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Thoughts on Austin City Limits Festival

There's this thing that happens to me at music festivals sometimes, where I wind up in front of some stage and become so enthralled with the music pouring off it, I don't even realize when or how an exceptionally large crowd has gathered around me. All of the sudden, I look around and see these people - all shapes and sizes and colors - all grooving to the same thing, smiling, dancing. There's a certain peace in that moment, a reassurance that the world is not truly as crazy as the headlines would have us believe. In that moment, I'm reminded we're all just folks, doing our thing, stopping to smell the flowers when we can, or hear the music.

Notice I said that happens at music festivals sometimes.

That did not happen at Austin City Limits Festival last weekend. Instead, I spent the weekend battling stage-to-stage sound bleedover, wondering how a festival named after one of the most reliably music-centric entities in all of modern music (i.e. the Austin City Limits TV show, which, apparently, has nothing to do with the festival except for having inspired the idea) could be so blatantly not concerned about how the music sounds. This is not a festival for music fans so much as it is a festival for people who want to get trashed and sunburned. Between sets, the giant video screens showed football games. Sure, this is Texas, but come on.

Maybe I should come to terms with the fact that festivals like Austin City Limits are just not targeted at folks like me. By "folks like me," I mean those of us who go to concerts to hear music because we believe the people on stage have a certain talent or gift, and we want to be able to sit back and let it wash over us. Or we want it to pull us out of our chairs to dance. Or we want it to help us change our mind about something. Help us connect with the person next to us. Connect us to something. Remind us of our humanity. Renew our faith in beauty. Something.

What I'm saying is we look for music to do something to us. To snap our ears and eyes and minds away from the rigorous stresses of the outside world and transport us, for the length of a song or a whole album, to a parallel reality where women and men pick up dull, lifeless pieces of wood and turn them into magical tools which sing.

There are festivals for people like me. Pickathon. Folks Fest. Falcon Ridge. Telluride. Merlefest. LEAF. Festival cruises like Cayamo, where every show is performed in a listening room, or is treated as such (even when you're watching from the hot tub).

Then there are these other goings-on. Sometimes, like Sasquatch or Bumbershoot, you get the feeling the promoter wants to throw the best music-centric party they can imagine. They have this extraordinary venue, or this gargantuan field, and a love for music which sweeps across genres and transcends boundaries. They position you on the edge of a gorge and deliver some of the most sonically stirring experiences you could imagine. Whether it's Mad Rad at 11am dropping party rap, or the Decemberists on the mainstage at dusk, seemingly singing the color into the sunset.

Other times, the genre-less lineups start to feel like the aural equivalent of something we did during summer camp when I was a kid. Whatever was left on the table after lunch got tossed into the drink pitcher. Chocolate milk, tater tots, mashed potatoes, water, a stray condiment-drowned onion or slice of un-melted cheese from your burger. We smashed it all into the pitcher and then dared someone to drink. Nobody ever would, because that's disgusting. We were never serious with the dare, anyway.

But these music festivals - these behemoth cram-it-all-in happenings - seem to be for real. They seem to be more about how many tickets can be sold, how many bodies can be crammed between gates, how much beer can be consumed, and how much money the whole thing can rake in. It may as well be a tractor pull or a football game or anything-at-all, for all the care and attention that goes into making sure artists can be heard and audiences can connect with something real and beautiful.

Don't get me wrong. Some real music was actually happening in the midst of the insanity, though it was a chore to find it. Rufus Wainwright delivered an incredible set on Saturday afternoon, making real, arresting music, if you could tell. (As you heard whatever other stage was also going at the same time, echoing across the field, doing battle with Rufus' intensely emotional songwriting in tunes like "The Art Teacher", which always slays me.) Steve Earle brought a flat-out country band along and delivered a fiery, memorable set (even though the pop rhythms of Gotye and international flavor of Antibalas were asserting themselves loudly atop Earle's acoustic guitar). The Punch Brothers played their bluegrass instruments through whateverthehell it is they do, defying the competing bass boom with all their might. Patterson Hood unleashed incredible music on the BMI Stage Friday night. I could name other small moments where real music happened, but it was hard to find - and hard to hear.

In fact, the bleedover of sound from stage to stage was one of the most confusing and sonically overwhelming things I've ever witnessed at a festival. It was, simply, one of the worst experiences I've ever had with live sound. Forget for a moment the potty-mouthed rapper throwing down misogynist lines on a stage adjacent to the kids' area. (Not cool.) There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the programming in general.

I'm told the sound problem has always been there, and that it's one of the reasons festival organizers have decided to expand the festival into two weekends starting in 2013. This could be a good thing, as long as they consider their programming along with paring down on the number of stages. Certainly there's an audience for music that's there just to be as loud as possible. There's an audience for football between sets and artists who drop the words "pussy" and "fuck" and "faggot" gratuitously, with zero care in the world. Anyhow, fine. Cater to that crowd. But recognize that crowd is not necessarily interested in the nuance of a Punch Brothers banjo-and-fiddle back-and-forth, and vice versa.

(I don't have any problem with using those words in art. I simply have a problem with them bleeding over into art which is not coming from a place where those words are intended or even effective.)

I appreciate music of all genres and have thoroughly enjoyed plenty of grab-bag festivals. One of Austin's other major music happenings - South by Southwest - is a wonderful example. Yes, it's loud and crazy everywhere, but when you duck into a room to hear a band, you can hear them. It's a novel concept for a live music event which has been happening longer than a decade. But it goes to show - it's not necessary to sacrifice the music to make the money. You don't have to cut into the artistry to draw the crowds.

