DAY ONE

Austin City Limits is one of the biggest events of the year for Austin, Texas, when 100s of top tier bands and 1000s of hippies, hipsters, granolas and goons storm the hill country for days full of music, booze and a least couple hours full of really good music. For scumfucks like me, it marks the second biggest free booze event of the year in Austin, behind South By Southwest which I had the pleasure of covering this year for this awful magazine Gonzolandia, where they have nothing organized and there is virtually no editors or management. I personally do not want that responsibility and would rather fuck off. Regardless, they let Randy Spacemachine and myself loose on the streets of Austin in a 8 part series that you can read right here on gonzolandia.com. This time, I had nothing but a Media wristband and partial use of a photographer, who was mostly working for her own publicationf. Luckily, the wristband granted me access to the Media pit which proved to be the greatest asset of the weekend.

We arrived to the festival and little hassle was given acquiring our press credentials, which is always a good sign. Once inside the Media pit, we were lead to believe that the free drinks were only for happy hour from 5pm-6pm, a fact that was false and proved to be THE critical mistake of the weekend. We hustled out to the festival grounds amongst all the peasants and rushed the photo pit for Dr. Dog. The photo pit is only open to photographers for the first three songs, in which time it is turned over solely to security and cripples. After the three songs were up, we B-Lined it to the beer tent but first had to stop at the ATM to get cash (those lousy goons at Gonzolandia provided such little per diems… it had been spent that morning on tacos and beers). After substantial beer was achieved, we headed to see a band called Phoenix, at which point I remember thinking to myself: “I hope this band isn’t anything like the city.” My photographer headed to the pit and I tried to sneak in but was denied access. “What is this wristband good for?” I thought. After careful analysis of their first few songs, I decided that maybe they should rename themselves “San Francisco”.  At that point we retreated back to the media pit for happy hour.

After milking the open bar for what appeared to be all it was worth, I had an appointment outside of the festival grounds, leaving my photographer to be the master of her own devices. I returned after nightfall for the Austin premier of Them Crooked Vultures, a super group of sorts that includes Dave Grohl on drums, Josh Homme on guitar and the fucking legend John Paul Jones on bass. The show was pretty damn good I must say, although it did sound a bit like Queens of the Stone Age Lite seeing as they share the same vocalist. It was great to see Dave Grohl absolutely murder a drum kit again as well as not sing. It was also amazing to to see John Paul Jones in the flees. He busted out that strange pedal steel guitar that he strapped to his torso with lights all up the neck. The high point was when he ditched the bass and grooved a Floydian-esque organ solo, it brought me back, briefly, to a place I remember, from years ago, lodged in the psyche of my nostalgia, just for a moment… stoned, sitting in the back of my friend’s Bronco at the top of the Malibu hills smoking chronic and listening to Dark Side of the Moon climbing radio towers…

My photographer left the Vultures show early to gain access to the Kings of Leon photo pit. I, myself, had no intention of battling a bunch of drunken frat boys to get to an even respectable viewing distance of the stage, no matter how many old songs they play. It should be noted that I am NOT a fan of any of their new stuff and the absurd stories I’ve heard about these douchey hipsters with bloated egos make me hate them even more. I found my photographer and we left early.

DAY 2

After the gates closed on Austin City Limits festival on day one, no one had any idea the chaos that would ensue overnight. Sometime in the wee hours of Saturday morning, mother earth decided to cry her eyes out all over Austin, resulting in very soggy conditions at Zilker park. I dropped my photographer off at the gates and then proceeded to go back home to watch college football all day in a warm house and let the home fires burn. Hours later I returned to find my photographer soaking wet and I could hear Chest Fever off in the distance.

We managed to catch a dry ACL “Aftershow” later that evening at Antone’s with Dan Auerbach & Rodriguez. Auerbach was phenomenal as usual, but I am still haunted by that Mean Eyed Cat show I saw at SXSW that is seared in my brain. Rodriguez was who I came to see.. I’d been given a couple of old recordings of his from the early late 60’s / early 70’s and he has some great stuff. It was a great surprise to see him coming out of nowhere and playing ACL this year. From what I heard, he built his band out of craigslist. I will elaborate more on Rodriguez in a coming article, but I will say now that he is a legend.

DAY 3

Since Sundays are also set aside for football, I decided to compromise my assignment and watch football all day then go to the festival to see The Dead Weather & Pearl Jam in the late afternoon. It proved to be another smart move on my part, I have to thank my photographer for the fantastic scouting efforts.

When I arrived at the media area, before I had a chance to witness the park conditions, I could clearly see that they weren’t pretty. By this time the booze was flowing freely so I indulged in several vodka drinks (including two highly toxic red bull vodkas) and many beers before I made my way into the festival. During consumption, I listened to The Dead Weather from the media pit and ate a vicodan. The sun began to shine directly on me and I began writing via text message to my assistant, the transmission read:

6:34 PM: Freaks and drunks, dead weather, sea of mud looks like a diarreah pit,

6:44 PM: fault of rain & dingo dirt aka “shit dirt”

6:58 PM: only clean one in media area, warnings of peril infested journey

7:04 PM: hunkering down with free booze and media geeks

7:34 PM: the temperature is nice, by the way

7:40 PM: bbq’d corn on the cob all over the place free i might add, beast creature gnawing on one

8:34 PM: found a generous soul who let me into free henekin beer area with pearl jam on monitor screens
8:35 PM: and live sound through the sound system

9:25 PM: best friends with perfect strangers

9:40 PM: perry farrell on stage, frenzy

9:56 PM: pearl jam made everyone else at the festival look silly

Your guess is as good as mine as to what all that nonsense means… a foggy recollection remembers a great rock and roll show, free beer, an ass load of mud, after show pub crawl and a head ache in the morning. That very headache is the reason this article is being published now, almost four weeks since the fucking thing. The mud turned out to be a hit with these people:

It was later found that the mud had what is called “Dingo Dirt” mixed into it, which is basically Texas Longhorn fertilizer. So it just goes to show you, drugs will make you dance in shit.

Here is a clip of Perry Ferrel with Pearl Jam:

Hope you enjoyed this extensive analysis of Austin City Limits music festival 2009. Adios.