Austin City Limits 2010 - Day 3

Its the final day at ACL and this is the day that I get see one of the bands that I mainly came to ACL to see. That band is non other than The Flaming Lips.

Today was my day of whatever I see will be fine by me as long as I get to see the Flaming Lips. We got to Zilker Park super early and saw a band called Shearwater. Since they were one of the first bands to open the show for the day, I had no problem at all getting right up to the stage and listening to a couple of their songs. Again, being one of the 1st bands of the day has its disadvantages, such as playing a shorter set compared to the other bands. And this is what happened to Shearwater. Once their 45 minutes were up, it was time to see White Rabbits.

I have heard a couple of White Rabbits songs and they seem pretty damn good to me. It was hard for me to compare them to another group but I think that the White Rabbits and Spoon should go on tour with each other quickly. After the White Rabbits, I saw a group based on Callaway's recommendation called Dawes. I was surprised about how good and how many people came out to see them since they had such a short amount of time for their set.

After Dawes, I saw a gospel group called Relatives. They reminded me of the scene in the Blues Brothers with James Brown at the Gospel Church.

It definitely felt a little bizarre walking to watch the Flaming Lips while the sun was still shining on Sunday. The sheer spectacle of their live show is unquestionably enhanced by darkness, but they made the most of their hour-long set at this year’s ACL festival.

Right before they started to play, frontman Wayne Coyne addressed the crowd to thank them for waiting and to explain that he would be coming out into the audience in his “space bubble” and he hoped everybody would “love each other and help each other” instead of rushing toward the front of the crowd.

After an introduction from local poet Thax Douglas (whose pants kept falling down and showing is 330 pound ass to the crowd), the band members slowly entered the middle of the stage one by one. But the band did come out in a very interesting way. Even before the band was introduced, an image of a naked lady was being displayed on the huge video screen on the stage. The naked lady would dance around for a couple of minutes and the she laid down like she was about to give birth. The video screen got closer and closer to her downstairs bonanza and gave "birth" to each member of the band. And by "birth", I mean each band came through a door that was right in the middle of her danger zone. Then Coyne emerged standing inside of his infamous bubble. It was slowly inflated until it rolled into the audience and he began to float above the crowd as the band played an instrumental introduction behind him. You can check out a video of the entrance here.

When they settled in to “Worm Mountain,” the first proper track of the set, the stage exploded with balloons and confetti. Keep in mind, all of these things happened before the band was done playing their first song.

You don’t really see or hear the Flaming Lips as much as you experience the Flaming Lips. By the time they had gotten halfway through “Silver Trembling Hands,” the second song of the set, Coyne was perched on the shoulders of a man wearing a bear costume and was encouraging the audience members to scream as loud as they could.

The band’s 1993 hit “She Don’t Use Jelly” was up next, after which Coyne strapped on a helmet cam, which began broadcasting on the screen behind him, and declared it to surely be “the most beautiful night that Austin has had all year.” With all of the on-stage banter and crowd interaction, the band only managed an eight-song set before their hour was up. As the daylight started to fade, Coyne said that the band “would play all night if we could” before closing down the stage with an epic rendition of their 2002 single “Do You Realize??”

It was my first time to see the Flaming Lips and I cant wait to see them again. I knew they had a great live show, but their performance definitely went beyond my expectations. Check out their set list here.

Next up was the National. I have only heard of this band through friends so I didn't know what to really expect since my friends were describing them in different ways. All I can say is that this band was awesome. To me, they reminded me of the band Interpool. The lead singer had a great voice and the band was spot on with whatever they played. It sounded like listening to a cd, they were that flawless. Here is their set list.

The final band of the night were The Eagles. I like this band alot, but they did not seem like a good fit to close ACL. Their songs were just too slow for me and not that entertaining. They did have the largest crowd but that was because no other band was playing at the time, so the concert goers only had them to listen to.

I could tell that I was not the only person who felt this way because I saw tons of shirts with the famous Big Lebowski line "I hate the fucking Eagles Man". I have seen them in concert before and they are great in their own setting, but I just dont think that they are "ACL closing" type of band good. I have never left a concert early before, but I only listened to a couple of their songs before retreating to the car and heading home. I wish they were more enthusiastic instead of cheesy and somewhat boring. Anyway, here is there setlist.