Austin City Limits

Seeing Interpol live has long since been at the top of my bucket list.  It’s not that I would ever claim to be among the longest or greatest fans, it’s just that they’ve been around forever (to someone born in 1989, being a band since 1997 IS forever!) and I’ve built such a huge reverence for the collection of music, and very specific sound, they’ve cultivated and stayed true to.

#outkast

#outkastACL2014

@outkast

OUTKAST!!!!!!

If you know anyone that attended the festival this year, your social media was probably flooded with these hashtags and retweets about how mind-blowing this show was.  It was so highly-anticipated I feared it wouldn’t live up to the bar everyone from the previous weekend had set.  But at 8:15, they buried my fears.

There are some bands you never tire of.  You’ll pay any price, drive to any city, and enjoy each show with the unvarnished enthusiasm of someone seeing them for the first time.  That’s how I feel about The Avett Brothers.

Well, Austin, it’s that time of year again.  Forget about driving anywhere in or near Barton Springs and Zilker Park, and double the average commute time, the number of bloody mary’s at brunch, and the excitement.  The obligatory grumblings about sudden and temporary population inflation are nothing compared to the how grateful we are, as locals of this wonderful city, to be hosting visitors and artists and creatives alike.  This is our favorite time of the year, guys, and not just because it’s timed perfectly with the arrival of the Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Dear Austin City Limits,

Happy Anniversary!  Congratulations on making it to the big 1-0.  Your gifts of aluminum, diamonds, and tin are in the mail! Well, maybe.

New Orleans-based icons, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band will perform with The Del McCoury Band at the Austin City Limits Music Festival on Saturday September 17th at 7:00pm, on the Vista Equity Stage.

The last day of a festival is always bittersweet.  You get excited for the festival headliner but also deep down you wish you could replay the weekend over and over again and perhaps catch some of those bands, that due to scheduling conflicts, you painstakingly missed in the days before.

Saturday started out with the residual natural high that one could only experience from live music that had lifted spirits the night before.  Walking into Zilker park you could hear different sounds floating around from all different directions.  The Very Best was belting out reggae tunes while

Having arrived in Austin on Thursday night with a belly full of kolaches from The Little Czech Stop in West, TX and a car full of gear, I was as well prepared as one might be to tackle the music and sun in the days ahead.  As I approached the festival gates on Friday never having been to Austin City Limits before, I felt a sense