AUSTIN CITY LIMITS 2011
| Published Oct 10, 2011
Friday September 16, 2011
James Blake
After a string of hyped-up, danceable EP’s gave way to an even more hyped self-titled debut of affecting constructions and deconstructions of the human voice, it was clear that James Blake could lay down a good track free from the bounds of genre. Something maybe not so evident from listening to those releases on an iPod was quickly made obvious during his live set: there is a classically trained voice and musician playing those tunes—no laptops here. Blake effortlessly strung together deep cuts like “CMYK,” heavy hitters from his debut including “Limit to Your Love,” and a brilliantly stirring rendition of “I Never Learnt to Share,” with songs from his forthcoming EP, “Enough Thunder,” including Bon Iver collaboration “Fall Creek Boys Choir.” The precision of his on-stage act coupled with the hype steadily building behind each release suggests we might be seeing a lot more of Blake in this kind of setting.
Foster the People
Even if you didn’t own a radio, the size of the crowd packing the Google+ stage for their set was a pretty good hint that Foster the People were all over it this summer. Songs like “Call It What You Want” and the undisputed radio jam of the summer “Pumped Up Kicks” quickly turned into pop sing-a-longs. Not bad for a band that has existed for all of a few moments, but it’s hard to tell if frontman Mark Foster and his mates are here to make saccharine-coated yet depressed pop or just to melt the numerous indie-girl hearts that clearly outnumbered the male following in the crowd.
Kanye West
Friday night pitted Coldplay and Kanye West against each other on opposite sides of the park, giving fans the chance to watch the either the biggest soft-rock star in the world or bask in all the bombast of West, who cemented his status as the biggest rock star in the world with a blistering set of hits that had him pumping straight adrenaline into the crowd. Act One started with Kanye lifted to the sky by a scissor lift positioned behind the crowd and opening with “H.A.M.” before descending from his throne, rushing to the stage and tearing into “Power.” By the time he got to “Monster,” when Hova’s verse never materialized, the weeklong rumors circulating through the crowd that Jay-Z would join Kanye on stage were deflated completely. Other than that, the set was short on disappointments, as West confidently belted out a career-spanning list of essentials with such bravado that there might not have been enough room up there for Jigga anyway. Early hits such as “Jesus Walks,” “All Falls Down,” “Through the Wire,” and songs like “Flashing Lights” and “Touch the Sky,” were particularly crowd-pleasing. Through all that, even after stopping “All of the Lights” and imploring the crowd to sing the lyric “our nigga dead” louder in requisite Michael Jackson reverence, Kanye spared the audience from the ranting narcissism that has too often bogged him down. On this night Kanye played only the role of an extremely talented stage presence and performer shining his brightest, and the crowd packing the biggest stage (at a festival that has had a reputation for balking at rap) ravenously ate it up.
Other Highlights: Nas & Damian “Jr Gong” Marley, pork green chili from Torchy’s Tacos
What We Missed: Cults, Kurt Vile and the Violators, glimpsing Christian Bale backstage at Bright Eyes, Pretty Lights
Saturday September 17, 2011
The Antlers
Like Cults, the Antlers must have drawn a pretty damn short straw for a set time this early--12.30 pm. The shame here is that festivals are a great place to make new fans. Had they been scheduled later they surely would have made quite a few more than they did at this fairly lightly attended set. The band stuck to songs from their latest album “Burst Apart,” only diverging a moment for their debut album-opener “Kettering.” No band makes tragedy sound prettier, and that sound works surprisingly well live. In spite of the sparse attendance, before closing with “Putting the Dog to Sleep,” lead singer Peter Silberman put it best, saying “We love Austin…Fuck.” The feeling between the Antlers and those that did attend was surely mutual.
