Ever feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day? That’s about how I felt during weekend two of the Austin City Limits (ACL) music festival.
Every day I woke up at 10 a.m., got ready to go, ate lunch and met the Statesman photo intern, Erika Rich, at the paper. Then we fought traffic and parked a few blocks from the entrance. We’d set up in the media area, say hello to the other photographers and reporters, and get to work shooting our assigned bands and any feature photos we saw along the way.
When we had a little time, we’d come back to the tent to edit, eat a Kind bar, drink a cold Topo Chico and transmit. Repeat until the ACL staff kicked us out around 10 p.m. Then I’d drop off Erika and drive home. At home I’d transfer my files from my laptop to my desktop, shower and take a few minutes to myself. I’d go to sleep around 1:30 or 2 a.m., then wake up the next morning and do it all over again.
For a freelancer, doing the same thing two days in a row is a bit too much routine, but six days?!
Really though, I was so happy to work with the Austin 306/Austin American-Statesman team both weekends! Such a talented group of people!
Alright, let’s get to the photos…
FRIDAY
The headliner was Depeche Mode. I looked forward to shooting them after the Statesman’s Jay Janner captured some amazing images the week before. They had a funky show that was always changing. Hard to predict what would happen next. That’s a good thing! It makes for variety in photos.
I had the opportunity to shoot from the stage for Luella and the Sun. Because of other projects, I didn’t have a lot of time to ask about stage access before the festival. Luckily, the Statesman staff backed me up on this one and it was no problem to get on stage during the performance. They were great to watch and had a nice, unique sound.
My favorite of the show of the day was probably The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker. I got there and the band came out and started playing, but Charles Walker wasn’t with them. The photographers in the pit looked at each other confused as the band started song two without Walker. Song three came and the guitar player started what must have been at least a five minute intro to Mr. Walker, praising him as a soul music legend. We had high expectations as an older, slightly frail gentleman walked up on the stage. Then he opened his mouth and everything changed. All of a sudden he was a 25-year-old funk master.
JD McPherson was a highlight for me too. I listened to their one-song clip on the ACL web page before week one and hoped I’d get to see them at some point. They were a lot of fun.
Holly Williams was great! Wonderful voice, great song writing. She made me stick around and listen for a few minutes after I was done shooting. As the grand daughter of Hank Williams, she has a music pedigree.
Last weekend I managed to stay away from fun. and I regretted it. This time I decided to sneak in to the photo pit just for one song, even though it wasn’t my assignment. It’s been said many times, fun. definitely lives up to it’s name!
Desert Noises was on my list and they had their moments. Not my kind of music, but they did it well.
Electric Six was one of those bands that I just passed by and shot, even though it wasn’t on the list. Got some pictures, but I didn’t stay long. Not a fan.
Scenes from around the park…
SATURDAY
The Cure was the headliner on Saturday. What can I say? They were everything you’d expect them to be. They were weird and strangely dressed and had bizarre lighting. I guess that’s all part of their charm.
The Shouting Matches weren’t what I expected at all. I really enjoyed them! Whoever lights their show should be given some kind of award. It was amazing! Best lighting of all of the shows I went to.
Walk the Moon was fun. This was another one of those bands I looked up ahead of time. You know they’ll be good to shoot when their official band photo includes the lead singer climbing a wall in cheetah print leggings.
Delta Rae had a great show. They’re very talented! And they have a lot going for them in the looks department too. I found myself wanting to shoot more of them.
I wanted to shoot Greensky Bluegrass during weekend one, but I had a conflicting schedule. They had a lot of buzz and seemed to be a big hit. I really enjoyed what I saw. Lots of energy, lots of fun! Plus a bearded man who knows how to work his hair! (That’s one of my favorite photos of the weekend.)
Cherub was different than a lot of the other bands I saw. They used more technology and sampled sounds in their music. Again, not my thing, but they had a big, devoted following.
Scenes from around the park…
This was the first time the festival stretched to two weekends, making it a total of six days of live music madness…so we thought. Day six was cancelled due to heavy rains that flooded the ACL grounds at Zilker Park.
Instead of driving to Austin for my normal ACL routine, I stuck around Hays County and took pictures of high water.
It was actually the perfect way to transition back in to my “normal” freelance life. For those of us who find comfort in not knowing what we’ll be doing from day to day, it was a welcome change.
I took thousands of photos during weekend two of ACL, many more than I could fit in this post. Check out more of my images and the amazing photos from the rest of the team by clicking on the links below:
Click here to see ACL photos from Fri., Oct. 11, 2013.
2 Comments