Austin City Limits 2010 - Day 1

The day has finally come, its time for the annual concert at Zilker Park also known as Austin City Limits! After a 3 hour drive with Callaway and Santiago, we finally arrived at Darby and Jenny's house. We were there for a total of 20 minutes until we head for the all day concert.

Before we walked in to the concert, I had some extremely good luck. As I was walking to cross the Lady Bird Lake, I found an unused 3 day ACL pass on the ground. So I did what anyone would do, I picked up the ticket, made sure it was real, and sold it to a scalper that was 8 feet away from my left for $ 100. So my weekend was pretty much covered for.

The first band that we saw was Blues Traveler. I have never seen these guys in concert before and I also haven't heard any of their songs since Junior High, but damn they put on a good show. They of course sang their songs "Run Around" and "Hook" and cover versions of Radiohead's "Creep" and Sublime's "What I Got". They played for about an hour and I didn't realize how many songs of theirs that I knew. There was a great standout moment during there set. It was when John Popper, the lead singer, invited a 15 year old Austin native to the stage and had a "music off" with her. It was basically who could amazed the crowd with the most with their musical instrument. Obviously Popper played the harmonica while the 15 year old girl played the violin and an incredible speed and procession. That definitely had to be one of the highlights of the day for me. Once they finished their 12 song set, it was time to wait an hour for the next band which are The Black Keys.

When the Black Keys came on the stage at 4, the whole crowd went crazy. Right now, The Black Keys, which consist of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney , are known for their song "Tighten Up" and the music video which is pure awesome at its finest.
One thing I loved about their set was that there was not alot of talking. They just thanked people for coming to the show, introduced themselves, and went right into playing their music. A song that alot of people knew, but didn't know they knew was "I'll Be Your Man". The song is played over the opening credits to the HBO Show "Hung". It was kind of funny hearing people say that that song was the theme to the "Dick Show" on HBO. Since almost every band had about an hour to play, they could only perform a handful of songs. After reading some of the reviews about the concert and seeing the size of the crowd first hand, the Black Keys were definitely one of the main attractions during the ACL weekend. You can find the complete set list from the concert here.

Jump to an hour later and it is now time for Spoon to take the stage. Now, I have heard of the band but I have never gotten a chance to listen to their music. Based on their ACL performance, they have a new fan for life. At first, it was kind of tough to get super pumped about their songs like the other fans because they knew them so well, but they were pretty damn catchy that by the time the 3rd song was being played that I was jumping around like crazy. Spoon did seem to go all out because the lead singer said that this was going to be there last show in America for some quite time. When he said that, the crowd started to go even crazier and then it happened. It was glorious. It was majestic. It was the first hot girl flashing her ta-tas. Pure awesome, but not as awesome as when the piano player of Spoon went all "Martin Riggs" on his piano and destroyed it on stage. It was a great way to induct a newbie into the Spoon Fan Community. The complete Spoon set list from the ACL show is here.

Less than a minute after Spoon ended, I was on my way to the Vampire Weekend stage and check out their set. Since ACL has 8 stages and bands are constantly performing all through out the day, you will have to show up early to get close seats to a band that you are dying to see. Since I didn't have to much time to spend from the end of the Spoon set to the Vampire Weekend set, I ended up missing a couple of their songs. To be honest, I am only a new fan of theirs and I only wanted to hear "Cousins" and "Giving Up The Gun", which I did. After I heard my songs, I left to take my first piss break since I got there because it was almost 8 and I may have had some beers or 5.

Another reason I left the Vampire Weekend set early was to get decent seats for Phish, which was the last show of the night. This is another band that I only knew of but never got a chance to listen to them. But I am glad that I did. I knew that they were a big jam band, but I am now convinced that they are one of the best. They played for an hour and a half and at times I didn't know when one song ended and another one began. It was a good way to end the night, because the music just seemed to set a certain tone that I don't think any other of the bands from that day could do. You can check out Phish's set list here.