i spent this past weekend frolicking about acl. so, i met a lot of wonderful musician peeps whom i admire, and i danced among a whole lot of hipster peeps who had great clothes. and of course, i indulged in the wonderful food i'd been missing for a year. aside from the food, general happiness, and people that go along with being there, the acts were AMAZING. maybe the sound was a tad bit off for some unfortunate players, or the slightly uncomfortable weather (even though it was amazing weather considering it's still summer in texas) bothered other players (ahem, ms. mosshart, the poor overheated soul who will not take off one of her 343 shirts even though she's about to faint), but overall, all of the musicians i saw played great shows. i was a bit lazier than i thought i would be (i only saw 8 shows, even though i could have seen 14), but i had an awesome time. so, here's my review of the weekend:
FRIDAY-
the first thing i made sure i did when i got to acl on friday morning was to meet the lovely boys of vampire weekend. they are adorable. especially ezra. eeh, i am a fangirl, though i'm not nearly as bad as some people. but really, they are wonderful and not how i thought they'd be.
the second event of the day was the vampire weekend set. one word: perfect. seriously flawless. they put on a really great show and all of them can engage their fans so well just by playing their music. i really wish i had seen them at rubber gloves last november (i stayed home that night they played in denton, regretting that i didn't go)! oh well. it might have been my favorite show of the entire weekend. maybe.
i went on to m. ward, a little while after that. this was the first time i'd seen him, even though i've loved him for a really long time, so i was ecstatic. even more exciting than the fact that it was the first time for me to see him play was the show itself. he's so interesting to watch, and he played so many of my favorite songs. i felt sort of idiotic for acting like an insane, crazed fan, but i don't care because it was marvelous.
after m. ward ended, sofía and i obtained a premium spot at the front to see jenny lewis. we were obviously ecstatic about this, since our love for jenny had been renewed after meeting her back in june (before then, we were saddened by rilo kiley's new sound and look, but then we saw them play and regretted what we'd said). the set was wonderful. i hadn't listened to acid tongue much before we saw her, but after seeing a lot of the songs live, i knew it had to be good. and she played rise up with fists!!, so i was happy. the next messiah was awesome, and jason boesel thought so, too (he was watching from backstage). i was also overjoyed to find out jenny has a girl drummer named barbara, and later when we met her (barbara), i found out she is extremely nice, too. so overall it was really, really enjoyable and i didn't even mind that i missed some of david byrne's set to watch her.
so, obviously, next i watched david byrne, from way far away. it was AMAZING because he played a lot of talking heads songs, and i thought he'd stick more to brian eno and his solo stuff. and it was also entertaining to watch everyone around me dance strangely. it seems mr. byrne brings out the weirdness in everybody. he has all the energy and coolness he had back in his heyday. it was definitely worth seeing him, his music has been so influential to me.
finally, i saw the swell season's set, which was good, not wonderful, but good. i think i would have liked it better if i had been less worn out and congested, but nonetheless, they were nice. and i was kind of falling asleep by that time, anyway...i don't remember much about that last show. ha.
SATURDAY-
we decided to sleep in on saturday and did not see fleet foxes (although i heard their set yesterday on xmu and it was good). we were content with seeing css at 3:30, and although my bandmates do not particularly like css, i really liked their set. i think partly why i like them is because they remind me so much of my brazilian aunt, it's hilarious. except my aunt isn't in a band and speaks way less english than they do. anyway, it was great and i admire their showmanship, it was fun.
so we sat in the sand and rested for an hour before we were going to see mgmt. but, unfortunately, we did not realize that mgmt is 3498x more popular than they were last november when we saw them open for of montreal. i swear, every single hipster and stoner who wasn't at spiritualized came to watch mgmt. it was insanely crowded. so we got out of the sea of people as fast as we could and went to go get up close for the conor oberst and the mystic valley band show, which was awesome. it was quite fun and i wish i could have seen the show at la zona rosa on sunday, but, alas, i was lacking in tickets. jason boesel is wonderful, i adore him. just sayin'.
SUNDAY:
the first (and only) show we went to on sunday was the kills. they were great, but not as great as they were at the cambridge room in may. seeing as they're way cooler than me and live in london, i say they are allowed to be as fussy as they were on sunday. halfway through their set, alison was bent over on the stage and couldn't stand the heat. i can sympathize with her, but also, it was 87 degrees that day. seriously. i'm not sure she knew she was in texas...or that she would be playing in the sun, at 1:30. and it wasn't that hot. and she was wearing pants and boots and at least two shirts. of course, she was hung over as well, so i guess that would add to the hotness, but still. i love her regardless, it just confused me.
so we watched a couple of bands while chilling out, waiting until an appropriate time to leave to go hang around outside la zona rosa, since the kills canceled their autograph signing. we left at 4 and went straight to the venue, just in time to see conor oberst walking across the street. we ran and shyly shook hands with him, and talked with him for a few minutes, before many other scary fans tackled him. so that was cool. we decided to wait around and see who else we could meet. we ended up meeting jonathan rice and barbara and nate walcott and i waved to jason for i was too shy to go up and talk to him and also to farmer dave and his nice hats and little skateboarding skillz. we decided not to bother jenny, seeing as she ran straight to her bus. but that afternoon was really nice, we met some sane fans and stuff, it was cool. and so went our time at acl 2008. i can't wait 'till next year!
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