ACL: And Now…Now We Get Some Sleep

Our day began with…wait a minute, is that a jamband on the stage? Yes, break out the bunk molly and the malnourished dogs, Sound Tribe Sector 9‘s in town to represent the Noodle Community. It’s a little comical that what I consider to be one of the least accessible jambands was chosen to carry the torch, but it was nice to see a pretty large crowd surrounding one of our own. Drummer Zack Velmer is the lifeblood of this jam-electronika powerhouse, and he did not disappoint on this day. But I often find myself straying from STS9’s performances after about 20 minutes, so we booked it to The Broken West before hitting The National’s set.

The Broken West are a group of talented young musicians who released their debut full-length album I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On back in January. One part power-pop and one part straightforward rock, these guys are a true throwback and worthy of your hard-earned cash next time they come around your town. A sharply melodic five-piece band, this group kept my attention for far longer than I had anticipated. But we had to see as much of The National as we could, so three catchy songs was all we could afford.

The National played a sold-out five-night run at New York’s Bowery Ballroom back in May, and I missed every single one of those shows. Now I’m about ready to kick my own ass — these guys are insanely talented, a special group of performers that alternate slow and hard rock based on quality songwriting. Singer Matt Berninger fronts the band of brothers — two sets actually, the Dessners and the Devendorfs — and possesses both an incredible stage presence and a baritone that’s part-Bowie, part-Diamond. It’s truly a fantastic band that I’ll surely not miss again.

At this point I wanted to conduct some man-on-the-street interviews with the people at the festival wearing jeans. I mean, seriously, the mercury’s reading in the 90s and some of these assholes are choosing style over comfort. Unless you’re trying to drop a few pounds to make weight for a big wrestling match next weekend, your choice of clothing is inexcusable and unacceptable. Beat yourselves silly.

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals played next in the tent, and after a surprisingly subpar show during the Green Apple Music Festival back in April, my faith is fully restored. The Vermont foursome absolutely ripped up that tent, with Grace throwing down some killer work on the B3 and the guitar. Her back-up band also impressed me like the first two times I saw them, and when she picked up the guitar and traded licks with lead guitarist Scott Tournet, the crowd roared in appreciation of the vicious jams they produced. I did have one big thought about her career, though — how cool would it be if Grace put the Nocturnals on hold and joined Warren Haynes and Gov’t Mule? I’m pretty sure that would be the biggest win-win in jamband history.

After Grace finished we headed back into the heat to catch an auditory glimpse of Robert Earl Keen laying down a country-whuppin’ before watching DeVotchKa shine. This four-piece band of multi-instrumentalists offered a refreshing set of Eastern European rock, including some truly amazing instrumentation — it’s always nice to see a violin, an accordion, a sousaphone and a double bass utilized in a span of 10 minutes.

Yeah, that’s right, an accordion and a sousaphone…pretty sweet for festival fare.

The middle of Day Two provided the only less-than-stellar moments of the three-day outing, but the Day Three afternoon shaped us nicely. Midlake followed DeVotchKa with a softer brand of rock reminiscent of early Fleetwood Mac — and we even saw an on-stage marriage proposal before the band played Young Bride. Charlie Musselwhite wasn’t terribly fantastic, but it was nice to see some old-timers get into the act. Bloc Party had the crowd jumping, and Drive By Trucker Patterson Hood played a charming set of redneck anthems with two non Truckers. It certainly wasn’t uplifting, but it was a great performance.

That brings us to Rose Hill Drive, the Boulder-based rock trio that surprisingly takes the Most Web 2.0 Band of the Festival award — they may have been the only band I saw that used the words “MySpace” and “YouTube,” which was semi-strange considering the look and sound of the band. The power trio fronted by the Sproul brothers broke out some new songs off a forthcoming album and planted a hard-rockin’ session, and if this thing’s as good as I think it will be, we’ll be hearing much more about Nelson in 2008…oh wait, that’s not Nelson. Sorry.

Singer/songwriter Amos Lee followed with an improbable mix of folk and soul, but my anticipation for what was to come next had me too geeked up to concentrate. We were minutes away from the epic two-hour stretch mentioned above, with My Morning Jacket about ready to take the stage.

