Lolla Saturday

Saturday

I started Day Two with one of Austin’s best, the Wheeler Brothers.  I love these guys, and it’s unfortunate they got such an early timeslot.  

But, due to my crazy work schedule and newly developing social life, I’m used to going to bed at 9:30pm and waking up at 7:00am.  So getting to the park by noon was a nonissue.  After a great show, and a free koozie, I set out for a very busy day of walking back and forth around the park.  Friday’s recap was extremely detailed, so I’ll make this one much shorter.

Shovels & Rope – I heard most of their set, walking from Wheeler Bros, and back for Little Green Cars.

Pujol – eh, didn’t love.

Planet Hemp – not a fan at all.

Little Green Cars – Unfortunately, the main female singer lost her voice, so this might have been a really bad example of what they typically sound like.  I watched most of their set from a seated spot on the hillside (so pleasant) and caught a few songs front and center.

Ben Howard – so great.  I managed to get fairly close, and should have stayed for the whole thing, as the few songs I heard were really great.

Family of the Year – There was scheduling issue on The Grove stage, as I thought I’d be hearing St. Lucia when I got over there.  And was a little sad, as I should have stayed at Ben Howard.  Regardless, Family of the Year was incredibly gracious to the crowd, and they also sounded pretty good.  They sing the song, “Hero,” which is getting some radio play in Austin.

Charles Bradley- I wandered over to grab a beer and heard some of Charles Bradley from afar.

St. Lucia – I returned to the Grove stage to catch St. Lucia, which did not dissapoint.  Interestingly, they sounded a bit like Matt & Kim, which I left to go see.  However, the Matt & Kim crowd was ridiculous, and I could hardly hear.  So… I tried to go back to St. Lucia, but they were already finished.  Biggest fail of the day, by far.

Annoyed that I messed things up, I hurried to the other end of the park to salvage the remainder of the 3:00 hour.  I’ve seen Local Natives before, and enjoyed them a lot this time as well.

The Dunwellls were one of the bands I had wanted to catch at ACL last year, but they played at too early of a time for my group to get there.  I’m glad I saw them this time, on a stage that wasn’t very crowded and in the shade.

Ellie Goulding – Ericka recommended, “lights” to me for the 2012 NYE video, so since then I’ve associated Ellie with her. Also since then, she has released a few similarly fun pop songs, so I wanted to catch her live.  She was great!  I was waaay in the back, and it was still a solid dance party.  Thanks Ericka, Ellie’s show was one of my festival favs.

Foals – I couldn’t remember why I had bookmarked Foals, and made my way closer to the front to hear/see them.  It was pretty chill, and nothing special, so I caught a few songs and headed south to get up close for The Lumineers.

Missing the Lumineers show at ACL 2012 was one of my biggest fails EVER, so even though I don’t like them as much now as I did then, I wanted to make up for that failure.  Arriving what I thought was 15 minutes early, I started txted Jaime as to feel less alone.  Then realizing I was one hour and 15 minutes early, I took a seat with the few other die-hard fans, and made festival friends.  We chatted for the next 45 minutes, then had to stand our ground to prevent all the “push oursvles to the front" type of people.  This may be a good time to bring up another one of the biggest pro-Lolla points yet, they don’t allow chairs.  At first I thought this was a sad idea, until I realized that without chairs,  so many more people can get up close.  There are still plenty of sitters (blankets!) but without chairs it doesn’t create as big of a bottleneck.  The chairline always seemed to cause so many traffic problems, so without it, more people can stand at an appropriate distance to still see the front.

 The Lumineers show was well worth the wait.  They are so happy!  What was a little ridiculous, at one point, two of the guys walked through the crowd to play two songs from a new perspective.   The main singer sat on top of a chair just behind me, and the accordion player stood on top of the sound booth.

Mumford & Sons – I just saw Mumford at The Circuit of the Americas, so I wasn’t in dire need to see them again.  However, I was pretty thankful that I got to see them twice, while much of the US missed their concert.

I left MAS a bit early, and caught a tiny amount of The Postal Service as I made my 10 minute trek home.