Singing Loudly

I'm thinking that I'm going to go to one or two days of Austin City Limits. For those of you who might not know what it is, it's a three day music festival in the heart of Austin, Texas. The music goes from noon until midnight on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This year they are expecting around 75,000 people each day.

Besides music there is always a lot of really fun stuff to do. They have a huge art market where you can meet all sorts of visual artists, buy works, and even have paintings or pictures made. Food is always one of my favorites, so the food court is also pretty fun. It has plenty of cool tea shops and vegetarian/vegan booths.

Today there are quite a few bands that I wouldn't mind seeing. One thing that I don't like about festivals is that they always have multiple stages so at some point there is usually a band playing on one stage that I want to see while another band is concurrently playing on another. Another bad situation is when there is a band that there is either just a tacid attraction to or it is still nascent, so I debate whether I should go and check out a new band to see if I like them. To combat this I usually try to separate the must sees from the I'll check outs.

Today the bands I would have to see include: Old 97s, The Sounttrack of Our Lives, My Morning Jacket, and The Pixies. Then I wouldn't mind checking out Howie Day, Mason Jennings, Cat Power, Josh Rouse, Modest Mouse, and Big Head Todd and the Monsters.

Tomorrow is a big scheduling problem. Ok, here are bands that are scheduled at the SAME time. Jack Johnson and Elvis Costello. Damn. Spoon and Drive-By Truckers! DAMN. Cake and David Garza: I'd probably go for Cake. However, to see Cake I would have to leave the Wilco set. Could I do it? Man. Also, if I wanted to see Ben Kweller I would have to leave The Roots. Could I do that? Probably not. Earlier in the day I would be able to see Calexico and American Analog Set without any conflicts. The night ends with Ben Harper. I'm completely ambivalent about him, so I would probably watch for about half the set then head home.

Anyhow, it looks like it should be fun. I'll have to see if I can round up some people, last minute, to go to the festival.