John Lomax

Reality TV

Austin City Limits

Sequels

Concerts

Niko Niko's

Modern Art

By Wes Graham
Magis staff writer

Drenched in sweat, melting in the searing Texan sun in the middle of a field with some fifty thousand of my peers, trying to ignore the stench of cigarettes and overpriced beer, and avoiding the occasional crowd surfer, being as passive aggressive as possible to manipulate myself to the front of the crowd, hoarding water like gold, I survived the spirit of music for just a couple of days.
I left on Friday the 17th for Austin with two hundred dollars, a ‘wanna-be’ punk sweat band, a couple of clean, tight-fitting t-shirts, and no clue of what I would be up against. I had never been to anything like Austin City Limits Music Festival. Nor have I ever spent much time in Austin.
On Thursday night I tried to make some sort of arrangements so that I wouldn't just be “wingin it” as my father put it, but, of course, with two younger brothers and my girlfriend staying at my house, no such conversation ever took place.
“Just go up there,” my mother told me, “they will have some tickets at the gate, and if it sells out, there has to be someone selling tickets. And it's Zilker Park. It can’t sell out.” (It did actually sell out Saturday.) “I will give you two hundred dollars,” she said, “and you can figure it out.”
I certainly couldn't turn down the offer. Two hundred dollars is more money than I've ever seen at one time. So I told her, “Thank you,” and just left the rest up to luck.
Of course, I also wasn’t exactly sure where I would sleep either, which made everything all the more interesting. I made calls, but of course, no one had room. So, once again I just let it go and hoped for the best.
I sat in school all day Friday, as giddy as a little school girl. My girlfriend, who goes to Tulane in New Orleans, was evacuated earlier in the week due to hurricane Ivan and was on constant watch at home for our tickets or a place to stay. But, as Friday went on, each time I called, my hope dwindled more and more. By the end of the school day, she had yet to come up with either of the essentials for our trip, and the stress started to build up. But I wouldn’t be conquered by some silly details. I was going to go regardless of anything else. I would have jumped the fence if I had to. Luckily, that wouldn’t be necessary until I left the event.
I got back home after school, stressed, tired and irritable. My girlfriend was not ready to go, as usual, and was sitting around watching TV with my mom. “I will leave you if Eric gets here and you aren’t ready to go,” I exclaimed, as if it would make her do anything with any haste.
“I’m working on it”, she said. Fifteen minutes passed. “Ok, it's a commercial break. Now what are you saying about us leaving?”
Broken Social Scene, one of Eric Franco's favorite bands, was playing at 6:30 p.m. At the time it was 4:00. So to make it, we just needed her to hurry up--and for a worm hole to open up. So, understandably, I just went and waited in the car trying to be calm.
Finally, Eric, Katie, and I were all in the car and ready to go.
“Can we pick up Lorin?” Eric asked tactfully as to avoid making my head ache worse.
“Yes, 'sigh', we can pick her up. No problem.”
Lorin's house, being on the way, was not too much of a delay, so we picked her up at about 4:30 and were finally on I-10 headed towards Highway 71.
The trip was delightful. We listened to a mix cd Eric had made and entitled “My Indie Rock Summer.” The conversation was light, because apparently people are afraid of how fast I drive when I'm in a hurry. But, as we got closer, and all hope to see Broken Social Scene was gone, I slowed down, and the mood lightened. We talked about all sorts of comical drama, because anything in Eric's life, unfortunately, becomes comical drama. We changed cd's. I requested “Dear, Catastrophe Waitress,” the new Belle and Sebastian album, but Eric insisted on Belle and Sebastian's First album “Tigermilk.” It was a successful choice, as all of Eric's music suggestions tend to be. Stuart Murdoch, the lead singer and creator of the band, actually released this album through his college in Scotland as a requirement to graduate. The album is simply perfect: upbeat, honest, funny, and well-made. So, we rolled into Austin in style.
Approaching our final destination, I get a call from Walker Lukens who luckily bought an extra three day pass on accident and was going to sell it to me for eighty dollars. I had hunted one ticket down. I just had to find one for Katie and a place to sleep.
We drove down Robert E. Lee, passed the park on our way to Katie's aunt's house, so that we could park. Apparently, parking in the neighborhood was illegal, but much more convenient, so we got prime parking.
We walked to the ticket lines and scattered. Eric went to will-call to pick up his tickets, Lorin went to find her boyfriend, Judson, who is a student at UT, and Katie and I went with the hopes of finding her some tickets. We made it in time to buy her a Friday and Saturday pass, but they were forty dollars a piece. I reluctantly handed the money over. Then, we went to find Walker. I gave him the eighty dollars for my ticket, and was ready to hear some music.
