This is my first year to attend the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The 2009 line up (while not the best in recent years) included some big time bands like The Dave Matthews Band and Pearl Jam to name a few, but it was the smaller bands that really “made a splash”.
The weather started out perfect on Friday, but soon turned wet and muddy on Saturday and Sunday.
Day 1
Each year, thousands of music fans migrate to the Capitol of Texas to witness and experience live music from some of the world’s greatest Musicians. The city of Austin recently spent 2.5million dollars renovating Zilker Park in light of previous years when thousands of people complained about the dust storms that plagued the Festival.
This year was different… Friday’s weather was bright and sunny and proved to be the perfect conditions to test out the pristine grass of Zilker park which has been gated off since the last March during Austin’s yearly Kite Festival.
Fridays lineup included some killer bands such as:
- Kings of Leon
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- Thievery Corporation
- John Legend
- Them Crooked Vultures
- Coheed and Cambria
- Andrew Bird
- Phoenix
I was lucky enough to get back stage during Coheed and Cambria which set the tone for the rest of the evening. Below are some of my favorite photos from ACL 2009
Day 2
Saturday morning started out nice but soon headed south as heavy rain fall had everyone reaching for their umbrellas. That did not stop people from coming out to see there favorite bands, while some dressed accordingly to keep dry, others embraced the rain. We have been in a drought in Texas for several months and over the summer we have had record temperatures and many of our iconic swimming holes have been dried up. Many locals welcomed this as a sign of things to come, but the rainy situation soon turned our beautiful new Zilker Park grassland into a swamp of mud. I ruined a good pair of shoes on that day because I was unprepared for the weather. Luckily I had an umbrella and with the help of some trash bag, I was able to keep relatively dry and get a couple pictures of the festivities.
Some of the bands I got to see included:
- Dave Matthews Band
- The Levon Helm Band
- Ghostland Observatory
- The Decemberists
- Flogging Molly
- Citizen Cope
- … And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
- Grizzly Bear
Day 3
The situation was a little worse on day 3 when we returned to witness the Mud Pit created in the previous day, but peoples spirits were high and they were ready for more Rock and Roll! It didn’t rain at all on Sunday but it was still took a lot of effort just to get around from stage to stage. Sometimes I felt like it was easier just to skate through the mud rather than try to walk. Sunday was definitely a day not be be missed.
Sundays lineup include some of the following bands:
- Pearl Jam
- Ben Harper and Relentless7
- The Dead Weather
- Toadies
- The B-52s
- Arctic Monkeys
- Clutch
- Michael Franti & Spearhead
- Girl Talk
ACL is one of the many reasons why Austin is called the Live Music Capitol of the world and was recently voted the Top 10 City’s for the youth culture.
Thank you for stopping by, feel free to leave a comment!
Austin Wedding Photographer – Ben Godkin
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Looks like you had a blast… you captured it so well. It makes me wanna go!
Dang that looks like it was a lot of fun. I like how you have a bunch of muddy pictures of other people and then you’re super clean in your self portrait.