened to the rest of the set from there. But I didn't have the stamina to stick around for Tom Petty.

Here's what the skyline looked like when I got back to my car, on the roof deck of the parking garage. Nice sunset.

I think the all-day outdoor concert event is just not for me. An evening at Wolf Trap, with a bottle of wine, sure. But I don't think I'll be doing the ACL thing again - unless somebody comes to visit me and really wants to go. But, I did it once, I had to experience it. :)

Comments

Anonymous said…
I thought this was NXNW or North by Northwest
10:48 AM
MelyssaF said…
NXNW is a restaurant. The music/movies/arts festival, coming in March, is SXSW, or South by Southwest. http://2007.sxsw.com/
10:54 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I see London, I see France...

Image
Saturday, June 3: Landed in London on Saturday with only 2 hrs of sleep on the plane... which is what happens when you're seated right next to the restroom. Sigh. We dropped our stuff in the apartment and went to lunch with the parents, and then we went off to find the Polish museum - only open the first Saturday of the month. Of course, we went to the wrong tube stop and had to hike a million miles... The Polish gentleman who was the tour guide was a survivor of WWII, I think. He knew everything - and assumed that we knew nothing, especially about WWII, which is not a good assumption to make with our family. Anyway, John and I were totally exhausted after the museum, so we went back to the flat for a while. The 'rents had theater tickets, so John and I stumbled out to find dinner in the rain and ended up having burgers at GBK  in Earl's Court. I think the maitre'd was American. This was the start of my string of bunless burgers (gluten-free was hard to find) on this ...
Read more

Let the craziness begin!

The family is starting its travel madness early this year... we're all boarding planes for the other side of the pond around the same time today. Mom & Dad on BA, Bryan on Virgin, and me on AA. It's almost 9 hours from Dallas to London.... bleh. I brought some SimplySleep, so hopefully I'll nod off pretty soon. I also brought a pair of socks that have been languishing in my project bag for six months or so ( Diamante socks, from knitty, in Fleece Artist, 100% Merino, bronze colorway) I stopped at a sock-and-a-half, though it looks like I have enough yarn left to make more. One good thing: The Dallas airport D Gate area has a nice little charge station, so my laptop can charge and I can sit on a stool and not huddle on the floor near an outlet like I've had to do at the A gates. So I'm actually getting some work done. Haven't been to London in 3 years! It was about 10-15 degrees colder last time I was there (it was a month later), too, so I'm hoping ...
Read more

Ciao, Italia!

Image
Eating our homemade pasta at the Villa Third time's the charm, right? After two failed attempts to get to Italy (IXPUG Meeting in 2018, foiled by a Nor'easter, and May 2020 foiled by COVID) , we finally made it!  Friday, May 20: We were not the only ones in the airport with masks, but definitely in the minority. The flight to Dulles was uneventful, but the C and D gates at IAD were *packed*. Lots of school kids going to Europe.  We had the middle and window seats in the middle of the plane, but not in Premium Economy (which apparently didn't hold over from our tickets purchased 2 years ago). Ugh. The guy on the aisle was a fidgeter. And there were so many little kids on the plane! I felt bad - one of them cried for his mommy for about three straight hours. But I was also super grateful for my earplugs and eyeshades. The gluten-free food on the plane was HORRIBLE, btw. Do not recommend.  Saturday, May 21 I will say, when we arrived, it was the fastest passport check ever -...
Read more