Austin City Limits - Day 3 - October 13, 2013

Day Three of Austin City Limits was rained out for the first time in its history. After 3 years of drought, Austin got 12 inches of rain overnight, flooding the park.  Here's the video.  Until we saw the video, we thought they'd just open a little late, maybe cancel the first few acts to clean up from the storm. Once the video came out, we didn't blame them one bit. No way was that fixable in a few hours. The promoters immediately came through with refund announcements, so even though thousands of people were sad, no one really complained. There was nothing more they could have done to make it right.

On the bright side, though, we immediately started following all the artists who were supposed to play that day on Twitter and were awarded with pop-up show announcements all day long. It felt like a mini-SXSW experience.

Dana drove me around in the morning to see a bit of Austin. We went to a photo exhibit at a UT art gallery and to lunch before we started scoping out the popup locations, trying to figure out what could be paired with what.

We managed to see two of the shows - Mowgli's in the parking lot of a homeless shelter in the afternoon (acoustic) and then Franz Ferdinand in a little 750-person club at night.

Mowgli's pop up show, 10-13-2013

Dana at Mowgli's

The first pop-up we heard about was the Mowgli's, which I'd call a bunch of happy hippy folksy rockers. They decided to do an acoustic show in a parking lot across from a homeless shelter, and "admission" was anything a homeless person might need - toothpaste, shampoo, etc. We got there a little early and had fun chatting with everyone else in the crowd, updating each other on the Twitter posts we had found. The band pulled in in a van and trailer, and we all formed a circle around them, sitting so everyone could see. Dana had the BEST seat (her photos above). She was even on Austin 360's video! Katie and I were more to the side. I was almost directly behind the band in the second row, so I could see well, but couldn't hear the vocals as well as the people they were facing. Still, it was an AMAZING experience. Absolutely unforgettable. Who gets to do that? After, we dropped off our stuff at the shelter and hurried over to the line to get into Franz Ferdinand.

Initial reports for FF were that the doors would be opening an hour after we arrived. That got pushed back a couple times.  I did a rough count when we arrived and we were right on the edge of the 750 capacity, so all the time we were waiting in the drizzle, we weren't completely sure we'd get in. Katie and Dana went to a market for food, and left for a bit to get my jacket, and once a street performer came by to rap for us, but otherwise, we just talked to the people around us and had fun. After being asked why we were in line about 15 times in the first 3 hours of the wait, we started telling people "flu shots". There was one 20-something girl who was completely perplexed and had us doubled over laughing. We were getting pretty slap happy in line, and the line was moving at a snail's pace. We were still in line when the band got out of a cab in front of us.  Dana snapped the paparazzi photo below of the lead singer, Alex Kapranos. We finally got in the door minutes before the band when on stage. Only 30 more people were let in after us, according to the door man.

The club was death-metal themed, so the décor was entertaining, but quickly forgotten when the band took the stage. FF really has ENERGY. They didn't have a lot of space to move, but they still gave the appearance of doing a lot, and they sounded great, except when Alex tried to talk to the crowd, which sounded like "Mhhmemm TEXAS mehmenehhhh DRUMS mmemsejmemm AUSTIN..."  The club (Infest) was a long rectangle with the stage at the sort end, and we were near the back, so the view was spotty, but not horrible. An excellent experience for me. On the way home, we did a drive by of the Grouplove/Mowgli's/Smallpools/maybe Walk on Moon???  We can't prove the last one, but that's whose song we heard during the drive by. Might have been a cover, though.

Photo below from the Infest Facebook page - shows how packed the house was. See where the spotlight is on the chick on the riser?  We were standing in her drink splatter zone.