A hundred and sixty dollars lighter, I walked to see Ryan Adams with Eric, Walker and Katie. Ryan Adams was not what I expected. His album “Heart Breaker” was just so incredible, but he only played newer songs that didn't impress me at all. So, feeling defeated, I walked to the stage where Franz Ferdinand would be performing.
I didn't expect much from Franz Ferdinand's live act. I had the album but had never heard anything about how they were on stage. I was skeptical, to say the least.
Franz Ferdinand was excellent. I was quite pleased, and I was even starting to feel as if my hundred and sixty dollar purchase was almost worth it. They played most of the songs off of their album and were fun, despite the absurd heat.
Afterwards, we decided to eat at Magnolia's on Congress. We were all starving. Katie and I bought a bunch of food and root beer floats. After the floats, we were full, so the rest of our meals went uneaten, but the few bites we had were delicious. Then the bill came. I, once again, reluctantly tossed the last of my forty dollars into the middle of the table, because all the money that I had was in twenties, and that was all that I remember of my two hundred dollars.
Everyone else looked for something to do. It was about 11:30 p.m. All I could think of was where I was going to sleep. But, since I had the only car, I had to drive them to St. Edwards to pick up our friend Andy Layne. Once that had been done, we realized that it was 12:30 in the morning and that it was time for bed. So we went to UT, where Walker and Eric were staying with Walker's girlfriend, Landry. Still with nowhere to stay, I started to get mad again. I called around to every number in my phone. Finally, I got a hold of my friend Emily who goes to UT, and she told us that she had a couple of open couches. At that point I would have slept on a floor as long as it had air conditioning. I was elated. I fell asleep around 1:00 in the morning.
I rolled off my two person couch at about 10:30 in the morning. My back felt like I had slept curled up in a dryer. Katie of course got the nice, big, full-sized couch and was still asleep when I woke up.
Katie and I went to breakfast at Wendy's and went back to her aunt's house. We hadn't heard from Walker or Eric, but I knew both of them had to drive back to Houston that night to play a show at Fitzgerald's. What they would miss out on that night will be something they will likely regret for the rest of their lives.
Katie and I went to see Cat Power, a one woman act. She was quite talented but out of place in the heat. Her music is smoky club music, not big festival music. We saw Walker and Eric. They were about to leave, so we said our good-byes and were on our own.
We just couldn't handle the heat, so we found some shade underneath a tree and sat there for a couple of hours. Before we went on Saturday, we had bought a gallon of water, and we just drank that throughout the day. But it started to run dry when we were under the tree. I found a booth that said, “Fill out a short survey for a free bottle of water,” so I went and stood in line under the sun while Katie sprawled out under the tree on a beach towel that we had brought in. As it turned out, the survey was all but short, but the water was cold. About half an hour later, I was on the verge of passing out, but I finally made it to the end of the line. I filled out some stupid survey about SBC wireless or something and finally got my bottle of water.
I brought it back to Katie, who was quite comfortable. “What took you so long?” she said, as she took a huge gulp from the cold water that I had just risked heat stroke for. I just let it go and sipped from the warm jug we had bought that morning.
Anne, a friend of ours who drove from SMU for Saturday, walked by the fence of the park while we were under the tree. I said, “Hi,” and asked her what she was doing. She told me that the tickets were sold out. I was appalled. Zilker Park is enormous. But, feeling sorry for her, I snapped my wrist band off and slipped it too her through the fence so she could get in for free. She came around after she had gotten in and was grateful. She was so grateful, in fact, that she offered to buy us water and food, but I was feeling chivalrous, and turned the offer down (I would definitely regret that later in the evening.).
Modest Mouse was getting ready to perform so Katie and I snaked our way into the front, before the crowd got too big, and got ourselves a spot in the very first row, just to the left of the stage. The spot was just perfect, and it would be our home for the next six hours.
