Mud made Zilker Park a challenge on the last day of ACL.

Photo by Marcial Guajardo

Walking under cloudy skies amidst temperatures in the low 80s, music fans trickled into Zilker Park Friday morning to catch the first day of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Relentless rain drenched those fans on Saturday, but it didn’t stop the positive energy. Sunday was muddy mayhem as 65,000 people slipped and struggled through suspicious-looking brown muck that bore an even more suspicious-smelling foul odor. Still, the music played on, and the fans, for the most part, smiled. Nothing nature dealt out could dispel the musical magic of the 2009 ACL festival.

 

Westbanker and perennial ACL favorite Ray Benson kicked off the festival on the AMD stage, as he does every year with an energetic performance of “Miles and Miles of Texas.” It was a familiar signal to fans that the fun had begun.

In his eighth ACL appearance, Benson said he likes having the early time slot.

“It’s just the best – nobody’s sunburned yet, nobody’s worn out and everybody is still full of excitement,” said the nine-time Grammy winner.

Benson said festivals like ACL and SXSW, in which he also appears each spring, are important because they keep the spotlight on Austin, specifically on Austin music. He said he likes the fact that ACL brings in a good number of young musical artists.

“Young folks are the percolation of what’s going to happen to music 20 years down the road,” he said. “It’s important that we all do what we can to make an environment that is going to continue to be conducive to music.”

Among those young artists playing the festival was a band featuring Westlake High School students, Stoosh. Band members Sammy Ivester and Daniel Klasson, both WHS students, and Ross Blake and Harrison Richards played the H-E-B stage Friday morning. The band, which performs rock songs mixed with a few original tunes of their own, was understandably excited about the opportunity.

“It’s cool to be playing the same event as all the huge musicians I’ve listened to forever,” Klasson said.

“The experience was completely amazing,” Ivester said. “They treated us like big musicians, as part of it all. We got an offer to come back next year.”

Headliners drew tens of thousands of fans to their performances. Kings of Leon and the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs split the closing crowd Friday night. The Dave Mathews Band closed Saturday night from the Livestrong stage, and the big bang happened Sunday night when Pearl Jam rocked the full attendance to the ACL close.

Westbankers represented themselves well in neighboring Zilker Park during the festival. George Oswald was grooving to Los Amigos Invisibles at the Wildflower stage Friday evening. He called the band “Venezuelan Latin Power Funk,” a genre term he coined on the spot.

“They’ve got great stage presence, unique musical style, and exceptional kinetic energy,” he said.

Brit-turned-Westbanker Carmel Wakefield caught the Decemberists at the Dell stage Saturday night. An Englishwoman in the Music Capital of the World, she called ACL “vivid.”

“So much choice – so little time,” she sighed.

Wakefield loved the Decemberists.

“They are decidedly wacky, but they crack out melodies from a wealth of instruments with surreal lyrics and incredible harmonies,” she said.

Like most of the festivalgoers around her, Wakefield wasted little time complaining about the weather. She tromped through Sunday’s ankle-high mud, only commenting on the terrible smell when asked about it.

“I don’t know if it was from the fertilizers used to create that verdant lawn, but whatever it was, I found the smell overpowering, and it meant that I left earlier than I would normally have done,” she said. “As someone from the UK, you can imagine that I am no stranger to mud, but this mud was nasty.”

Rollingwood police made sure the impact on the neighboring city was minimal. They manned a pickup area at the intersection of Rollingwood Drive and Vale Street. Chief Dane Pryor said things went well for the most part during the festival, even though there were more people in the local area.

“We saw a little wilder behavior and a little more intoxication than in the past, but we were able to contain it,” Pryor said. “We were prepared. Anything is possible with this many people.”