ACL Festival 2007: MMJ>Wilco

Like woah. I survived Austin City Limits Festival 2007 and all you get for it is this crappy post.

Biding my time at the Austin aeropuerto before heading off to Dallas and ultimately BWI. I had a pretty awesome time here in Austin, although I was running around doing festival related things so much I didn't get the chance to eat as much BBQ as I wanted.

Quick thoughts:
My Morning Jacket fucking OWNED! They were amazing. The only group all weekend that seemed like they could play even bigger venues than ACL. Probably the set of the weekend. So so good. Also earning props: Bloc Party (got so many good photos of them I could run a new one every day for a year and you wouldn't get sick of them), Arctic Monkeys and the aforementioned LCD and M.I.A.

Wilco was a snoozefest. I ended up shooting them and running over to catch MMJ and I have to say, after (only) seeing three songs I don't see what the big deal was. Tweedy looked like he'd rather have been anywhere else on the planet. MMJ meanwhile were decked out in beach gear and gave their set a luau feel. They had girls standing on stage holding coconuts and some random guy wandering around stage with a metal detector like he was at the beach. Have some fun with it! Wilco's big thing was Tweedy wore a cowboy hat for the first song. Pffffft. Also snore inducing: Andrew Bird (who drew an absolutely HUUUUGE crowd on Saturday) and The Decemberists (Say it with me now - OVER-RATED).

Blue October... Without a doubt the Worst. Band. On. The. Planet.

The Arcade Fire played in the dark. - Literally. I (along with the rest of the photogs that pretty much had a battle royal to be one of the 32 people "lucky" enough to get photo pit access during the AF's set) was SO PISSED. The Black Cat had better lighting than the AF's set. Meanwhile, you could see and hear Muse all the way across the park. I backed the wrong horse here, no doubt.

Surprisingly Good: Common (he covered "Award Tour!") and Crowded House (mostly heard new stuff but didn't stick around that long).

Indifferent towards: Bjork (played a strangely paced set and I really don't like her new stuff) and Bob Dylan (played "Tangled Up In Blue" right off the bat and then all new stuff after that. His voice was in rough shape at the start of the set but got better). Plus, I was so happy not to have to take any more photos by the time Dylan came on (we weren't allowed to shoot him) I think Morrissey would have had a hard time keeping my attention at that point. Also, The National. They were wonderful but I've seen them play that set four times in the last two ro three months.

All in all, I had a wonderful trip. Austin (and ACL Fest) is best! The beer is cheap and the music and good food is plentiful. I would come back in a second. Although probably not for SXSW.

Special thanks to Dan for letting me crash on his couch all weekend and to Frank Chromewaves for the hotel and internet access. Hopefully Frank is still talking to me as of tomorrow since I spent most of the weekend telling him his favorite bands suck. I'm such a dick.

Also, big ups to all the Hot Freaks bloggers. They put on two great nights of after parties at two awesome clubs.

Photos should be up on AOL/Spinner at some point today. Make sure you check them out!

**UPDATE** Waiting on my connection in Dallas...Here are the photos at AOL/Spinner.