ACL: Four Bands Save Day Two from Meh-ness

The White Stripes’ last-minute cancellation forced the ACL organizers to begrudgingly shift the schedule, and Dr. Dog filled in admirably in the 12:30 slot. Mario Matteoli on the BMI stage welcomed me back to the park for Day Two, and I’d have stayed to check out more of his act had I not booked it down to the far end of the grounds to catch the Philadelphia five-piece.

Photo by Ace Cowboy

Had it not been for the Arcade Fire as its opposite bookend on the schedule, Dr. Dog may have been the best band on the day’s roster. They’re masters of switching from harder-tinged rock tunes to softer, almost eerie ballads (“I don’t want to die in your arms, I just want to die”), and the three-part harmonies they produce are the stuff of which most bands dream. Dr. Dog leaves the festival to head back on tour with Wilco before beginning its own headlining tour in early October.

Raul Malo‘s band provided us some quick filler, then we made a bee-line for the always-awesome Austin Ventures stage for the British blues band Back Door Slam. I wasn’t entirely sure a group with that innuendo-filled name from, of all places, the Isle of Man, would endear itself to a Texas crowd, but the assembled audience warmed up really quickly to these three youngsters.

Guitarist Davey Knowles is the Real McCoy, a talented shredder and singer that can, at his best, conjure up slight comparisons to Eric Clapton in the Cream days. They’re not quite Cream good, but they’re damn fine in their own right. The band features the most English-looking bassist I’ve ever seen, but he’s one-third of a seriously impressive bluesy rock trio. Back Door Slam released their debut album in the States on July 1st, and today marked the last gig of a two and a half month tour.

Photo by Ace Cowboy

Before jetting over to the Paolo Nutini set we soaked in a bit of Dax Riggs, the eccentric former frontman of Deadboy & Elephantman who played an excellent tune with the refrain “I forgot I was alive.” In that heat, I almost did too. Then the Rocky theme song started and Nutini came out on the AMD stage, and as I mentioned above, he turned in one of the four best sets of the day.

The 20-year-old Scot has a Pink in Dazed & Confused thing workin’, and he’s just as cool on stage as the fictional quarterback. His stage presence, coupled with his soft voice and confident lyrics about life and love, is enough to captivate even the most lethargic audiences. This may be a strange comparison, but his voice on some of his songs made me think of Gilberto Gil and the Tropicalia movement in 1960s Brazil. Well, maybe it’s just the Paolo name. Either way, great band.

Day One’s bluegrass domination returned for a second day, with Railroad Earth taking the stage in the tent shortly thereafter. RRE is the model of consistency — every time I’ve seen them they’ve delivered a quality performance, nothing less than their best. But it was time for lunch and a trip to the Cold War Kids, so my audience with Todd Scheaffer & Co. was more short-lived than I’d like.

Hey, so, why does everyone insist on telling me how great the Cold War Kids are? Really? Some bands live up to the hype, some fail just short, and then there are the bands that couldn’t be less worthy of their status. Unfortunately, Cold War Kids fall into that last camp. I normally dislike bashing bands in any forum, and I won’t do that here either — instead, I’d like to know from you, what is the appeal? What do you feel they do well? I honestly thought it was totally discordant and somewhat painful. I couldn’t get away fast enough.

Whereas Friday’s session saw the midday bands like Big Sam’s Funky Nation and JJ Grey & MOFRO turn in truly inspired performances, the middle of this day was wrought with…whatever. Nothing was bad, but nothing was eye-opening either. Maybe the heat played a bigger role in this stuck-in-neutral mentality, but I got virtually nothing out of sets from St. Vincent, Ocote Soul Sounds, Blue October and Butch Walker and the Let’s Go Out Tonites. Actually, that’s not true — Blue October was flat-out awful, and Butch Walker made me laugh out loud when he said in all seriousness, “I’ve got 45 minutes and I’m using them all on you.” Try that one on a date.

Stephen Marley was the first of two sons of Bob to take the ACL stage, with Ziggy playing Day Three. What, Damian wasn’t available for the Friday session? Mang, Bob Marley left not only a musical legacy, he left a family business behind. And the Marleys are expanding at a breakneck pace, with three of them currently performing all around the world. These brothers (by relation, not race) are like Duane Reade or Starbucks — they’re opening on every corner because even though they’re all virtually the same, you never want to go too far to get some.

All that said, there’s a reason these guys can all tour — the music is danceable and memorable. There’s a whiff of nostalgia, sure, but there’s a reason people like refurbished goods. I wouldn’t mind seeing Stephen show up tomorrow in place of Ziggy and seeing whether anyone’s the wiser.

Next was Andrew Bird’s turn to show us what music is all about. Seriously, this is how you make music. Bird and his two associates may have been playing songs off his albums, but you’d never really know it by watching the set. Bird has an insane talent for whistling — hey, he could have played the third Young Folks of the weekend — and his penchant for looping whistle tracks and violin riffs without relying on them the way Keller Williams does makes for a most enjoyable set.

It almost seems effortless for him up there. He sampled his own whistling and violin talents in A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head To the Left, a song I would consider “nailed” today. Try watching this guy without a sense of complete awe — it’s mesmerizing. It’s music.

I met up with Ickmusic’s Pete over at the Beau Soleil cajuner tent set, and after a couple songs his brother and him accompanied me to the Arctic Monkeys set. This is another band that had some hype to live up to, and for the most part the pop-punk kids from Sheffield matched it. As Pete said to us at one point, these are “quite the energetic young lads.” It’s true — they’re not hopping around the stage uncontrollably, but they do put the pedal to the floor on as many occasions as they can.

The band is lyrically quite impressive, with frontman Alex Turner almost telling a story linguistically rather than singing lyrics over a melody. It’s at once refreshing and enthralling, and it’s probably the band’s biggest strong suit in my eyes. Musically, I must admit, the album does more for me than the live show — much like Peter, Bjorn & John yesterday, there’s a musical complexity missing from the act that doesn’t translate into the giant festival setting. For me. For the many, many other people in the crowd, they couldn’t get enough. And slaying an audience is more than half the battle, so kudos to my third United Kingdom band of the day.

Instead of walking to the next stage for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, we stayed put to get better seats for the Arcade Fire’s headlining set. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this band for a long time, and for some reason it’s just never worked out for us. Now was our chance, and they had a ton of hype to live up to, much like a number of bands on this day.

And, holy fuck, even though the sun finally went down and cooled off the crowd, these guys brought the heat. They not only lived up to the crushing weight of their own reputation, they far surpassed it. Audio difficulties dominated the first few songs, the mix a little out of whack, but it didn’t matter — Arcade Fire showed me first-hand once and for all what they’re all about. And they’re all about kicking my ass.

So much has been written about Arcade Fire that it’s hard to pile on at this stage of the game. But the one thing I’m most blown away by is the fact that this is a true collective, a musical hippie commune in action, an ensemble that proves the old adage about a sum and greaterness and its parts and such. On their worst night, these guys are still probably better than 99 percent of the bands out there today.

Like Andrew Bird, you can actually feel these guys making music, making good music, smiling as they go, changing instruments after each song, figuring out what works and what’s genius. It’s simply amazing that a band like this can just materialize out of nowhere to join the All-Time Greats conversation.

And there we have it…another eight hours of music in the books, another 16 bands of pure entertainment at one of the best festivals on the circuit. Day Three’s fast approaching, and if you don’t think I have an enormous erection just thinking about the Wilco/My Morning Jacket hour tomorrow, you don’t know my loins very well. We’ll see you again tomorrow…