Austin City Limits Music Festival: Wrap-Up
Toward the end of Pearl Jam’s show-closing performance, the last of their songs Eddie Vedder sang was “Alive.”
The final lyric wrapped up the show for those of us who braved through a sea of mud, which turned out to be mixed with a certain amount of sewage.
“I’m still alive”
Three days, more than 150 bands, monsoon rains and the perfectly manicured, golf-course quality grass metamorphosed into a soupy swill that rendered all footwear save for rubbers useless.
But that didn’t stop the B-52s, Arctic Monkeys, Ben Harper, Michael Franti & Spearhead, or Pearl Jam from putting on a spectacle worthy of the final day of a festival of this magnitude.
Vedder said at the beginning of Pearl Jam’s set that because he’d received so many gifts during his three days at the festival, he felt obligated to do his best to give something back in return.
Pearl Jam drew from their nearly two decades of discography to keep the beaten, mud-caked crowd on its feet and away from the horror within which those feet were planted.
Ben Harper and Perry Farrell were among special guests who joined Pearl Jam during a half hour of encores.
Pearl Jam, Flogging Molly, Michael Franti and Spearhead, The Walkmen, Arctic Monkeys and White Lies stood out this weekend.
Friday provided the finest weather this eight-year-old festival has ever seen grass laid just after last year’s event. The result was positively pastoral.
But then came the rain. Then came the realization that the very green practice of using sewage to fertilize the grass also created the very repellant realization that the mud 65,000 fans wallowed in was at least partially poop.
As I walked out of the festival, the giant Exit sign above me, Pearl Jam was just finishing their final number, a cover of Neil Young’s “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World.”
Sometimes to do that, you have to slog through a little manure sauce.
See you next year.
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