[AGL] NYTimes review of ACL music festival

[Michael Eisenstadt]

Hitting the Radar: A Festival Soars in Texas
By NATE CHINEN
Published: September 29, 2008
AUSTIN, Tex. - Manu Chao, the French-Spanish global pop star, was an 
unstoppable force at Zilker Park on Friday night during his headlining slot 
at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Then again, he was properly 
acclimated, having played a show the previous night at Stubb's Bar-B-Q, and 
a taping earlier in the week for "Austin City Limits," the acclaimed public 
television concert series.

This year's acts in the Austin City Limits festival included Erykah Badu.
The festival averaged daily attendance of 65,000.
His schedule, not atypical for a big artist during festival weekend here, 
suited the swagger of a town that bills itself, officially, as Live Music 
Capital of the World. And his presence bolstered the stature of an event 
that has trailed in public awareness the likes of Bonnaroo, Coachella and 
Lollapalooza - not to mention South by Southwest, the industry-oriented 
conference that subsumes Austin each spring. Mr. Chao was one of more than 
125 acts in this seventh edition of the festival, which - judging by the 
strength of the music, the smoothness of operations and the fervor of crowds 
averaging 65,000 daily - deserves recognition as a first-tier rock fest, 
with a regional twist.

"What we have going for us that nobody else has," Charlie Jones, one of the 
festival's producers, said on Saturday, "is we have Austin, Texas." That 
deceptively obvious advantage played out in a few different ways. There was 
the cache of local talent, which yielded strong sets by the psychedelic-rock 
survivor Roky Erickson and the singer-songwriter Patty Griffin, among 
others. There was the location: so close to downtown that many festivalgoers 
arrived on bicycle or foot. (Parking is nonexistent, by design.)

And there was a clear sense of local identity, from the food vendors to the 
environmental undertone to the cross-section of musical tastes. Neither Beck 
nor David Byrne - headliners on different nights - would qualify as Texan, 
but each has appeared on PBS under the "Austin City Limits" banner. 
Similarly, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, who performed their whip-smart 
standard set, struck a companionably rootsy chord that could pass for that 
show's Platonic ideal.

"We started as more or less an extension of the television show, with a lot 
of the same philosophies in place," said Mr. Jones, who established the 
concert promotion company C3 Presents with two partners. The company, which 
now also produces Lollapalooza, has a business affiliation with the cyclist 
Lance Armstrong, a prominent Austinite.

And while the "Austin City Limits" name lent the effort instant credibility, 
there were big reciprocal benefits. "At the time the festival started, it 
not only rejuvenated the TV show but very well may have saved it," said 
Terry Lickona, the show's producer and booker since 1979. "We were at a 
crossroads, struggling with funding, and we needed to shake things up. The 
success of the festival opened the doors to a new generation."

It's no coincidence that "Austin City Limits," which tapes in a nondescript 
space on the University of Texas campus, will soon move into an expensive 
studio downtown, to be finished in 2011.

The festival, which features bands on eight stages, can no longer be 
considered a spinoff: when locals employ the abbreviation ACL these days, 
they're usually referring to it, not the TV show. And inevitably, the 
musical sensibility ranges further in the festival than on the show.

So along with no-brainer bookings like the outlaw-country scion Shooter 
Jennings, who sounded great, and the Austin troubadour Alejandro Escovedo, 
who sounded fine, there were doses of straight punk (Against Me!), tuneful 
indie-rock (Stars) and experimental scrabbling (Man Man).

On Sunday afternoon the compellingly twangy singer-songwriter Gillian Welch 
couldn't help commenting on the din generated by Flyleaf, a Texas metal band 
playing clear across the park. "I feel I may need to uphold the hillbilly 
quotient just a little bit more," she said dryly, banjo in hand.

The sound bleed from adjacent stages wasn't a problem only for Ms. Welch: it 
was the chief flaw of this year's festival. (In the past that distinction 
has been shared by the heat and the dust, both of which were minor irritants 
this year.) But Mr. Jones maintained that the proximity of stages was 
purposeful: "It's our goal to send people home with five or six new bands." 
His point made some sense, judging by the tens of thousands of people who 
heard (overheard?) MGMT, a cannily quirky Brooklyn band.

And even more so than South by Southwest, the festival encourages chance 
contact between bands and fans. "It was pretty overwhelming," said Gordy 
Quist of the Band of Heathens, roots rockers named Best New Band at last 
year's South by Southwest conference. "I think there were a lot of people 
hearing us for the first time."

Just as striking was the spirit of camaraderie among artists: in set after 
set there were acknowledgments and dedications. On Saturday evening the 
indie songwriter Conor Oberst, with his countrified Mystic Valley Band, sang 
"Have You Ever Seen the Rain" - a nod to John Fogerty, who wrote the song, 
and who was at that moment holding court on another stage.

Given the abundance of options, it might have been a coincidence that 
several of the most memorable performances were by native or adopted Texans. 
Among them was an imperious, unscripted tirade by the Dallas-born R&B singer 
Erykah Badu, one of the few urban artists at the festival, and by all 
measures the most impressive.

White Denim, an Austin three-piece with a slashing, raucous, elastic 
rapport, played on a secondary stage to a relatively sparse crowd - it was 
up against the Raconteurs and Gnarls Barkley - but made its point in a way 
that felt both focused and unhinged. "Don't Look That Way at It," from the 
band's forthcoming full-length debut album, featured an epic roil of 
pounding toms, wordless vocals and a surprising, squiggly guitar riff.

Another Austin indie-rock band, Okkervil River, played an energetic 
after-hours show outdoors at Emo's. Singing in a high, plangent voice and 
manically strumming an acoustic guitar, Will Sheff made his forward-tumbling 
melodies feel breezy but serious.

And while the multistage atmosphere confirmed a reality of music-world 
microniche, the festival ended on a note of consolidation. Because the Foo 
Fighters had no competition from other stages, their closing slot exuded a 
feeling of dominion. Dave Grohl, the band's eager-beaver front man, asserted 
control from the start. The group, hard driving and machine-precise, worked 
just as hard.

At one point Mr. Grohl surveyed the sprawl before him. "I've never been here 
before," he said of the festival. Then he delivered his assessment: "This is 
huge and beautiful and great." (That last word had a colorful modifier.) 
"You guys have got yourselves a nice festival."