MMJ brings it every time. They’re a constant, plain and simple. And they were one of the few bands at this festival that remembered it’s actually acceptable to put on a show. The stage set-up included a full beach scene, complete with beachcombers roaming the stage for gold and girls holding up pineapples. The band came out in various beach garb, though I think we’re all thankful Jim James eschewed the bikini that came with his blonde wig. Oh, that reminds me — if you were the dude in the “Official Bikini Inspector” T-shirt today, please fall down a flight of steps.

With Wilco playing on the opposite end of the grounds, we had time for about six or seven songs, and MMJ decided to make them count. They came out swinging, and some slight audio problems — a running theme this weekend — didn’t deter a strong start to the show. The first five songs were powerful as always: Mahgeetah, What a Wonderful Man, Off the Record, Gideon and Wordless Chorus set the tone for what I’m sure was a complete rager, and Andrew Bird sitting in on violin on those last two definitely made me wish for a better schedule.

I begrudgingly but excitedly tore myself away from MMJ to catch my first 45 minutes of Wilco. It’s amazing how much I enjoy this band, and yet I’ve never been in the same room as them. For shame, Ace, for shame. And just to rub my nose in it, Tweedy & Co. jumped right into Jesus, Etc. — my favorite Wilco song, and one of my favorites of any band — as soon as we walked up. Thanks for that, guys. Since we don’t have any Wilco photos, enjoy this Jesus, Etc from Lollapalooza 2006:

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The band put off the new Sky Blue Sky tracks for the most part, only playing Hate It Here (“not dedicated to Austin”) and Walkin’ from the new album after we showed up [ed. note: they played You Are My Face and Impossible Germany before we pulled up]. And the older songs, especially the ones off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot like I’m the Man Who Loves You, sound amazing live with Nels Cline on lead guitar. Cline may just be the best late addition to a band I’ve ever seen — the guy exudes professionalism and dexterity that compliment Wilco’s sound on a level I’d never expect. Just a perfect combination. I’ve always heard Wilco rocks harder than they look, and boy did they ever. They say you’ll never forget your first time, and shit, that seems more true today.

The second Wilco walked off stage, a giant “laser” light show kicked up on the next stage and Ghostland Observatory kicked off their full-on dance party. The Austin duo captivated the ACL audience last year, and their return engagement was no different — a huge crowd descended on the Ghostland set and most of ’em were gettin’ down. A chatty southerner told me they spent all their money on the “most expensive laser in North America,” but that only leads to more questions: Why didn’t they want the most expensive laser in the world? Did someone really create this awesome laser and sell it to an unheralded music duo from Texas? I just have no idea how to fact-check that statement, but I’m going to err on the side of misquote.

We hit up the last half hour of The Decemberists before Dylan came on, and to be honest, I was a bit disappointed. The Crane Wife is an amazing album, and this band had a bit of buzzworthy hype surrounding it. And while they played a decent set by all means, I wasn’t blown away by any stretch of the imagination. A few Colin Meloy jokes saved the set, but in all, just didn’t deliver after three incredible performances preceded it.

And lastly, for the final act of the festival, Bob Dylan & His Band took the opportunity to remind us why we quit when we’re ahead. The band sounded pretty tight, but when Rainy Day Women began with lyrics spoken by a guy who Neddy said “sounds like he’s singing with crackers in his mouth” and who I said sounded like Bleeding Gums Murphy, we knew this was going to be a tough set. This wasn’t a typical mumbling problem, this was more a case of a guy who desperately needed to clear his throat but couldn’t. And it was painful. For all of us. So I cut my losses, said enough is enough and headed back to downtown Austin for some more festivities.

I’ll try to hook up an additional recap of the festival some time this week, when I’ve had a chance to sleep and reflect. But for now, all you need to know is that when the schedule comes out for the 2008 festival, don’t even worry about who’s on it and head down there anyway. I haven’t tried ’em all, but this is the best festival setting around. So as the Sex Pistols used to say, “Thanks, g’night, fuck you.” It’s been fun.