ACL: Morning!
Actually, it's afternoon, the most oppressive part of the day, and to make matters even worse, this festival is more crowded than I've seen during any of the previous three times I've been. There are no natural pathways from stage to stage -- you just have to squeeze between packs of sweaty bodies and hope you're going the right direction.
Surprisingly, I've seen a little bit of music when I haven't been schlepping across Zilker. I just got back from St. Vincent's performance on the Austin Ventures stage -- the second smallest in the park. St. V. (a.k.a. Dallas' Annie Clark) made sure to give a shout-out to her hometown. She didn't have her band with her, so she made all the sounds with her electric geetar and a cool little drum/effect sampling machine. She also kept the audience laughing with her between-song comments. "I'm always bleeding," she complained after she cut herself while crazily plucking out guitar strings at the end of "Now, Now." She then played her blog-sational cover of "Dig A Pony," and on finishing said "That's a song I wrote back in 1969."
St. Vincent got more into her set with each song, but the opposite can be said of Scottish pop singer Paolo Nutini, who played earlier on one of the main stages. After a clap-along opener, followed by a raucus version of his indie hit "Nu Shoes," he lost his gusto and began playing slower ballads. He could probably take a few lessons in festival-rock from The Killers, who closed the AMD stage last night. Brandon Flowers' sass (he came out in a cheese-tastic sparkling jacket and strutted around like Jagger) and the accessibility of the Las Vegas group's recent hits make it the perfect band for a large outdoor setting. Too bad I couldn't stay for the whole set, but the intoxicating voice of Bjork called me from the other end of the park. I went to her, like a zombie (or maybe I was just tired) and found the weirdest stage setting I've seen in quite a while.
There were multicolored banners in the background, a Polyphonic-like choir of singers, a horn section and, of course, Bjork in a strange pancho-like dress almost as outrageous as Brandon Flowers' getup. She's one hell of a live performer, improving on the intensity of her recordings with ease. I only heard her talk between songs a few times, once to say "Thank you Texas" in her cute li'l Bjork voice.
Hmm, let's see ... what else have I seen? ... I'll have to get back to you later. The sweat in my hair is somehow affecting my brain.