Better luck on two weekends next year? Time will tell.

Comment by Jim Moulton on October 19, 2012 at 4:02am: Kim,

Sounds like a bummer, Were the stages too close together? Or were the bands just too loud, I'm definitely more of an acoustic person as I get older, The Punch Brothers are a talented bunch, but in a crowd like that, they should turn it up a little themselves,but unfortunately, it is hard to get loud when you are acoustic, just not as easy, you know that. I can't believe they were putting football games on the screens between sets. I like pure bluegrass festivals, but they just are losing thier popularity and getting smaller. It's great for the audiences, they get to see 6 great bands on one day in a small crowd, It is hurting the festivals and bands though.

Comment by Kim Ruehl on October 19, 2012 at 4:09am: It's hard to tell exactly how close the stages were together. I don't have a lot of familiarity with Zilker Park, but I don't think they were any closer together than the stages at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (another festival for "people like me"). Of course that's a primarily acoustic venue... I kept comparing ACL with Bonnaroo because it seemed to have a similar grab-bag approach, but while there are places at Bonnaroo where you hear music coming from every direction, if you're standing in front of a stage watching a show, that's the only show you hear. I think ACL just cranked everything up way too high. I have no idea why they would do that. It's definitely not a good music fan experience...not for this music fan, anyway.

Comment by Doug Sawyer on October 19, 2012 at 5:30am: At last year's ACL Gill and Dave went on stage 30 minutes late because they refused to compete with something called Skrillex half a mile away. I'm sure they'll never be invited back, but the hour they played was a trancendent experience with the small audience and performers merging together in a protest against what Gill called "acoustic music hell". One of the great musical experiences of my life, but from all accounts from a number of friends who went this year the sound bleed was worse than ever.

Comment by Hal Bogerd on October 19, 2012 at 6:38am: "Cranked way too high" = deaf soundmen who think louder is better.

What a drag but thanks for being honest!

Comment by Scott on October 19, 2012 at 7:28am: Well, I was there all 3 days this year and had a much different experience. Plenty of bands to get the no-depression crowd excited including Neil Young, Avetts, Alabama Shakes, M. Ward, Michael Kiwanaku, Civil Wars, etc. The sound was excellent for all of these bands. I will say that most of these played on the 4 larger stages. The smaller stages at ACL can have some sound bleed. For me that was only a problem with the Lumineers who drew a monster crowd at the medium-sized stage.

It was a touch too crowded which is a change from past years. I do hope the organizers reduce capacity a bit next year.

Comment by Dalis Allen on October 19, 2012 at 8:05am: I noticed you mentioned several great Festivals for listening, appreciating crowds like Falcon Ridge. How about Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas? Totally what it is about. May 23 - June 9, 2013

Comment by Karen HEck on October 19, 2012 at 9:01am: Great review Kim. Friends and I joked about just standing in the middle so we could hear all the bands at once. I agree with Scott, there were some great bands. And I like to have a variety of music to choose from. But unless you could get fairly close to the stage, sound was terrible. And I won't even mention the condition of the port-o-potties. (Oops, guess I did anyway.) Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is a great example of how it should be. And locally, Old Settlers Music Festival, 3rd weekend in April. (@Scott, Lumineers played HSB to a giant crowd earlier this month. I'm wondering if there is a stage big enough for them now!)

Comment by Easy Ed on October 19, 2012 at 10:46am: When I heard through the grapevine that you were at the ACL Fest, I wasn't sure exactly what that was and made note to Google it. But I forgot and knowing what a festival person you are, I figured you'd write about it. And I was right.

Well, I'm not a festival person per se as I've shared here before, although I've done quite a few over the years. My problem if you want to call it that, is that I don't enjoy listening to music outdoors unless I'm making it myself. Acoustics are only part of it, but I find myself easily distracted by my surroundings, be it aural or otherwise, and hard to focus on whats right in front of my ears. It's the sheer openness of an outdoor show that I'm challenged with, and that extends to those perfectly natural amphitheaters as well and not just the festival experience. I can count on maybe half-a-hand how many times I've come from an outdoor venue feeling satiated.

Now I understand that your experience won't be the same as others who were there, such as Scott up above. Obviously a lot of people dug it. And perhaps football games on the screens and a multitude of sound bleeding and gratuitous language was the goal and not just the outcome.

The festival licenses its name from KLRU-TV, which owns the TV show, to C3 Presents...a fairly large Austin-based promoter, booking and management company that also runs Lollapalooza and books talents at several Texas House of Blues and almost all of the venues at the many Harrah's Casinos. Seems to be a successful and well run company, and I'll assume that they actually are trying to present a quality product along with the sponsorship of the Austin Parks Foundation.

So maybe the smaller story and question in your recap might be this: what happens when a quality and well-respected brand name thats taken years to build and has a significant value, relinquishes control of its image by licensing their name to a third party? (Note to Kyla: I promise not to put the No Depression logo on the corporate jet.)

Comment by Scott on October 19, 2012 at 9:40pm: Karen,

I was also at HSB for 2.5 days this year. If we are comparing other festivals to HSB, no one would be worthy IMHO.

Cheers,

Scot

Comment by Jim Moulton on October 23, 2012 at 11:54pm: If ACL was that loud, I sure would not enjoy it, probably ask for my money back and head for the hills. I did not hear any complaints about Bonneroo, it was a big show. Really never liked super loud music, The Grateful Dead were really not loud compared to a metal band,

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