HIGH BIAS -- Austin City Limits Music Festival-- live concert review

High Bias stagestruck

Live Concert Review AUSTIN CITY LIMITS MUSIC FESTIVAL
@Zilker Park, Austin, TX
September 28-29, 2002
It could be said that the Austin City Limits Music Festival was an idea whose time had finally come. For nearly 30 years, the pubcast TV show Austin City Limits has been showcasing a wide variety of musical artists, mostly of the American roots/country variety (with the diversity that implies), but in the past few years they've embraced everything from jazz to AfroCuban music to psychedelic rock. To celebrate this newfound eclecticism (not to mention replace Austin's little-missed fall music festival Aquafest, whose last major headliner was Peter Frampton), the ACL folks teamed up with Lance Armstrong's management company Capital Sports Entertainment to create the ACL Music Festival, two days of food, sun, crafts, sun, beer and, of course, music. And sun. Did I mention sun?

Saturday 9/28:

After handing over my ticket and passing through the KLRU-TV tent to say hello to friends, I headed to the American Originals Stage to see the Faithful Gospel Singers, not so much because I was in the mood for gospel, but because they were the only musicians performing at 11:30 in the morning. The FGS was a straightforward gospel quartet, with the added bonus that the singers were also the instrumentalists. With bass, drums and, surprisingly, synthesizers providing a backdrop for the band's four-part harmonies, the music was an even balance between traditional and contemporary. I just wasn't feeling in the Spirit, though, and despite the entertaining sight of a bunch of white people acting like they were receiving the Word, I left after a couple of songs.

At the so-called Heritage Stage (despite the festival guide calling it that, the signs clearly stated that it was the Schlotzsky's Stage, which was underscored by the MC—this would become confusing until I became familiar with the layout, as NONE of the stages were labeled what they were called in the guide), Grupo Fantasma turned the grass in front of the stage into a Latin dance party. The Austin-based world beat ten-piece started with a small crowd but attracted nearly everybody within earshot before it was halfway through its set. The band interpolates licks taken from salsa, Afropop and rock into melodic, ultra-danceable cumbias that had the audience up and shaking its collective groove thangs in no time. A three-piece horn section, excellent percussionists, a great singer, harmony world beat guitars (what a concept!), even a P-Funk-like Moog bass on one song—the band had an arsenal of virtues applied like frosting to its excellent songs. Like Ozomatli, though without the hip-hop influence, Grupo Fantasma sees no boundaries between musical cultures and celebrates melody in all its forms. The crowd celebrated right along with them. Grupo Fantasma may have been the best band I saw at the entire festival. This is what I'd call a great start.

I stopped by the Austin Originals Stage to check River City fave L'il Cap'n Travis, something I'd been meaning to do for ages, but was not impressed with their Pavement-as-alt.country shtick. Think I'll stick with Okkervil River. After a quick, vaguely satisfying meal (Threadgill's has slid into mediocrity at their primary location—why would I think their quick 'n' dirty food at a booth would be any better?), I headed back with great anticipation to the Heritage Stage to see Eyes Adrift. This is the new band formed by three 90s alternative rock survivors: Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets), Krist Novoselic (Nirvana) and Brad Gaugh (Sublime). The band's incredible pedigree has led to a surprisingly modest amount of hype for its brand new album, and after seeing it play, I can understand why. To put it bluntly, the group was flat and dull. The song stylings definitely favored the desert-fried psychedelia of the Puppets' side of the family, which should have been a good thing. But the tunes sounded like Puppets castoffs, as if they were ditties Kirkwood dashed off as filler in case they were needed. Since they rarely were on the generally excellent Puppets albums, they seem to have found a home in Eyes Adrift. Adding insult to injury, these half-assed songs found themselves in the hands of not one but two shaky singers (like Kirkwood, Novoselic has difficulty staying on key). It also didn't help that the trio used no setlist, and had to decide between songs what to play, and even that was after Kirkwood's incessant tuning. The former Puppet is still an amazing guitarist, and on one zippy country rock tune took a solo from chicken pickin' to slide and into the stratosphere, reminding me of why he holds his lofty reputation as a guitar hero. But one astonishing solo does not a good concert make. I lost interest about halfway through the band's set and wandered off to make phone calls.

Fortunately, the next act blew away any lingering bad memories of Eyes Adrift. Following an introduction from Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Los Lobos hit the Feature Stage with three guitars, guest Charlie Musselwhite and the rocking blues of "Don't Worry Baby." The tune meandered a bit as the soloists tried to find their way around each other, but righted itself quickly enough. Musselwhite departed after that song, as the band moved into the tough rock of "Done Gone Blue" and the sweet soul of "Hearts of Stone," both from its amazing new album Good Morning Aztlán. Surprisingly, except for the grooving electric rock/pop of "High Places," East L.A.'s finest then concentrated on electrified cumbias and norteño, with guitarist/drummer Louie Perez on jarana (a small eight-stringed guitar), guest Joel Guzman from Aztex on accordion and guitarist Cesar Rosas taking most of the lead vocals. It was a ballsy move to take in front of a huge (and I mean huge—there were people as far back as I could see) audience expecting the greatest hits. The crowd dug it, though; the young white boys seemed to particularly groove on it. After jacking the crowd up on electrified Latin sounds, the band closed its set with a bruising "Good Morning Aztlán," with Rosas, Perez and David Hidalgo trading solos on their Les Pauls. Surprisingly for a festival with a tight schedule, the group came back for an encore, segueing a pounding "Not Fade Away" (lead vocals courtesy of the audience) into one of its classics, a jaunty, Cajun-flavored jump blues whose name I can't recall, to my shame. It had been a long time since I'd last seen Los Lobos play; this show was a reminder of what an idiot I've been all these years.

