I am exhausted after a full weekend at the Austin City Limits Festival. Saturday we sent Bowie off to spend the night with Nonnie and Gramps then bussed for an hour down to Zilker Park. The first show we caught, Centromatic, was my fave for Saturday. Impecciable musicians and really comfortable stage presence. It helped that we were only behind a few hundred people. The rest of the day we were always at the back of the crowds. The Shins were great too, but the crowd was enormous. Truly enormous. And we've seen them many times in better cirumstances. The Raconteurs were also good. Really good. Time to get their cd. We were tired and filthy so decided that we wanted to get home, shower and go to a movie. But it took us an hour and a half to bus back home. We were too tired to go to a 10 showing, so our night without child at home was quite tame. I went to bed earlier that I have in a long time.
Sunday we picked Bowie up and then headed down after his nap. We brought minimal suppiles and bussed again. Bowie likes riding busses, a lot. An hour later we got there in time for Chris and Bowie to catch some of the New Pornographers set while I staked out a spot for the Flaming Lips. They were the band that I most wanted to see. We got fairly close, as close as felt safe and enjoyed the show from afar. It did not disappoint. I wish I had been up there and could show you the girls in alien outfits, the santas, the balloons, streamers, balls, confetti gun, and huge ball Wanye Coyne gets into and rolls across the top of the crowd. Their music is awesome to me: often joyous, sometimes noisy, usually humorous. Bowie is still talking about the flaming lips and the big balloon and the guitar with two necks. Makes us so proud. Took almost two hours to get home. The travel time was longer than our stay. But just as we got off the bus, the storm started. We ran down our dark street in the rain. A great finish.
