{"id":25280,"date":"2018-10-09T12:40:20","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T17:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/?p=25280"},"modified":"2018-10-09T12:48:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T17:48:19","slug":"acl-music-festival-2018-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/acl-music-festival-2018-review\/","title":{"rendered":"ACL Music Festival 2018 Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Roger Ho<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ACL Music Festival (Weekend One – October 5-7)<\/p>\n

This massive two-weekend festival entered its 17th<\/sup> year with lots of space, acts, experiences and people. Last year\u2019s Zilker Park expansion was repeated this year, offering more separation from the massive video screen accompanied stages, more room to wander and more room to rock.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Candace Lawler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Greta Van Fleet<\/strong>
\nThis band of four very young Michigan men delivered all the blood, sweat and groove that the audience expected, not more. While they\u2019ve got the massive raw elements of pure Zeppelin, they\u2019re not Led Zeppelin \u2013 just the sassy, spunky and electric blues energy of those first two 1969 albums.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Charles Reagan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Candace Lawler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Charles Reagan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sporting a tanned and fringed vest, vocalist Josh Kiszka was really on and powerful. His wailing vocals were strong throughout the set, making it look easy to howl. Brothers Jake (guitar) and Sam (bass and sometimes keyboards) and drummer Danny Wagner didn\u2019t waste any time between songs, wringing and bringing energy with gusto. Jake\u2019s effective rhythm riffing and frequent lead breaks were tasteful and tuneful \u2013 at just the right settings. When he played his Gibson SG behind his back, he held it upright so that it looked like a giant headless man was shredding away. Nothing new, but proficient and dripping with attitude. The band was nice and loud, offering the kind of danceable groove at 4:35 on Friday afternoon to set the mood for the rest of the weekend.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Greg Noire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Manchester Orchestra<\/strong>
\nOne of the byproducts of a giant festival is choosing between Greta Van Fleet and Manchester Orchestra \u2013 two great bands competing at the same time. Both had huge audiences and I\u2019m sure not a single member of each crowd had FOMO. The band played as if the audience was in its back pocket, ending up with the mesmerizing and settling down tune, \u201cThe Gold.\u201d A nice way to say goodbye, \u2018til later.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Greg Noire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Candace Lawler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gang of Youths
\n<\/strong>This Aussie import took to the giant Honda stage earlier in the day (1:40 pm) to some infectious anthem rock that is not too distant from U2 (minus the Edge\u2019s chiming guitar). Melodic, laid-back melodies drive some very listenable sounds. It was so good that it was impossible to pull away and do the whole bar-hopping thing that multiple stages provides. Each song had compelling melodies that just hit the right nerve of energy, swelling dynamics and story-telling. I could listen to these guys for hours. Frontman David Le-aupepe roamed the stage as if in command (his band was in total control of the laid-back vibe), interacting with the large audience as if it was a hometown crowd in a small pub.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Candace Lawler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CHVRCHES<\/strong>
\nThe painted frontwoman of this Scottish band, Lauren Mayberry, cried \u201cI need a miracle\u201d and was the first of many artists I saw over the weekend with fun face paint \u2013 warrior style. It makes sense given the angst wrapped around religious imagery of many of their songs.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Nathan Zucker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At one point she announced that it \u201cwas a bad day for humanity,\u201d referring to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, partly apologizing for her commentary since they were Brits and had their own Brexit going on. It\u2019s always been par for the course for musicians to take their role as \u201cbards\u201d or spokespersons for the people at large and it\u2019s not surprising that most popular young artists lean towards the left. Pardon this older, washed-up rock critic for forgetting that a Constitutional judge interpreting law through a 231-year-old document was bad and that interpreting that document as being protective of the unborn was somehow against humanity. Whoops! I argued with a woman on a platform about her reproductive rights. My bad.<\/p>\n

The band sounded great, with tight rocking pop songs that the giant sea of an audience loved. See the set here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Roger Ho<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David Byrne<\/strong>
\nThis old talking head has silver hair now but is still the consummate showman. The first visual that stood out was the band outfits \u2013 uniform grey suits and dark sunglasses adorned each member as they moved around the stage in sync with the beat in front of giant, chain curtains. Imagine a video with tv fuzz as the backdrop. Very nice. \u201cA Taste of Life\u201d began with his signature jerky movements, but it wasn\u2019t just old nostalgic tunes that carried his set. Tribal, rhythmic grooves and staying in that moment made his set feel like a giant party.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Roger Ho<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Nathan Zucker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bells of Joy
\n<\/strong>Maybe you\u2019ve come to #ACLfest and been put off by the leftist leaning politicartists that proselytize from the stage, thinking this is a haven of atheist pagans. That would be ignoring the platform and stage given to gospel music each day and each year of the music festival. Someone in upper management knows the connection of spiritual music to rock and roll and they honor it.<\/p>\n