Cut Copy
Playing on a stage lined with plants and jungle scenery, Cut Copy got people moving like few bands seem to be able to. Dan Whitford is a frontman in the truest sense of the word. By the time the first notes of “Lights and Music” seeped into the air, the man had an iron grip on the audience’s attention and had no intention of letting go; audience members at the heavily attended set didn’t begin filtering out till the end. Once the beat dropped on “In Ghost Colours” hit “Hearts on Fire,” the crowd was in an absolute frenzy, thousands of people jumping up and down in unison to the synth-pop gem. Getting someone to dance is no small task; convincing an entire crowd, which had kept their respective hands firmly planted in pockets through most of the weekend, to dance together is downright beautiful.
Stevie Wonder
Not surprisingly, Stevie Wonder went from one of the most anticipated acts of the festival’s 10 year history to one of the most packed crowds of the weekend, drawing in perhaps the most diverse audience of any act there. Unfortunately, by all accounts about half of that eager crowd couldn’t hear much of anything Wonder was singing. Many speculated that Kanye West’s grand show had blown out the speakers. It clearly wasn’t Stevie’s fault as the man still rocked hard through covers of Marvin Gaye (“How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)”), Michael Jackson (“The Way You Make Me Feel”) and songs of his own creation like “I Just Called To Say I Love You” and “Isn’t She Lovely.” Circumstance and a little bit of incoherent political ranting kept this one from becoming a classic, but there were still moments of pop magic to be found here.
Other Highlights: Twin Shadow, Alexander, Iron & Wine, TV on the Radio
What We Missed: Chromeo, My Morning Jacket
Sunday September 18, 2011
Death From Above 1979
DFA1979 was one of ACL’s heaviest acts, and though no SXSW style riots were started, it certainly garnered the festivals most impressive collection of hipsters. The drum and bass duo is almost certainly more popular now, during their reunion, than when they released their sole album “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine” only seven years ago. Bassist Jesse F. Keeler (also of MSTRKRFT) and drummer/vocalist Sebastien Grainger played a coked out set of dance-punk—including favorites from the album like “Romantic Rights” and “Go Home, Get Down”—that was tightly performed but didn’t prove much other than the fact that in this high-speed age of information, you can turn around and make money off the reunion thing a hell of a lot faster than Pavement or the Pixies did.
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes have quickly ridden that CSNY-style harmonization to the top of the indie band heap, hence the spot as the second to last act on ACL’s main stage. However, Robin Pecknold and the boys, musically gifted though they may be, seemed a bit out of place up there. Though the musical quality of beauties like “White Winter Hymnal” and “Helplessness Blues” didn’t dip, for whatever reason the crowd insisted on mushing those sounds together with an impressive din of chatter. Maybe this stuff is better experienced in a more intimate setting, or just maybe they haven’t quite developed as commanding a stage presence as the moment required. Regardless, this is hardly the last time Fleet Foxes will be in a position like this, and owning an audience of this size is a skill they will have to develop going forward.
Arcade Fire
Arcade Fire is, for all intents and purposes, a Canadian band. But Win and Wayne Butler’s roots can be traced all the way back to the Woodlands, TX where they grew up not far from the spot where they were batting cleanup for one of the nation’s biggest music festivals. Even after their first release, it was clear that the band was made to shine in grandiose moments such as this. After opening with a montage of clips from the Spike Jonze short film “Scenes From the Suburbs,” the band hit the ground running with “Ready to Start” and accelerated to a sprint with “Keep the Car Running.” The band’s energy was unrelenting, as its members scurried around stage for classics like every song from the “Neighborhood” suite on their debut album, and the rarely-played David Byrne collaboration “Speaking in Tongues.” Arcade Fire is one of the few bands built for this; songs like “Wake Up” and the encore “Rebellion (Lies)” and “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” lent a rare feeling of togetherness to a crowd of thousands—as if we and Win Butler and the rest of Arcade Fire are all trudging through this modern age as one.
Other Highlights: Empire of the Sun
What We Missed: The Head and The Heart, The Walkmen, Chiddy Bang, Broken Social Scene, Elbow, the last of the pork green chili at Torchy’s Tacos.
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