Keep Austin Weird!!

Since I was just a youngster of 17, every fall I visit Zilker park to surround myself with music of bands from all over the world. As soon as you walk into the park you can't help but shake your hips and tap your feet a little bit to the drum beats and guitar riffs echoing through. Austin City Limits is the perfect harmony of friendly accepting people, rockin music, and local delights such as Torchy's Tacos.  O and I have been to ACL together for three years now, and this year was no different than the last in that we just had a freakin' AWESOME time! Here's the run down:

Friday:

The obvious highlight for O and I on Friday was Vampire Weekend. They put on an amazing show with a mix of songs from both first and second albums.  The only and I mean ONLY downside to this show were the teeny-bopper fans jumping up and down in front of me that I swear, if that neon sunglasses wearing 14 year old hit me in the face one more time with her flailing pony tail....

Saturday:

Oliver and I were really looking forward to seeing Manchester Orchestra  on the second day but unfortunately, the lead singer sounded like he'd smoked 30 packs of ciggys before coming on stage. We managed to fill the hour like this:

Sweet Leaf organic green mint and honey tea and Vodka makes any show worth watching!

Onward with the rest of the day! Broken Bells was the next band and holy smokes were they worth waiting through Manchester! Their hit song "The High Road" is just a perfect melding of inspirational lyrics with dance worthy drums and synth.  Love them! And now for everybody's favorite band of the day.... MUSE 

 Muse's live performances are seriously some of the best I've ever seen. You just have to see them to know. I'm fairly certain I danced off every one of the torchy's tacos and sweet tea vodkas I had consumed that day. Great ending, to a GREAT day!


Sunday:
The first show we saw on Sunday was Midlake. This "little" band's (they have seven members... they utilized a "four guitar attack" as Phil put it) harmony is phenomenal coupled with other instruments like flutes and piano. They have a delightfully weird sound that mixes rock with classical and an image to match. The other highlight of the day was The Eagles. Not much needs to be said about this institution of music. They have the number one selling album of all time. 'Nuff said. 


And now, a few of the people who made it all happen. 

You can tell Rolling Stone that my last words were I dig music! I super heart Almost Famous :) 

Ciao!

Claire