Austin City Limits Festival 2014

Thanks!

Did anyone go last weekend, or hear from someone who did, about the port-a-jon situation? I know they have been lacking quantity in the honeybucket situation for a bit, and haven't heard of any additions this year.

Beck tomorrow here in Houston then wake up and hit the road at 10am on Friday. Big group of us. Pumped

Weekend 2 is completely sold out, which I don't think weekend 1 sold out, so I'm already preparing for long lines and the inability to get good spots at shows I want without getting there super early.

The golden Porto thing was a contest ACL did a while back. Someone won 10 day passes and like unlimited use of the Royal Porto for the days they went or something silly like that. I think you can buy tickets to use it? Idk, but it has AC & phone chargers which is pretty cool i guess.

Oh. And that sucks you're not going

40 more minutes of work.. flight 5am into Houston! Giddy up!

I"m not from Austin. I live about 5 hours away. I won't be making it down this weekend for any shows but I'm 99% sure I'll be at Fun Fun Fun.

Heading out now. I'll definitely get to enjoy all of today, and I'm hoping tomorrow too.

If there's someone local on here who doesn't have a ticket, I could probably pass on my wristband to you for Sunday. Unlikely that I won't have to be back on work Sunday. Just let me know.

Who sucks at ACL? This guy.

Booo.

Have to go back to work this afternoon. Was really hoping to make it to today too.

Hopefully the weather clears up for everyone. Just got hit by some massive downpours here in San Antonio.

I ended up going Friday and Sunday this year. On Friday I caught Chvrches, St. Vincent and Outkast, and Sunday I just paid someone $30 for their wristband and made it in for Pearl Jam and Lorde.

All of those shows were awesome. I was dead center a little ways back for St. Vincent and I swear she was staring straight at me a few times while destroying guitar solos. I love that woman. She reminds you to put away your cameras when she stares into your soul. Chvrches definitely feel like they've climbed into the festival role now and were on point.

Outkast was just spectacular, they were so on point and it was worth the ticket price for that show alone.

Lorde was also awesome, but it was so crowded that it was hard to get anywhere near the stage. I stayed for 45 minutes and headed off to get a good spot for Pearl Jam, but it wasn't very crowded and I hated that I left Lorde since it was broadcast on the jumbotron, but you couldn't hear it. Pearl Jam was awesome as usual and played a lot of their big fits which are always some of the best singalongs ever.

All in all, ACL is always a fun festival, it just can get so crowded with their stage layouts sometimes that you have to pick and chose what to see if you want a good spot. I wanted to catch a few more bands on Sunday, but ended up getting out there later than planned. I got awristband from the first person I asked who was leaving for the day. I probably could have paid $20, but it was worth $30 as consolation for having to leave early.

Here are a couple videos also.

Chvrches



St. Vincent



Outkast



Lorde

This would be waayyyyyy funnier if it wasn't a picture of me. Deto's reaction is pretty great though.

This is something I've noticed with all city festivals. Its like "oh, this is going on this weekend like X number of minutes from my house, why not go?" I seems like it is definitely just something to do for a lot of people. Obviously that's not true for everyone who is local and goes, case and point you, but it is definitely obvious when that's thats the case. It seems that unless you're like really deep into a crowd, you're going to get the drunk talkers. Whereas at a camping festival the drunk talkers aren't really a problem until you're on the outskirts of the crowd... Idk, I'd classify this as probably my biggest annoyance of city festivals..


Anyways, weekend was great. Drive from Houston wasn't too bad, def worth saving $200 to fly in there instead of Austin.. I didn't see as many shows as I really wanted to each day, but that was my own fault for getting such a late start everyday. 

Friday: Chvrches (kinda, I could hear it pretty clearly while waiting for Sam Smith, but couldn't really see much. Sounded good tho.), Sam Smith, Childish Gambino, Outkast
Saturday: The Head and the Heart, Iggy Azalea, Lana Del Rey, Eminem
Sunday: Phantogram, Spoon (kinda, listened from the beer line, kinda), The Replacements, Lorde, Calvin Harris, end of Pearl Jam

Every show I saw was really great. Even Iggy Azalea who I went just to see what all the fuss was about. We stood pretty far back for her and ended up being the talkers people complain about, but you could tell that there was quite the party going on up front. Eminem was amazing, so worth spending the extra money for a 3day pass. And then of course my Sam. I love him. Biggest surprise for me though was probably Childish Gambino. I didn't realize how talented he is and he put on a fantastic show. It was a great way to get pumped for Outkast. Overall, great weekend. Even with the rain and mud. The logistics of the place are weird, and I was blown away at how many people were there. There were just so many people, it was cray. Also, the portos situation was a bit strange... I'm not really sure why, but it always seemed such a cluster every time we went.. idk, maybe I was just drunk.

OH! And I hooped for the first time ever at a festival!! I kinda made my own space during Lorde and then we stood on the outskirts during Calvin Harris. That is a milestone for me!