Coming up on my 20th ACL and there have been some epic crowds near the gates…but Friday getting out after Kendrick and yesterday getting in after the game were borderline scary. Totally understand both occasions were full-tilt-boogey time but was thinking it’d take nothing to spark a crush. Weather obviously a factor too but man they oversell passes like a motherfucker.
I miss the days when they didn’t give enough of a shit to check chair bags.
Weather has been just about the very best you could ask for. Grounds getting tore up a bit and we’ve all got a slight hack going, but nothing like it’s been on W2 nor in the same universe as 2005.
And I drove my wife batty bringing this up…but it pisses me off when we put in work to get there earlier, haul on chairs/booze, carve out the good spot in the shade…and friends show up late, without a chair, and crash in our space all day. We bring in a blanket for that express reason and I still have to nudge friends+random folks to GTFO out of my chair.
On one hand I lament the only draft being Karbach but hauling cans around is so much more convenient. Drink prices are stupid as usual.
Bailen put me to sleep
Half Alive was the first surprise of the weekend, had me groovin
Portugal The Man was a great show + covered Nirvana (In Bloom), and we did a long drive by of Bass Drum of Death…was fun to see a basic three piece rock out
Major Lazer and Above and Beyond were both disappointments…which sucks as I love electronica, and had been listening to Trance Around the World for over a decade.
Lumineers ran a good show with that stage out in the crowd, posted up In that side stage sweet spot near the bars/bathroom
Poolside was a lot of fun, great energy for mid afternoon
30 Seconds to Mars was such a monument to pretentious ego for Leto that I had to admire the sheer spectacle of it
Tove Lo was severely under-staged, wish I’d stayed at Bob Moses…pissed me off they had Chromeo, Tove Lo and Bob Moses all jammed together.
Plenty I want to see today but I’ve been an ODESZA fan since Summer’s Gone got me through grad school and that’s the main event.