Sunday, September 16, 2007


 

Well, I made it through day two of ACL.  I can't say it was as fun as the first day, but I had a good time and managed to catch quality sets by Willy Mason, Sound Team, St. Vincent, Arctic Monkeys and the Arcade Fire.  I'd say those five were definitely worth the tiredness that I'm currently dealing with.  Here's the rundown.  Enjoy.

I arrived early despite being pretty beat.  So, at 11:45am I watched Willy Mason do a really nice 45 minute performance.  The guy's got a big, booming voice that really makes you sit up and pay attention.  He also is a good storyteller, which was probably what stood out the most since he prefaced each song with a little clip of what caused him to write it.  Not to mention, the guy brought his mom out and did two songs with her.  That's enough to win anyone over.

Once Willy wrapped it up I quickly headed over to watch Sound Team put on what I think was their final show ever.  If it wasn't, then they only have one more.  Either way, it's definitely a downer that these guys are going away.  Their set had good song after good song and was wonderfully loud and full of energy.  I don't think I'll ever figure out why they didn't blow up or why Pitchfork didn't like them.  Perhaps it was because not enough people had the pleasure of seeing them live.

I took a massive break after Sound Team and wandered around the grounds.  I found nothing worth mentioning.  In fact, that block of time did nothing except serve as my first break.  I found this to be kind of annoying since later they had a number of good bands playing at the same time.  It would have been a lot of nicer if artists like Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah and Andrew Bird had played a little earlier.

At any rate, at 4pm I got to see Annie Clark do a solid St. Vincent set all by herself.  It was kind of weird seeing her without a band, but to be honest the only reason that I really took note of it was because whoever was running the sound couldn't seem to manage the multiple instruments that Annie had going at one time.  So, it resulted in a lot of drowned out vocals or guitar work.  No matter though, I'd see that performance forever if it was possible.  Annie is just that awesome.

After Annie wrapped up her set I filled up my water bottle and went over to start making my way to the front of the stage for the Arcade Fire.  Unfortunately, this meant having to see about 30 minutes of a bad modern rock band called Blue October.  I mean, the guy had mascara tears down his face!  What the fuck!?  And why the hell were so many people out there singing along to his awful lyrics!?  I'm telling you, we get closer and closer to Idiocracy every single day.

Around 5:30pm the shittiness stopped and I was able to push my way up to about 50 feet or so away from the stage.  It was a good position for the Arctic Monkeys, who came out a little after 6:30pm and promptly pulled a Spoon, which means that they played tight and missed out on bowling the crowd over with a blast of excitement.  Don't get me wrong, I had a good time during the hour that they played, but if your music is fun then you need to be amping it up even more when you're on stage.

At 8:20pm the Arcade Fire appeared on stage and allowed me to cross one thing of my accomplish-before-I-die list.  I was roughly 15 or 20 feet from them as they put on a larger than life show that featured the 10 of them passionately performing amongst a setup of numerous projectors.  It was like being hit in the face with a massive jolt of positive energy.

As for the music played, it was a well balanced mix of material from Funeral and Neon Bible.  More importantly though, it taught me a couple of things.  First of all, the material from Neon Bible is so much better live.  Even songs like Black Mirror, which I initially loved but have kind of tired on over the months, felt new and refreshing.   Secondly, everyone needs to experience Wake Up in the middle of a sea of people who absolutely love that song.  I'm not sure it gets better than that.

I won't say that seeing the Arcade Fire changed my life or did something equally cheesy.  But, I will say that there is no doubt in my mind that they are worthy of being labeled as one of the premier bands of today.

- John Laird -



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