ACL is over, suckers. That's both good and bad. It's bad in that I saw a lot of good stuff, had a large time, and got to hang out with a lot of excellent folks, but good in that I am so damn tired of standing around, paying money for lots of stuff, worrying about catching diptheria from using the port-o-potties.
Let's get to the highlights. The absolute coolest thing I saw all weekend was on Friday afternoon, when I finally fulfilled one of my life goals: I saw an exploding port-o-pottie. Apparently a propane tank on a camper blow up, thus catching the pottie on fire and delighting the audience while surely freaking the hell out of whoever was in there.
Oh yeah, I also saw some quality acts. Arcade Fire was probably the best, with an amazing stage production and some great song selection. Devotchka was great too, in that they had a tuba player instead of a bassist and the singer was chugging red wine throughout the show. Andrew Bird and Wilco were great also, and I loved how Stephen Marley had a guy on stage with him whose sole job was to wave the Ethiopian flag like a maniac.
There were a few lowlights, as well. Bob Dylan apparently couldn't make the show, and so he sent his warmed over corpse. Man, he sounded BAD. Does Bob Dylan not know about Halls with eucalyptus? His band was great and I think he had some moments where the voice was holding, but for most of the show, he sounded like the bastard child of Cookie Monster and Bob Dylan. Steve Earle was also a huge disappointment. You're going to bring a DJ on stage with you now, Steve? Why not put on a beret and complete your lameification?
As unhappy as I was with Dylan, it did lead to a pretty cool scenario. We parked about 15 minutes away from the park and in order to get there and back, we had to take a shortcut through the forest. It wasn't too rugged or anything, but there wasn't any lighting along this trail. That was no problem when we walked it to the festival at 2 PM. It was a little trickier at 10 PM, when Sam and I were walking back with only a cell phone to light the path. It was definitely spooky, and what made it even scarier was the fact that we could still hear Bob Dylan's craggily voice. It was kind of like getting chased by Skeletor. I could only hope that any forest muggers would hear that voice, assume it was the devil, and hide under a log in absolute terror.
Until next year, port-o-potties.
Posted by Cody at September 17, 2007 7:37 PMTraversing a forest sans machete? I didn't even think that was possible.
Posted by: Boj at September 17, 2007 8:27 PM