Day One:

we hadn't been on the shutle bus to the festival ground for 2 minutes before Argy was wearing a microphone and being interveiwed for the local news. of course i was too stupid to think to call Shawn or my sister-in-law or someone to tape it so we could see it. funny thing was we were later laughing about the interviewer woman finding them for an exit interview amongst all the masses at the festival when she popped up behind us.

out of the 42 acts that played on 7 stages yesterday we saw the Damnations (a friend of mine's band that wasthe very first act of the festival), Shawn Colvin, Liz Phair, the Mavericks, Mavis Staples & Al Green. oh, and we cuaght Dwight Yoakum's last song on the way out. not too shabby for Day One. i'll wait to relate more details on the day til Ms. McB has a chance to add her report.

there was an amazing variety of food venders--all local restaurants--but the beer choices were severely lacking. Michelob, Mich light, Amstel light or Heineken. i'm sorry but how they hell can they even have "Austin" in the name of anything that doesn't even sell SHINER BOCK???? so far that was my only complaint.

as yesterday damn near kicked my ass, i'm pretty sure i'm going to lay out today. Los Lobos was the one act today i wanted to catch, but i've seen them before and i'm sure i'll have opportunity to see them again. Argy & Ares have several bands they want to see today so they'll have more to report about today.

rest assured a freakin' good time is being had by all.

WHAT WOULD XENA DO?

are you sitting on the soap?

Love is a burning thing
and it makes a fiery ring
bound by wild desire
i fell into a Ring of Fire
i fell into a burning Ring of Fire
i went down, down, down
and the flames went higher
and it burns, burns, burns
the Ring of Fire,the Ring of Fire

how weird that every line in the first paragraph started with 'w'. W!?!?!

coincident? i think not...


WHAT WOULD XENA DO?

are you sitting on the soap?

Love is a burning thing
and it makes a fiery ring
bound by wild desire
i fell into a Ring of Fire
i fell into a burning Ring of Fire
i went down, down, down
and the flames went higher
and it burns, burns, burns
the Ring of Fire,the Ring of Fire

oh, you have AOL, don't you. The window for Internet Explorer is bigger so that didn't make sense for a second. Once I reduced the size it did have all w's. heh...

It sounds like you all had a neat time!

---------------------------------
Beg to differ, little lady.

zoom covered the music highlights from the first day of the ACL festival so I'm just gonna make some random comments on other things that were interesting to me.

ACL is about five times larger than any festival I've ever been to, but the people are about fifteen times more civilised. They even picked up their rubbish!

One of the first things I did at the festival was hit the markets. I scored myself a nifty turquoise necklace (very rough, unpolished pieces of stone) and a clip with a long strand of beads attached, for my hair (zoom killed herself laughing at me, for making such a 'girlie' purchase).

I then spotted a store selling 'Aussie' hats, and went over to give the sellers hell. First of all I said I'd never heard of that brand of hat. Then I told 'em off for not having 'Akubra' hats (the definite Aussie head gear). Then Ares picked up one of their hats and noticed that it was 'made in Indonesia' and hilarity ensued. It was all in good fun, though.

At an iced tea stand, soon after that, we were served by two gals from Oz. Yay! Four Aussies found each other in the midst of thousands of Texans!

Later, for lunch, I got to sample 'red beans and rice' (yum). Afternoon tea saw me sucking on low joule, watermelon, shaved ice (which was extremely refreshing after a hot day's music watching).

Musical highlights for me were local band 'the Damnations' (GREAT lyrics), Liz Phair (who was dressed in a girly skirt with a flower but managed to sing THE filthiest songs I've heard in a while) and Al Green who, for some reason, kept saying he was going to 'Texsome' and then started saying he needed to 'touch somebody!' Then he started getting confused between Austin and Houston, so he just started shouting out both names. He was cool, but kinda bizarre at the same time.

All in all a very interesting day. Can't wait to do it all again today.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’m not so sure that the term refers to an amicable argument; in my experience argy-bargies are often not only heated discussions but also rather bad-tempered ones, amounting to a spat or minor quarrel. But then, the term is mainly a British or old Commonwealth one, not that well known in the US, and easily misunderstood out of context.

Hi y'all from ACL!!

It's Argy (cain't y'all cain't tell).

this is zoom--see. no caps.

Howdy from le

G'day from Ares - doing this against my will!!

we just had to "texsomebody!!' from the on site Internet cafe...

WHAT WOULD XENA DO?

are you sitting on the soap?

riding shotgun down the avalanche...

Hi back at y'all! Glad you're having big fun! Another play-by-play report is expected on the day's events. Enjoy!

ooohh, looks like much fun to be had!

========================

Leo: Hey, you want to freeze me in bed for your own personal pleasure, that is fine, but freezing Natalie is not gonna make her or the Elders happy.

i'll leave the Day Two update to Argy as i was too damn tired to go Saturday...

Day Three:

second day of cloudy skies & light rain, which was more blessing than curse considering the potential for Texas heat. we saw Bob Schnieder (local boy made good. on many levels, as his girlfriend ((i think they're still together)) is Sandra Bullock...), Lucinda Williams (a delightfully foul-mouthed lil lady...), Yo La Tengo, Ben Harper, and Ares & Argy stayed for what sounded like a great set by REM while le and i surrendered and went home early.

Argy was quite happy to find still more Aussies as the weekend progressed, while i was quite happy to find some folks flying a Tennessee Titans flag on Sunday who had football score updates.

final attendance numbers for the festival were in the 60,000 range, and even as an Austinite i was impressed by the pervasive mellowness of all the attendees. the organizers are calling it an unqualified success, and i'd have to agree.

WHAT WOULD XENA DO?

are you sitting on the soap?

riding shotgun down the avalanche...