Burgers & cards nite

Steffi had to come up to Austin today to see her doctor and refill her various allergy and asthma meds. She has a whole bag full of drugs, but neglected to get the one thing I always "borrow" from her for my own allergies. Yes, I admit it, I use my daughter's prescription fluonase. I am a bad mom and she was not about to be party to that this year! Darn it. Now I will have to go to my own doctor. Anyway she was in town and we planned for several weeks to have dinner on this date with Leslie and Duncan. I cooked delicious - because they are from happy cows - Whole Foods hamburgers at the house. We played Phase 10. Something we used to do on weekends in summers past when we were all in the same house and Leslie would come over for a visit. Tonight Duncan won. We all accused him of cheating, because that is the only way someone else can win, right? It was just good fun. Then everyone had to go home. I wish I could put this evening in a bottle and open it whenever I wanted.

We hit the Trifecta!

1. It was a perfect concert day.
2. The Jets won.
3. The Redskins beat the Cowboys.
What more could anyone ask for?! Everyone in our festival group had at least 1 of these things to be happy about.
We set up our camp at the AMD tent and really enjoyed the 12:30 show (enough to buy her CD) - Nicole Atkins & the Sea. Next up was Nakia & His Southern Cousins at the Wamu tent. The interesting story about him was that Sharon Jones (of the Dap Kings) randomly pulled Nakia up on stage to dance with her during her Saturday set. She had no idea he was also a musician. The Wamu tent has always proved to us to be a hidden goldmine of great music - I can't think of a time we were disappointed. And it is the only stage that is covered so you get a break from the heat.

Next up at Wamu was Mike Farris and the Rowland Rhythm Review. A recovering alcoholic ex-rocker turned black gospel music singer. It was impossible not to clap and sing along with these inspirational gospel tunes with his added rockin' edge. Interesting tidbit - he is also the only singer we saw who could chew gum and sing at the same time.


I made the wrong selection for lunch. The "turkey and brie panini" was really just a turkey sub. Should've gone for the Hudson's chicken cone again. Now I have to wait another year for one of those.

A real highlight of the day was hearing Joe Bonamassa, a 31 year old guitar master who played the very first ACL 7 in 2002 and this was his first time back. He was in what was called the Gospel tent (now Wamu) that first year. Anyway, he is in the same league as Stevie Ray Vaughn so it was a delight to hear what he could do with his guitar. Paul has a better camera and promised to share his photos with me later.
Next up for us was Neko Case and a rest back at our chairs. Then Austin's Okkervil River (below)
It was starting to get crowded by now, but not as much as it was on Saturday.A special treat was seeing this guy we remembered from last year who looks like Billy Idol. LOL! This kind of made up for not having the (in)famous Leslie roaming around the festival grounds. We only saw him once this weekend on Barton Springs road.
The last show we saw at AMD was The Raconteurs, shown in black and white. on the video screens. Jack White of the White Stripes

We had parked at Chuys on Sunday so that is where we ate. It was fine. Great margaritas of course AND we achieved our goal of not eating at Shady Grove all 3 nights.

And at the end of the day we heated up the hot tub and Mike baked (well, warmed actually) some 2 bite brownies for us. It was late, but none of us had any motivation to get out until it got too hot. :)

Now for some much needed sleep....

Get your wristband out of my salsa!

That's Kelly, me and Candy on the Jackalope. Why they had a Jackalope this year, I do not know, but it was a fun photo opportunity so....why not?! In the Wamu tent, these were the Shields of Faith. They look like a pretty typical gospel band until
you see the drummer - who must have been about 8! He totally rocked!!
Our first ACL text message was an offer from Sweetleaf tea with an offer of a free iced tea if we showed them our text message between 11 and 1. Of course we did that and picked up some cool tattoos.

Brian and Virgina joined us today. A pic of their son Jack is coming up later.
The food vendors at ACL are numerous and there are too many delicious choices. Probably the best festival food you could ever expect.
This guy - Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the True Loves was close to being the best show of the day for us. Candy ran over to buy his CD right after the show, he was that good.
We tried to enjoy Erykah Badu, but didn't so we went back to our chairs at the AMD stage and picked up the end of Robert Earl Keen.

It is an annual tradition for me to see my friend Sam at ACL and we finally found him sitting just a few seats away with his hiking friend Dave (I think that was his name). Sam is so busy with a full time job, graduate coursework and now an internship. I don't know how he does it all.
John Fogerty was totally great - he should have been the headliner for the day.
Everyone was on their feet dancing during the whole set!But somehow Jack managed to sleep through the whole thing. He will regret not seeing this rock n roll legend.Our daily photo. Mike is appropriately wearing burnt orange because it was a Longhorn day.



We just loved this woman's color coordination. She even had a turquoise chair (you can see the cupholder next to her left boot). Check out the sox and boots. Boots in this heat? Yes, we saw lots of them.

Nemo was perfect this evening. We used one of those "stick up" lights to light him up this time. People clapped when we had the lighting ceremony and hoisted him back up. It was clear that many folks were using him as a point of direction - find Nemo and turn left... It was fun.
Missy and her friend Trish came by for a visit so we gave them glow necklaces.
Katie prefered to read than listen to Alison Kraus and Robert Plant (I don't blame her!)

We ended the evening at Billy's Brew and Que where we got a table immediately but the service was so slow and inefficient we still didn't get home until midnight. Everyone was too wiped out for the hot tub and looking forward to a good night's sleep. One more day and it begins in about 2 hours!

Oh, about the blog title - while the wristbands are a more comfortable cloth this year, they have these long strings that are impossible to tuck anywhere and you can't cut them off because they have the ticket number imprinted. Most of us put them on our right wrist and when we reach for the salsa to dip our chip... well you can guess what happens.

ACL Fest - Day 1

Just a few photos from the day. Highlights, besides just being there, were Vampire Weekend, The Freddie Jones Band, Alejandro Escovedo, David Byrne (should have had the last spot of the night), Gogol Bordello and Jenny Lewis. Steffi found a way to watch online! Also, the programs were great this year -little booklets with maps and reviews of every act so we didn't have to bring our newspaper supplements. Dell has a great booth where you can make your own buttons. Weather was perfect! Late dinner at Shady Grove followed by the hot tub at Mikes. Whew....and we get to do it all again today!