Month: September 2006

Rain Hebrew Rap – Matisyahu, Performance Art – Flaming Lips, Classic Rock – Tom Petty more rain and then more Tom Petty. What a day to end the festival. Here is my ACL Day 3 schedule. You can check out all of my cheesey camera phone photos at the Wormley Photo Archive.

The Flaming Lips by far impressed me the most on Day three of ACL. The lead singer placed himself inside a giant plastic sphere, walked off the stage, and rolled across the standing fans hands for several minutes as the band played. There were about 40 dancers on stage; half were dressed as Santa Clause and the other half were dresses as green faced female aliens. The crowd knew all the lyrics to their songs as this was a local Austin band.

K. T. Turnstall played an incredible set of music. She is a singer songwriter from Scotland that used loopback technology live on stage in a few of her songs. She played guitar and rocked the crowd with her ballads of love and protest.

I did not hear the bands that I planned to hear with the exception of Tom Petty and Kathleen Edwards but I was plesantly surprised as usual by the selection of music that I did hear.

Here is my ACL Day 2 schedule. Well I finally saw one of my favorite bands, Los Lobos. I purchased their latest CD and got it autographed. I have a lot of Los Lobos music and I have been a fan since the early 1980’s, but I have never heard the band play live.

I also listened to a band called Murder By Death. This band played what I call teenage angst music. The electric cello player was a young girl with an intense playing style.

Phoenix was another band that was nice to hear play. The band was from France but they sang in English. The music was high tech rock with a European flare.

Well I have to say it was another great day at a great festival. The grass was watered all year by the parks department so there was no dust during the first day. The music was great and I am having a hard time trying to pick who I liked best out of the bands that I heard today. I have posted all of my pictures that I took with my phone camera on the Wormley Photo web site. Here is my ACL Day 1 schedule.

I’ll start with the last act from Friday’s show first as that is what is fresh on my mind. I have been listening to Van Morrison for most of my life ever since I was a teen ager back in the 1970’s. Until today I have never seen what he looks like so hearing him perform live was a real treat. Van is a real pro when it comes to stagemanship and his band was really tight. A lot of the songs in his set, both new and old, were arranged with a Texas twang thay only Van Morrison could do with his material. He led the band through some new hits and old hits as they went from country swing to jazz to rock at the finale. It took a few songs for the band to show in their faces that they were really having fun, but they were all excellent musicians and played like the loved to make music.

The next band that I liked was Gnarls Barkley. They are a cross between George Clinton and Funkedelic and the new wave performer Thomas Dolby. I first saw then on a David Letterman Show that I randomly recorded on my Tivo last week. In fact the song that the group lead off their set with was She Blinded me with Science. The 13 piece group came on stage with white lab coats, blues shirts and black eye glasses. Gnarles Barkley has four women playing electronic violins and a cello called the G-Strings, they rocked and did the Supremes routine from their chairs when they were not playing. The two women and one man that made up the back up singers also played percussion instruments while they sang.

Another of my favorite bands is Thievery Corporation. This international ensemble of musicians and a belly dancer appeared on a small stage last year. This year they got bumped up to a main stage. I first heard Thievery Corporation’s music on an Internet radio station called Groove Salad which is broadcast by Soma FM in northern California. This group is really amazing because they perform many styles or music and mix it up. They play Brazilian, Persian, Rock and Rap. When the musicians play some ambient Groove Salad stuff the belly dancer comes on stage and captivates the audience with her moves.

Well this will be my third trip to the Austin City Limits Music Festival and Sylvia’s second trip. This is a great festival and a chance to see a lot of diverse live music and just enjoy being in Austin. If you ever come to Austin this is an event that you will enjoy. There is music representing the genres of gospel, jazz, country, rock, blues, world beat and electronic. There are name acts like Tom Petty and Van Morrison to Internet radio favorites like Thievery Corporation.