I managed to catch about half of Caitlin Cary's set on the Heritage Stage; the former Whiskeytown chanteuse was in beautiful form, playing songs like "Pony," "The Fair" and "Shallow Heart, Shallow Water" from her superb album While You Weren't Looking. While she has an engaging stage presence, she might want to allow her guitar player to pick on the electric a little more often; the energy level went up noticeably for the songs on which he blazed. After her set I headed from one alternative country icon to another, as I hit the Feature Stage again for Wilco. Introed by both ACL producer Terry Lickona and a pre-taped tune taken from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the band—John Stirrat, LeRoy Bach, Glenn Kotche and leader Jeff Tweedy, augmented by a sampler/electronicist—started with the slow buildup of "Misunderstood." The quintet took this Wilco fave into new territory, with strange percussion accents, random bursts of noise and a skipped record affect when Tweedy reached the word "nothing." In fact, the weirdness continued throughout most of the set; drummer Kotche is essentially an avant garde percussionist placed in the framework of a rock band, and the subtle electronics gave the songs an aura of otherworldliness. This worked particularly well on tunes from the band's latest album, the highly-acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; "War on War," "Kamera," "I'm the Man Who Loves You" and "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" really came alive on stage. The audience hung with them through the more experimental parts, though a few disgruntled souls abandoned the field when they realized "Box of Letters" wasn't coming any time soon. The YHF track "Heavy Metal Drummer" was a particular favorite with the crowd, especially since Tweedy asked them to help him sing it. Eventually, Tweedy strapped his electric guitar on and announced, "We're gonna play some rock songs. Because, you know, rock is back." That sardonic comment out of the way, Wilco ripped playfully into "I Got You (At the End of the Century)," "Outtasite (Outta Mind)" and, shockingly, "Casino Queen," from their first album, which in 2002 seems to have come out so long ago. For an encore, Tweedy led band and audience in a massive singalong on the great "California Stars," the best track off the Wilco/Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie collaboration Mermaid Avenue. It was a shockingly good performance from a band whose records are often uneven. I hadn't seen the group since its debut South By Southwest performance nearly eight years ago, and I was amazed at what a mature, risk-taking but still rocking band Wilco has become.

I missed the Jayhawks because I was standing in the ridiculously long lines at the food booth. (Note to festival organizers: next year, more food booths!) But I finished my ice cream in plenty of time to find a good spot in front of the Texas Stage for Nickel Creek. The young Nashville trio was literally jumping up and down with excitement, and the crowd returned its enthusiasm. Mandolinist Chris Thile, fiddler Sara Watkins and guitarist Sean Watkins (plus bassist Derek Jones) responded to the audience's support with a tight, immensely enjoyable set drawing mostly from their recent album This Side, with a few ringers from the self-titled album and a few surprises. For all its fame in bluegrass circles, much of Nickel Creek's numbers are basically pop tunes with bluegrass instrumentation; songs like "Beauty and the Mess," "The Lighthouse's Tale" and "Reasons Why" favor catchy melodies and song-based arrangements that would sound mighty familiar if played on electric instruments. The band didn't stint on their considerable firepower, mind you; newgrass instrumentals like "Smoothy Song" and "Ferdinand the Bull" gave the trio plenty of room to burn, especially Thile. The Creek's music has the potential to descend into adult contemporary blandness, but the trio's virtuosity and especially their soulful vocals keep them far from the middle of the road. It also helps that the threesome understands the blues, as displayed in the original "I Should Have Known Better," and rock, with a jaw-dropping take on the Beatles "Taxman," an audience-participation cover of Pavement's "Spit On a Stranger" and a bit of Nirvana's "Lithium" in the middle of its closing instrumental. The band truly pulled out all the stops for its encore; though it began with an almost ambient instrumental, the band was soon tearing through fan-favorite "The Fox," dropping in verses from Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues," Counting Crows' "Round Here" and some prominent jazz licks before bringing it all back home for a rousing finish, to the huge approval of the crowd. As performers, Thile and the Watkins are at a good stage in their career: confident enough to be comfortable in front of a huge audience but still young and fresh enough to be totally jazzed about it. As artists, their refusal to recognize boundaries between music genres gives them the impetus for a great show like this one. The Nickel Creek was one of the undisputed highlights of the Fest.

From the Texas Stage it was a short hop over to the Jam Stage, where current groove titan Soulive was just getting ready to blow. Having slimmed back down to a trio (losing sax player Sam Kininger somewhere along the line), the band eschewed the recent R&B and hip-hop experiments of its recent Next album to get back to its roots in 60s soul/jazz. Drummer Alan Evans set up a hard-hitting, funky backbeat over which keyboardist Neal Evans and guitarist Eric Krasno layered sharp riffs, memorable melodies and scintillating solos. The trio laid down some serious funk on "Cash's Dream" and "Turn It Out," both from the group's recently reissued debut album Get Down!, and Krasno burned up the fretboard during his showcases, breaking strings on both tunes. The band broke out the talkbox and the clavinet for a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Jesus Children," adding another dimension to their greasy sound. This was a band who came to play, though it's also an ensemble that knows how to work a groove, as evidenced by the enthusiastic dancers (mostly the neo-Deadheads that patronize jam band shows) in the crowd. This back-to-basics approach may not be as innovative as the band's experimental side, but, as this performance indicated, there's probably no one who does this better that Soulive.

After Soulive's sweaty set, I was off to call my wife for a ride home so I could hit the sheets and nurse a painful sunburn. Note to self: bring sunscreen tomorrow.

The festival continues...