One week later and I’m still coughing up dirt from the 7^thinstallment of the Austin City Limits festival. I had a weapon case filled with allergy medicine and the intention to drink as much water as I did booze, but I still woke up Monday feeling used and confused. That said, I saw heard some good music and saw some things that mad me happy that I’d trudged through it all.

FRIDAY:

What promise the weather gave as I rolled out of bed and into a taxi, the cool breeze greeting me all the way up to the gates in Zilker grounds. First thing I had to do was stroll over to the Dell stage to check out the Steps. These guys had just won an online battle of the bands for their slot at ACL, and I wanted to see if they deserved it. Their concoction of Kinksy pop and Stooges hell-sickness made for something new in the post-Mtv-garage-rock era, and they certainly gained some new fans by being there. From there, I went straight to the Austin venture stage and saw my favorite Austin band by far, The Strangeboys. Strangeboys’ songwriter and frontman Ryan Sambol’s songs might have to be classified as “garage-y,” but his music certainly has nothing to do with Mtv. It comes from a real place, the same place that the original garage-rock from the 60’s came out of. They may have a pop quality, but there is a real rage against the status quo in their music that makes them more than something nice and poppy to listen to. And it was exactly that quality that made listening to Vampire Weekend, who are all pop and no substance, next very difficult. So, I didn’t. Instead, I went over to check out Jakob Dylan and the Gold Mountain Rebels. Don’t get me wrong, the Wallflowers ain’t my cup of tea, but Dyaln Jr. was promoting his new album, and what Jakob and Rick Rubin captured on that album is a dark folk album reminiscent of some of his father’s contemporaries in the 60’s. It was good to see Jakob playing in a skin that he seems to feel very comfortable in, and I hated that I had to leave early to truck on over to the Del the Funky Homosapien show. Now I’m super skeptical about seeing rap acts at festivals. They almost always sound terrible. But Del was dope. The lyrics were audible and the show was live enough to vibe off of from a million feet away. I had a difficult decision to make next: Patty Griffin, Bobby Bare Jr., M. Ward, or Gogol Bordello. I spun an empty bottle of Heineken Light to decide, and fate sent me to the Gogol Bordello show. Ever since seeing Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz in the film Everything Is Illuminated, I’ve been charmed by this guy. And he didn’t disappoint at ACL. The show kept me as amped as I got during the Del show. Hutz moving and making noises that I’ve never seen or heard but sure dug. After Bordello, I took a breather and enjoyed some of the many amazing concession booths that were there. They organizers really made it difficult to be a penny-pincher with the delicious delectables available. As I stuffed my cheeks with some El Chile, I caught the tail end of Hot Chip (which was fine) before getting back to the AT&T stage to see David Byrne. What a head of hair that man has! And backup-interpretive-dancers to boot! Though I’ve always been a huge fan of Byrne, I’ve never seen him perform live, and thus, this was a real treat. After Byrne, I saw local hero Alejandro Escovedo, who was equally as cool. And I closed Friday with Manu Chao. His fusion of sound, political progressivity and sexual energy (and how that affected the dancing girls around me) made me leave that night feeling definitely happy I’d come and I still had two more days. I thought back on my day, and felt that there had been some definite cohesion with natural transitions, and realized that maybe these festival organizers really knew what they were doing. Steps to Strangeboys to Jakob Dylan to Del (okay this one was a bit jarring) to Gogol Bordello to Hot Chip to David Byrne to Alejandro Escovedo to Manu Chao. The festival knows how to organize ‘em. Maybe I know how to pick ‘em. Well, maybe I did Friday anyway…