Austin City Limits Music Festival

Austin City Limits Music Festival was just this past September. This being my first trip to Austin and my first music festival in way too many years, this was like a pilgrimage back to my home land. Eight stages of music, host to over 100 bands, and peaking at about 60,000 people. What's not to love? By far my picks for greatest performances goes to the following, Mars Volta, Electric Touch (mostly because of their Beatles cover), Octopus Project, The Raconteurs, Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck, Gnarls Barkley, The Fratellis and few more I am sure I am forgetting.

I know that the list I just rambled off is seemingly long, but when there are over 100 bands and you see about 20 in a day it is short by comparison. Mars Volta was by far my favorite, very surprising and awe inspiring. If you get a chance to see them I would suggest to do so, great energy and wonderfully creepy sound that's very hard to describe. Of course to complete the whole "Austin Experience" our pilot's nephew is a member of Mars Volta, which he didn't find nearly as cool as I did.

As for the rest of the festival and weekend I will keep it short, since if you are reading this I probably already told you about it. It was hot, I learned to appreciate the magnificent beauty that is a cloud, very dusty (I became sick the minute I came back), great inexpensive food that always include Pico De Gallo, wonderfully humorous people that is the reason you see Keep Austin Weird everywhere, and learning to spin a weekend pretty much alone into a great adventure. I didn't get to explore the city as much as I would like, but I can say this of what I saw, great architecture, nice people, wonderfully diverse music, and a pleathera of bars.

All in all, Austin City Limits Music Festival is like a religious experience for the music lover. The city loves music, surrounds you with it, and dedicates everything to it....only wish that the rest of the experience could be as amazing.