Summer Concert Series - ACL 2008 Saturday

Well, we are on to Saturday for this years ACL Festival. Diana and I got to the park around 11 and met up with Micheal and Shelly again. We went to see the Old 97's on the big stage and lucked out by sitting in the shade of a tree.

I was lazy on Saturday and took in quite a few shows on the same stage so I could hold my spot under the tree for the Drive By Truckers show while Diana went to see Jose Gonzales. I did go walking around a little bit but it was pretty hot and I was trying not to drink as much for the day so I appreciated the shade as much as possible.

Around 4:30 we watched Erykah Badu and afterwards I did something stupid. One of the more genius things that ACL does is called Rock and Recycle. They give people who ask for it a trash bag and if you pick up cans and bottles off the ground, they give you stuff like shirts and gift bags. So, after Erykah I decided I would do that so I didn't have to buy a shirt. The only problem with this is that if you don't fill the bag up completely you get a lesser prize. Well, I filled that thing up but because I didn't have it filled to the top, I was only eligible for a bag.

Coner Oberst, who you may know from Bright Eyes, was coming up and I wasn't missing it so we took the bag and we went to get close to the stage for the concert. I have seen Bright Eyes before but the difference between that and Coner's solo music is pretty different. Awesome lyrics though.

When that let out it was pretty easy to get the bag filled and I went and claimed my official shirt. That was $20 I didn't have to spend. BooYah!!!

I wanted to go see 'Iron and Wine' but because Alison Krauss and Robert Plant was on my schedule, I had to skip it. Talk about a crowd...I had to fight my way up to get anywhere near the stage. Diana and everybody else went to see Beck so I was by myself which made it much easier to fight through things. I got pretty close and was very happy with the show. Between Alison and Robert, they switched off quite a bit and had a fun air about it.

Here is something I took for granted on Friday. I left early and didn't have any trouble leaving. Saturday I was not so fortunate. Both final shows let out about the same time so the thousands of people that were leaving made it difficult to get on a shuttle. At one point we entered what we thought was the line and a cop informed us we needed to head to the end. After walking for about 5 minutes we didn't see that an end actually existed and reconsidered using the shuttles. We headed for a cab but there were about 2000 people in line so we decided to retry the shuttle and they had the lines organized so well that we got back and were able to get on a shuttle in about 30 minutes. It was impressive.

That is all,

Newt