Over the weekend, Austin’s Zilker Park played host to Austin City Limits 2010, where The Daily Cougar watched The Eagles, Muse, Phish, The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, Vampire Weekend, Band of Horses, Deadmau5, Silversun Pickups, Matt and Kim, The Temper Trap, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Foals, Cage the Elephant and a few others perform three epic days of music. It’s an experience everyone should have at some point during their lifetimes.
Festivals aren’t so much about the music; by that we mean that the sound quality is never amazing, it’s improbable that you’ll get good spots for every band you want to see and the entire experience, as a whole, is exhausting.
But for every issue a festival has stacked against it, there are a dozen positive things.
And while the festival was altogether a success, we have a few suggestions for those who choose to attend such events in the future. You could call it concert-etiquette, but it’s aimed primarily at festival goers.
Firstly, don’t get upset when someone steps on your shoes. More than 60,000 people were there, and everyone in attendance knew it was going to be packed, so there’s really no reason for you to get upset when someone steps on your Toms.
And if you’re wearing your Nikes, you’re an idiot and should have worn something else.
However, this isn’t an excuse to be inconsiderate of the people around you. There’s a fine line between accidentally stepping on someone’s shoe and blowing smoke in the face of a child. Really, dude, couldn’t you have waited five minutes to have a cigarette?
Also, you may be outdoors at these festivals, but that doesn’t mean you have to scream — especially when the person you’re talking to is less than a foot away. The people around you don’t think you’re funny, care about what your little brother is stuck doing at home or want to hear how many times you’ve gotten high in the past 24 hours.
Bringing your child, especially if he or she is an infant, is a terrible and cruel idea. Thirteen seems the ideal age for your kids to start tagging along, but we saw a few parents walking around with strollers, filled with screaming children. Their poor little ears, underdeveloped immune systems and skin were all susceptible to a wide array of horrors.Seriously, folks, hire a babysitter next time.
Still, even with all the distractions and tomfoolery, the festival as a whole was quite a lot of fun for everyone in attendance. The music was loud, everyone was smiling and most of the bands seemed to have a really good time as well.
Foals’ performance was strong, but riddled with technical difficulties. Muse, as expected, brought down the (figurative) house with a much bigger crowd than opposing headliner MIA. Band of Horses played ‘No One’s Gonna’ Love You,’ and afterwards everyone stopped paying attention. The Flaming Lips did almost the exact same thing it did at Summer Fest, including multi-colored balloons and a lot of streamers. Cage the Elephant crowd-surfed on top of the hands of countless adoring fans. Deadmau5 proved that house music can still be cool, and The Eagles played what could be their last show ever.
Overall, the entire weekend was a blast. The only real downside was that no one wants to use the porta-potties to poop. No one.
