ACL Rundown

The average high.


Arrived a little late on Thursday because of a connecting flight in Houston and mass evacuations for Rita.

Rallied the troops and headed up to Stubbs for DJ ZTrip and Thievery Corporation. Some barbeque at setbreak. ZTrip was impressive, with percussionists and other musicians and whatnot, plus some good party DJing. Thievery started with a huge, ghostly rotating hurricane projected on the awning above the venue. The set ripped, they have a big band doing it all live. Again, very impressive. We then headed over to the Whiskey Bar to fully satisfy the ZTrip craving. That place was amazingly crowded. And hot. And everybody was jumping, even after we took off at 3:30 AM.



Fest begins Friday.


We find a nice guy offering $20 parking just a couple of blocks from the bridge. He held us spots for the rest of the week.

We walk in to Mofro jukin it up. Nice start.

Gov't Mule's keyboardist couldn't make it, so John Medeski sits in. He'll do. This is probably one of my favorite Mule sets ever.. the torrent is coming down right now. Thorazine, Sco Mule.

Mmm. Chilled black bean and avocado wrap.

Lucinda Williams is rocking, and so is her band. Gunslinger honky tonk guitarist and Lucinda doing all the greats, and some new stuff. On fire.




I think we headed up to Barton Springs at this point, after setting up for the Allmans. Above best viewed at original size. The Allmans were good, but I sat this one out on the blanket, talking about the day with everyone.

The Black Crowes were incendiary. Heavy jamming, great lightshow. At times noisy and raucus, and at others emotional and calculating, sometimes in the same jam. This torrent is on the way as well, to help refresh my memory, because I was a dozen sheets to the wind at this point.

Tonight we end up at Quincy's. She has the longest stairway I've ever seen going down to her boat dock. Its a trip you can only make once.



Day Two


Corey Morrow and his band was energetic as we were setting up the blankets. I'm going to try and find one of their CD's. Rockabilly, country. Stuff I'd expect at Festival Louisiane in Lafayette.

Mike Doughty is the man. Awesome balanced set. Solo stuff, Soul Coughing, a phat, dancy Firetruck remix. Then Hungry Like a Wolf. He finishes by starting out The Gambler, the going into a whole verse and chorus of Paradise City before finishing The Gambler. We went pecan.


My "Best of Fest" set.



Buddy Guy was great. He did the whole walk down the corridor to the soundboard in the middle of the crowd thing. He did famous blues impressions, Hooker, Waters... His band was constantly trying to show him up. The guitar player had a football jersey on and a guitar strap like ZZ Top so he could spin his guitar.

I finally got my hands on a cold hummus wrap at this point. Not bad.

Randolph was rocking. John Popper came out for a solo during Good Times Bad Times. Seems like I did some wandering around during his set.

Widespread Panic played an exemplary set, according to the folks who know. This is the first time I've been able to catch the new lineup, and I enjoyed it more than what I was accustomed to back in college. They seem more understatedly cohesive. More musical than percussive. I'll be able to tell more on a second listen.. another torrent in progress.



Saturday Night


Mofro opens up for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at Antones. Missed most of Mofro. DDBB is in the pocket. Deep. So was the list of guests. Robert Randolph, Topaz, Papa Funk! Lots of other folks, did Ian Neville ever get on stage? A Popper appearance? I think so. There were so many people up there it was hard to tell. I'd say we got up to the Dirty Twenty or Twenty-Five.


"If you closed your eyes, it felt like New Orleans."



Day Three


We're pretty beat to start the day off. Most of it was spent watching NFL.

Chef Bill whips up a batch of omelets and finishes the leftovers off by making this giant one.

Tracy cut up some sausages for INSIDE the omelets.

Harold Frybar gives the thumbs-up.


The hard core, the indefatigable, the unflappable festers do make it to Zilker on the last day. We made it up in time for Wilco, at 6:30. Kidsmoke/Spiders, Handshake Drugs, ITMWLY, even Casino Queen. Today was by far the hottest day, and now that the storm had blown through, it was still and stifling. We set up at the back and chilled. Today the dust is really picking up as well.

Day three's must-have accessory was the Jesse James bandana. Just look at the haze surrounding the SBC stage as we moved around to see the Black Keys at the Heine stage.





The Black Keys slammed it.

If you haven't seen these guys live, don't sleep on it. They understand the Rock and the Roll. They're also nice guys for having hooked a K-Hole evacugee up with a job on the road crew. And they slammed it.

Coldplay is indeed a great band. Bigtime stage show setup for this one. It began as a bright spot in the dust storm down the hill from the Heine stage. I remember being able to see a stage down there, heck, I was there, but I can't seem to make it out. The crowd is humassive. Some folks, like myself, even have the energy to do a last round of dancing before heading out. Mr. Martin was very humble, thanking us for sticking it out, making up extra verses about the dust. The band was energetic, they sounded great from at least 200 yards away. Now, not only can I say I've seen Coldplay, I really dug it. They proved they deserved the ACL 05 closer spot in spades.

The next post will include the bountiful menu prepared by Chef in Exile, Bill, and the Coldplay video, as soon as I upload it.