I did not win the super special $50 tickets for the 2008 Austin City Limits music festival. Same as last year. But I remain optimistic. Surely one of these days I will be that lucky one in... what?... a thousand that wins out in the drawing. But I did cough up the money to buy 2 tickets at the earlybird price (I think that saves us about $15 per ticket so not terribly impressive). If we're feeling uninspired next year, I'm sure we'd have no problems selling them off.
To be quite honest, Greg and I weren't terribly enamored with the festival this year. It was boiling hot, which is nothing new but this year the weathermen were predicting a cold front to blow in Saturday morning. Liars! I can handle the heat. No problem. I'm a Texan. I'm used to it. But when told to expect lower temps that just don't arrive, I'm mentally beaten down. Cruel, weather dudes, very cruel. I think Dilek had it right when she said the ACL officials pay off the local stations to get a high turnout.
Besides the weather though, we weren't really inspired by any unknown (to us, anyway) bands like we have been in the past. But the acts we really wanted to see were good. Paolo Nutini was fun, although he seemed high/drunk/disoriented when we heard him on a radio interview earlier that morning at 11 a.m. Maybe that's just the way he talks. Or maybe he really was wasted before midday. He sang most of his set doubled over in an awkward hunch. That just can't be good for his 20-year-old body (damn, am I showing my age?). He sang a song about pot-smoking. I wish I could remember the words because they were pretty funny, but that was the most animated he performed in the whole set. I was crushed up close with the standing-room-only crowd because Paolo just so happens to sing my personal theme song New Shoes. (Do you have a theme song? You should really work on that if you don't.) So I thank him for making that the second song in his set so I could retreat back to the more open, cooler spaces in the back. The next big act I was waiting for was Andrew Bird. Loooove him! And he did not disappoint, although I have to say I slightly prefer his solo act when I first saw him opening for Ani Difranco. He was amazing at that show, looping recorded sounds to make a one man band! Then for the last act of the night, we caught Arcade Fire. We fell in love with these guys when they played at ACL a few years back. I'm happy to see that their fan base has grown considerably since then. We did sneak out early though. I hated missing the last of AF's set, but I just cannot stand to be in the crush of people all filtering out of the narrow gaps at once at the end. I get entirely too claustrophobic and anxious. Too many other bodies touching me. Breathing too much recycled air. Too much body heat and sweat transfer. Ew, no.
But I have our tickets for next year. Now all we have to do is wait another 10 months to see who's playing. Patience is a virtue, right.
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