Austin City Limits Music Festival Dissapoints

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is goin down. When i was a sophomore in high school, 4 of my friends and I packed into my honda and drove from Dallas to Austin to stay with my brother for that year's ACL. I don't remember all of the bands that I saw but I do remember how much going and seeing the whole thing was for me at 16 years old. When I got to St. Ed's, the magic of the music festival experience was easy to remember. I remember feeling oh so happy at the Flaming lips and oh so wet at Tom Petty after waiting in the rain. The bands were all great and some of my expectations blown away (Wolf Parade).

ACL 2007 was a bit of a different story, when I first saw the lineup, I was really excited. So many bands that I wanted to see! The White Stripes, Wilco, Arcade Fire, Muse, My Morning Jacket, Arctic Monkeys, Spoon, LCD Soundsystem!! Then the schedule came out. All of those bands were playing at the same time as another one, cutting my options in half. Then the week before the festival, the White Stripes cancelled their appearance and after show at Stubbs apparently because Meg White was stressed. The half of the highlights I chose to attend were good, Arcade Fire didn't live up to what I had heard, and then to top it all off, Bob Dylan sucked. It was sad really, to see someone so great and iconic headlining a crowd when they have no business doing so. He's just so old, his voice is shot.

I'm not even going this year. The lineup isn't even worth me looking it up to reference. I think there were about 5 bands i really wanted to see and none of them are worth standing in the heat and smelling B.O. all day. I think the best act of the weekend is going to be Beck and I'm not gonna pay $80 for him. I'm no expert and I don't know what it is. Maybe ACL has sold out.. maybe it just cant compete with the flood of new music festivals across the country... maybe the fact that it's in the "music capital of the world" doesn't matter anymore. My point is it's goin down and I don't think it's worth getting exciting about.