San Holo<\/strong>
\nNon-stop beats, blips and rhythm. And don\u2019t forget the lights. They flashed so brilliantly that the Tito\u2019s tent felt like a midnight rave in the daylight. The dude known as San Holo (aka Sander van Dijck) was all over the place, playing \u201cfuture\u201d bass guitar and spinning records and keeping the audience moving. See his set here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deftones<\/strong>
\nEveryone\u2019s favorite 90s band had a swelled crowd at the American Express stage at the east end of Zilker Park seemingly in their back pocket like a familiar old friend. Frontman Chino Moreno interacted with the crowd, utilizing the giant snake pit catwalk that Metallica had installed for its set later on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chino and band weaved through \u201cRocket States\u201d and \u201cAround the Fur\u201d to kick their set off. He brought out his guitar for \u201cSwerve City\u201d after playing the hit \u201cMy Own Summer.\u201d \u201cKnife Party\u201d and \u201cEngine No. 9\u201d were both energetic, the latter of which where Chino got in the crowd like Sonny or Bono. They churned, rocked and made their fans feel good. Drummer Abe Cunningham, keyboardist Frank Delgado, bassist Sergio Vega and guitarist Stephen Carpenter really make some great noise while Chino works the crowd and makes lots of friends.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Charles Reagan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

St. Vincent<\/strong>
\nTotally cool, edgy and electric. Songs that cut and drive. The band she uses is hard driving and rocking, but St. Vincent is like a solo act \u2013 Anne Erin Clark with a backup band. Now that I\u2019m a married man, though, I don\u2019t really like looking at the leather outfits, which I could do without.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Roger Ho<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Metallica<\/strong>
\nAustin City Limits Music Festival (like the renowned television show) is known for its upcoming alt rock stars (now meaning loads of EDM heroes and spunky song-crafters), but they get down, dirty and heavy every once in a while. Cue Metallica.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Roger Ho<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Almost ten minutes before their scheduled set time was to begin, a video of Clint Eastwood and echoes of \u201cNothing Else Matters\u201d started the crowded show. The band jumped right into their business of thrash with \u201cHardwired\u201d and \u201cAtlas, Rise!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo by Roger Ho<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Frontman James Hetfield thanked the audience, stating, \u201cWe\u2019re glad to be here celebrating live<\/em>, live music. We\u2019re here to play some new stuff,\u201d followed by, \u201cWe might play some old stuff,\u201d and then they kicked into \u201cSeek & Destroy,\u201d which they stretched out and reeled back into. This was followed by another classic, \u201cCreeping Death.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo by Roger Ho<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Throughout the set Hetfield and Kirk Hammett utilized the giant cat walk (named the snake pit because some very excited fans got to stand inside the loop for an upfront perspective of the show). The giant video screens on left and right \u2013 with random images in center \u2013 gave those of us in the back and chance to feel like they were close to the action, too.<\/p>\n

Hammett played several guitars throughout the night \u2013 a cool custom painted super hero guitar, a metallic glitter purple strat-like body and a nice gold Les Paul. Both he and Hetfield did a nice double lead at the end of the snake pit during \u201cWelcome Home (Sanitarium).\u201d<\/p>\n

Hetfield later made an interesting introduction to \u201cNow That We\u2019re Dead.\u201d He thanked the old school friends, took a poll to see who was seeing the band for the first time (a lot in the crowd) and then he said, \u201cWe\u2019re all Metallica family here tonight. And I\u2019ve got one question for you, \u2018Are you alive?\u2019 And if you want to live forever, first you must die.\u201d Lots of red painted faces flashed on and off in multiple squares on the middle video screen.<\/p>\n

Bassist Robert Trujillo got the crowd to chant, \u201cHey! Hey! Hey!\u201d to help start, \u201cFor Whom the Bell Tolls.\u201d During the song he squat squared off with Hammett for a crouch-off. Hammett kept playing some really blistering solos and they even jammed some Stevie Ray Vaughan.<\/p>\n

Hetfield then teased the audience with a question: \u201cYou want heavy!?\u201d Then they played \u201cSad But True.\u201d At the end of it Hetfield took his Destroyer guitar head stock and kind of slammed it down on the stage and started coaxing some cool sounds out of it by twisting knobs and then strumming the strings towards the upper side of the neck. The band then shifted into a lightning fast version of \u201cOne\u201d and then \u201cMaster of Puppets.\u201d Then the show was over, but no one was fooled. A three-song encore of \u201cBattery,\u201d \u201cNothing Else Matters\u201d and \u201cEnter Sandman\u201d truly finished off the night, along with a short but cool red fireworks blast above and behind the stage. Watch the entire set here<\/a> on Red Bull TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s only a tiny snapshot of a packed weekend, but that was my ACL Music Festival experience in 2018. If you\u2019re able, come see almost the same lineup this coming weekend.<\/p>\n

(Doug Van Pelt)<\/p>\n

More Deftones photos:<\/p>\n

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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo by Doug Van Pelt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ACL Music Festival (Weekend One – October 5-7) This massive two-weekend festival entered its 17th year with lots of space, acts, experiences and people. Last year\u2019s Zilker Park expansion was repeated this year, offering more separation from the massive video screen accompanied stages, more room to wander and more room to rock. Greta Van Fleet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":25282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[102,4113,105,4109,4115,4111,4119,4117,4121,4116,4110,1904,2002,2007,4118,2696,4114,2878,4120,4074,4112],"class_list":["post-25280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-acl","tag-acl-music-festival","tag-aclfest","tag-bells-of-joy","tag-chvrches","tag-conservative","tag-david-byrne","tag-deftones","tag-gang-of-youths","tag-greta-van-fleet","tag-liberal","tag-manchester-orchestra","tag-metallica","tag-mewithoutyou","tag-san-holo","tag-seabird","tag-st-vincent","tag-stavesacre","tag-talking-heads","tag-trump","tag-trump-bashing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25280"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25318,"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25280\/revisions\/25318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hmmagazine.com\/dvanpelt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}