Quirkee.com

I was on a mission to find joy at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. It was the end of a long week and my spirits needed some lifting. I was not alone in my quest. On a beautiful Friday, the first day of the festival, thousands of joy-seekers and I streamed off the handy dandy shuttle busses and poured through the Barton Springs entrance. We were greeted at the gate by a local favorite, Leslie Cochran (pictured left). He was coy and flirty and looked smashing in a leopard print thong and a sweet little black vest - unzipped just so. His long gams ending in ACL-appropriate, comfy leather slip-ons, a fetching red pedicure peeking through. He seemed joyful - this was a good start.

I made a beeline for the Washington Mutual Stage, which would soon become my favorite venue of the festival. WAMU provided an intimate setting for exciting and sassy musicians to connect with their audience. First on my List of Joy - The Gospel Silvertones. I stepped under the tent just as they hit the peak of "Hold on, Change is Comin'." What a great beginning. (Side note: ACL and iTunes purport to provide a set list for the festival to folks who request it via text message. Actually, they only provide a list for the bigger acts. I hope ALL the artists are listed next year.)

“NO!” I screamed as the forecast showed a 60% chance of showers for the whole day and the radar suggested nothing better. Crappity. So, as my girlfriend giggled in vengeful bursts at the fact that I had to stand out in the rain all day, hot and gross and muddy, while she stayed home locked in a house with sugared up children, I prepared myself for what was about to happen…an eventful day of a whole lot of waiting.

Waiting, you ask? Yes, you see, an outside concert festival + rain = electrocution by musical instrument or amp or poorly insulated power supplies. Tom Petty laying dead on stage from death by rain puddle is not the image ACL really wants plastered all over the papers or in the minds of a jury during the mega-million dollar law suit surely to follow. So, basically, if it is raining, I get to sit. And sit. Or stand. In the rain.

Okay, so I am now really looking forward to ACL Fest!

For those of you not in the know, The Austin City Limits Music Festival is a music festival that Austin hosts every year and has since 2002. I once got to go and sit at Sheryl Crow's table for the Sound Check Charity Event at the launch of ACL a couple of years ago, thanks to her fabulous booking agent and my BFF. I had just finished my chemo and radiation and they arranged for tickets, food and feeling groovy because I was sitting at Sheryl Crow's table. For the record, Sheryl Crow is hot! And, now that I think about it, the price tag was still on the bottom of her boot so she may want to chat with her stylist about that...and it was distracting the hell out of me during her performance but it was cool! ACL is cool!

Let me start off by saying that I didn't get to go to ACL Fest last year, damn it. So I missed Coldplay, Oasis, Wilco, Jet, Death Cab for Cutie, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Spoon, and more. I missed them all. But after last year's oppressive heat here in Austin (108 degrees on the 3rd day of ACL Fest last year) and the effects of Hurricane Katrina on our city (the Convention Center housed some 4000 evacuees), I had some excuses for not going. Or maybe it was all the diapers my wife and I had up to our necks. Or maybe I couldn't afford the tickets. I can rack up a thousand excuses but the truth is I really wanted to go. There is just something about tons of bands playing outdoors to huge crowds chugging beer and singing along to their favorite songs. It's such a joyous kind of thing to do for me.

So, let us fast forward to right now. Quirkee.com was granted a media pass to ACL Fest 2006 and I'm covering the 2nd day, Saturday September 16th. So why am I going only one day when there are three? Because I'm still up to my neck in diapers and my wife would kill me! No, honestly, I don't think my body could take it. What can I say? I'm getting old and 72 hours of beer drinking would put me in the hospital. But don't you fret dear readers. The other two days will be covered by Quirkee.com staff, just not by me.