McCartney, deftones, and david byrne are the only artists that I recognize as liking. These festivals used to be so much better. I saw the mars volta there before.
i think the biggest problems with music festivals these days is that they all go for quantity over quality. 6 days over two weekends with music going on 6 stages for 11 hours a day. its too many slots to fill...and too many mediocre bands that are just there to fill those slots. another problem is that they get a couple HUGE headliners that they blow their budget on and then have to fill out the lineup with a bunch of affordable bands nobody cares about. the first few years of acl was just two days and it was somewhere i wanted to be the whole day. i loved that i was being forced to make a choice every hour on who to check out. i go now and there are blocks where i dont give a **** about anyone playing.
"We're bringing a once-in-a-lifetime concert to Zilker Park" No you are not. Just shut the **** up, get the hell out of Austin, and pretend like you're a normal person.
I feel the opposite from all the commets. Think it's a great lineup and glad they did something different this year. Even the second and third tier have some great bands. Haven't been this excited for ACL in a long time.
There are plenty of acts I would enjoy seeing. There are some I would love to avoid seeing, but none that I couldn't see other places. I don't see any real sleepers in that bunch.
"It's really gone down hill.." Bruh chilllll.. This is an incredible, diverse lineup, the only thing I disagree with is Travis Scott.. even as a Houstonian I think he's a hack.. Y'all all sound like 60 year old men.. This blows most lineups out of the water, In bloom isn't even close.. If there is a band you like that isn't on that lineup card I bet that I can find two similar bands you'd like on that card.
Lol that's great coming from a clutchfan user name of "Os Trigonum" Anyway decent lineup. Most of it was "meh" until I saw Lisa Loeb on the 2nd to last line. She needs to be higher up!
Think she is doing the kiddie stage. She has released a couple of children albums so think that's why she is low on the bill.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY downhill. The headliners, outside of Paul McCartney, are crap. Who the f*** is Odesza? I've only heard Travis Scott's name in regards to dating a Kardashian. Is that what makes one worthy of being a headliner? I don't think there's a more boring and depressing band in the world than The National. Are they trying to make sure the crowd gets a good night sleep? 2006...possibly the best of all time. Tom Petty, Flaming Lips, Matisyahu, G. Love, String Cheese Incident, Massive Attack, Ben Harper, Ween, Willie Nelson...man that was a great weekend. 2008 was pretty awesome, too...if only for Allison Krause and Robert Plant together. That was a fantastic show. I went to the first 12. Only day I missed in those 12 years was in 2005 during the dust storm and 108 degree temps on that Sunday. I couldn't breathe and the heat was unbearable. As it got later and later, the lineups because less "festival" and more top 40. They stopped bringing in the Saturday night jam band. Add in the incredible cost and it just wasn't worth it anymore...and it still isn't worth it. I'm thinking about going back to the Utopia Fest this year. They've moved it to Burnet, which makes it much easier to get to than Utopia. The lineup is good and the crowd is capped at about 3,000.
Psssh, Paul McCartney isn't even the real Paul McCartney. *insert tinfoil hat* I was there in 06, Muse played against the backdrop of the beginnings of a lightning storm, fueled by their rage that Tom Petty was cutting their show short because he wanted more listeners. Best live performance from a band I've ever seen. Yeah, ACL has gotten commercialized and taken over, much like Austin in general.
Yeah, I agree that the move to two weekends has really diluted the quality of the lineup. Headliners are pretty weak. It has been a downward trend.
There just no longer are festivals that really drive a certain character or theme. It’s just a big sampler platter of big name artists. The best thing about ACL is trying to catch an after show at one of the downtown venues. I just don’t get the drive anymore to say i want to give up three days of my life to see roughly 20 shows with 50,000 people when I could just go catch 4 to 8 longer shows at good venues that week in Austin and Dallas when all those same artists (except for the headliners) do other shows before and after. But if you’ve never done a 3 day fest before it’s still a great time and ACL is very well run and it’s way closer than Coachella or Bonnaroo.