Modest Mouse came on and was just wonderful. The whole crowd was into it: singing along, dancing, etcetera. It was a great moment. But, it wasn't until I looked up and saw the screen to my left that I realized the immensity of what I had accomplished. When I looked up, I saw the camera panned out, looking over the crowd. I saw no break in the people. Last year, about thirty thousand people attended Austin City Limits. This year, there were over fifty thousand tickets sold over the internet alone. When I saw the screen, I jumped up on the barricade to look at the crowd, and I saw an endless sea of people, all of them dancing, singing, and feeling the same thing together as one. Not to sound cheesy, but I felt as if I was one with something incredible. The moment struck me. I was at the front too. I was ten feet away from the glue that held this mosaic together.
And this wasn't some uniform army of people. It was truly a mosaic. I felt like I was in a “Where's Waldo?” book, or in some market place in Calcutta. I looked to the right of me and found a forty year old man with tattoos, a mullet, and a handlebar mustache, who cried his eyes out during half of the Dashboard Confessionals set. Then, to the left was a cute little girl not a day over fifteen who screamed out every line of all of the Pixie's songs in all of their vulgarity.
Modest Mouse finished their set, and we had another hour until Dashboard came on. I will be honest and say that, “Yes, I do like Dashboard after seeing them live.” So, say what you will. I'll be the bigger man and be honest. Before their set I took what money we had and went for food. It felt like running the gauntlet in football practice. People everywhere, that for the most part didn't want to make your movement any easier--especially if you are moving to the front--blocked my path. After grabbing food, about half an hour later, I tried to get back through with two Philly Cheese steaks and chips with salsa. It was definitely a struggle. This one guy thought he would be a tough guy, even though Katie was in our spot maybe five feet away asking the guy nicely to let me through. So, food in hand I forced my way through and “accidentally” dumped salsa all over his back. Luckily he never noticed. I made it back and enjoyed the rest of Dashboard's set.
Dashboard left the stage and we waited for the Pixies. The crowd shifted. Thirteen year old girls and whiney emo boys left for a more hardcore and older crowd to move in for the Pixies. The suspense was crushing. I had heard that they were incredible, but the wait was getting unbearable. Our gallon of water that was reduced to a little less than a quart was picked up by the clean up crew because it was on the other side of the barricade.
“Es vasura?” the man asked.
“No, no es vasura!” I shouted in horrible Spanish.
But it was too late. Our water was gone.
Finally, the Pixies stormed the stage with so much charisma I almost forgot the turmoil that broke them up in the first place. The smile on Kim's face was so reminiscent of a time past when the band was in its prime. They were perfect for this surreal night. They played everything: the classics and even the not-so classics. In “Where's my Mind,” the whole crowd erupted into song. There wasn't even any speech from the band--just music.
A screaming woman tried to rush the stage after crowd surfing to the front. The stars were out. I was so lost in the moment that I had forgotten why I was there. I was there to be with Katie. Since she left for college at the beginning of this year I had wanted nothing more than to spend time with her. I had let her be against the barricade so that I could lock my arms around her and keep her from getting crushed by the weight of the crowd as they swayed back and forth.
During “In Heaven,” I looked at her and found her in the same awe as I was. She was dancing and singing (even though she didn't know the words). In that moment, I realized what it was to truly be happy, to truly be a part of something. It has been said that you must truly let it all go before you can be free. That weekend I had let it all go: two hundred dollars, my cares, my hopes, fears, regrets, and I was perfectly happy. I wasn't happy because of the talent of the musicians necessarily. It wasn't the cheese steak I had eaten. It wasn't that I was in the front row. The magic of that moment was in the fact that I was enjoying all of them with thousands of people feeling the same way.
The show ended. The whole crowd stayed and applauded for at least fifteen minutes, not because they expected an encore, but because they truly appreciated what the bands had done that night.
Katie and I walked to the exit. We jumped a fence to avoid the traffic at the exit and went to the car for the trip home. I drove back to Houston fighting the urge to sleep. The festival continued on Sunday, but my parents are not lenient enough to let me stay that long. It was a stretch for me to go in the first place, so I wasn't going to argue. I was tired anyway. We got back to my house at about 1:30 in the morning and took turns showering to get the dirt from the weekend off of us. She went to my room to sleep in my bed (When she stays at my house I get the couch in the game room.). I walked over to the couch and was asleep in maybe five seconds.