Mega festivals. It’s hard to conquer a mega festival, both from a punter’s perspective and a production perspective. Over the weekend we attempted to conquer Austin City Limits, trekking across the 46 acres of Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas, trying to get a grasp on the event which sits alongside other American mega festivals such as Lollapalooza, Coachella and Bonnaroo.
ACL attracts over 75,000 punters per day and the line up consists of more than 130 artists, ranging from throwbacks such as The Replacements, Asleep At The Wheel and Jimmy Cliff to 90s and 00s heroes OutKast, Interpol, Pearl Jam, Beck, current day draw cards Lana Del Rey, Skrillex, Iggy Azalea, and even a thought for the hipsters with Jenny Lewis, Belle & Sebastian and St Vincent.
Here are some of the highlights from ACL
The Crowd
ACL is one of the only mega festivals with the unique ability to attract a more diverse and broader crowd, from the baby boomers lounging back in their camping chairs, young families making the most of ‘Austin Kiddie Limits’, the shirtless frat boys and sorority girls with Lana Del Rey inspired flower crowns. It can all be put down to the fact that ACL caters for every generation and music lover possible.
St Vincent
St Vincent was one of ACL’s best attempts to keep the line up left of centre. Between shredding solos atop the light box staircase Annie Clark nailed choreographed moves in front of an obviously impressed crowd, shuffling back and forth with her guitarist, as if the ground were moving beneath them. Her confidence gleamed through the smirk on her face; she was having one hell of a time up there and the crowd reciprocated, jamming out to ‘Birth in Reverse’, ‘Cheerleader’ and ‘Digital Witness’.
The Food
Austin has an incredible and diverse food scene and ACL cleverly showcases some of the best food trucks and local haunts in its ‘Food Court’. Taco masters, Torchy’s Tacos brought their exquisite and creative take on tacos (and rightly so, Austin is the taco town of America), a little further down the line internationally acclaimed, Stubbs Bar-B-Q served up juicy pulled pork sandwiches while masterminds of Asian street food, East Side King were making Brussel Sprouts that were stupidly delicious.
Benjamin Booker
Booker’s raspy cigarette and whiskey-drenched vocals were barely intelligible as he roared through an electrifying set of punk-fired blues, including ‘Always Waiting’, ‘Old Hearts’, and crowd favourite ‘Violent Shiver’, even throwing a curveball with his own rendition of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s ‘Mean Jumper Blues’.
Iggy Azalea
Americans love Iggy Azalea and unfortunately ACL underestimated how much they do. I’m pretty sure all 75,000 punters were crowded around the ill-fitting stage Azalea was about to perform on.
But hell, did Azalea bring her A-game. Taking to the stage, flanked by an entourage of twerking back up dancers, I suddenly forgot about all of the sweaty bodies pressed up against me (I think I accidentally got to second base with more than a few, which I’m fairly horrified about). Azalea strutted up and down the mirrored staircase in front of the Texan crowd, while they spat back every single word to ‘Fancy’ and ‘Work It’.
She wasn’t lip syncing this time.
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