Day 2 of ACL: Rain Doesn't Stop the Rock!

Day 2 of ACL ...

I loved it. It far surpassed Day 1 with energetic, enthusiastic bands, marred not one bit by the rain. In fact, when we arrived for the end of Grizzly Bear's set, the light sprinkle of rain added to my enjoyment of their mellow tunes. From there, we headed to Flogging Molly, who I had heard a lot of buzz over but wasn't all that familiar with.

Flogging Molly was awesome: high energy crazy Celtic tunes, Irish with a fun flare. Between songs, they talked politics, inspirations, and Johnny Cash. What's not to love about that? The crowd moshed, danced in circles arm-in-arm, and jumped up and down. Any band that can encompass that many emotions and that many ways of interacting with the music is money in my book.

We stayed at the AMD stage to wait for Mos Def, who most of our crowd was super excited to see. We held a spot (more on ACL Stratgey to come) and were joined by seven or eight friends, which is always a recipe for a good time. We were hyped, and started multiple chants while waiting for Mos Def. Who kept the crowd waiting. For 20 minutes.

Once he took the stage, he didn't exactly start off on the right note. In fact, he might even have been literally off beat. Nonetheless, the ladies in the crowd fell in love with the dimples and skinny suspenders and were ready to forgive as he talked about how "nervous" he was. But he didn't really get better until the last song, when his entourage came out and started breakdancing on the slick stage and Mos Def himself took a spin. We needed more of that the whole show, buddy, especially if you're gonna come out like a diva late.

Post-Mos Def, we danced our way through what had become a mud pit near the port-o-potties, and then everywhere, past Austin Ventures stage where The Scabs were absolutely jamming. They sounded like The Scabs always do: raucous and rocking. A girlfriend tried to slip-n-slide in the mud. Strangers were Greco-Roman wrestling. Everyone was crazy and happy, embracing the rain. We ran around telling everyone "Woodstock '09!"

But as headliner hour rolled around and we made our way to claim spots for Dave Matthews, two girlfriends and I caught sight of the lasers coming from Ghostland Observatory. And we left our group and ran over there, dancing the whole way. We danced our way through the crowd to the middle, where we were heartily rewarded with equally energized fans. This was by far my favorite show of ACL.

And then the UT Marching Band came on stage. Full brass. Full uniform. The crowd went absolutely INSANE. Anyone who wasn't already hopping up and down and going nuts immediately started jumping and throwing their hands in the air wildly. It was an incredible stunt, and totally energized the already enthusiastic crowd. Ghostland's final song after that was full of lasers, light, but best of all, a crazy crowd going nuts.

For anyone thinking the rain would keep people away--it didn't. It might even have added to the fun!