eggwards | Entries tagged with acl

I borrowed Chris' little Canon digital camera for my trip to Boston a month ago. I didn't want to cary my old Sony Cybershot that is about twice the size of the little thing I managed to take almost 400 photos on my week-long trip. I still haven't uploaded all of them, but I did know that I liked his camera.

Once I got home I found a Canon Elph Powershot 500 on sale and quickly grabbed it up off of Amazon. Apparently Cannon's been updating their line, but my new little camera has 7 megapixels and fits very easily in my pocket, much better than the old Sony. It also uses a memory card that will let me keep on shooting for ages.

I was happy to give my camera it's first real workout in last weekend's ACL Festival. Chris took his as well, and he seemed to come out with much clearer, sharper photos than I did.

You've already seen a few examples in my ACL recaps, but if you want to see the full photo sets, click HERE for mine, and click HERE for Chris's.

There are three types of photos that were taken at ACL. They are:
Photos of Friends
Photos of the Event (Stages, Crowds, Atmosphere, Bands)
Bear Snipeage

Photos of friends is easy to understand, and can be easy to take. They usually will be close and are not necessarily running away from the camera, depending on your friends. Sometimes those pictures are set up and posed, other times you capture a random moment with varying degrees of quality.

The thing is, I'm not really good at taking a picture, and I'm even worse at being patient and waiting for the camera to focus and take the picture. I missed several shots thinking the camera had captures what I was seeing, but it was just getting started, and I needed to hold in the button for longer to actually get the image.

Let's look at two illustrated examples of bad photography from yours truly. First a photo of the event.

Do you see the band? No, of course you don't. Even though I have the zoom on, you still see more sky than band, and the focus is better on the guy with the red T-Shirt than the stage. This has been a common problem not only with the new camera, but with the old one as well.

Of course, I could do better about getting closer. Now let's look at an example of many, many failed attempts at random hottie bear snipage:

Do you see the bear? Nope, I didn't get the shot before he went behind the other person. I couldn't get the camera set for another shot. Still, the photo is blurry, as many of my snipage photos are. Both Chris and Ben (

qualitykill) did a much better job of getting the hottie photos.

I guess that you're going to go through several bad photos to try to get a few good shots. I think there's an old mentality, one where you were still using your old instamatic and you only had 26 chances to get good photos, so you had to make every shot count. Now with a gig of storage you can waste away. It's only pixels, you know? Still, it's the matter of being patient and learning how to truly USE the camera's abilities.

Chris is taking a photography class this semester, but it's geared to self focus cameras like Chris' big Rebel XT. I wonder if there's a class for us little auto focus camera guys who just want to get that shot of the band, or the hottie pocket bear.

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: Star Bodies - The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

I see that recent Austin City Limits headliner Willie Nelson and member's of his band were arrested for a possession of marijuana. Really, is this news? I remember as we went from Willie's set to Massive Attack's across the field Saturday, we went from the weed section to the ecstasy section. Well, hopefully Willie can pay for the band's fines and Willie won't have to serve time. Not that I'm a legalization guy, but really, in the big picture is this really important? I would suppose Willie makes an easy target.

After Willie and my early Sunday morning allergy attack, we loaded up and checked out of the hotel to spend our last day of the festival. Scott (

xkot) called us and asked us out to brunch, and Peter (

texaspenguin) suggested Trudy's which was good. Now I have another place to suggest when we meet new people in Austin.

As we were driving over to Trudy's the downpour began and I was wondering if it was going to be worth to to go out to the park. There were other people waiting for a table who were also unsure about the day. I also was getting calls from Nakia to say that they were probably going to sit out the first acts and wait for the big acts to come on later in the day. Still Nakia and Ben (

qualitykill) had been jumping from stage to stage the last two days, including running backstage, so we were lucky when we did see them. Personally, I just can't run around that much in the heat. We're more park and listen people.

Chris checks the schedule

Luckily the rain had ended by the time we finished lunch, so Chris (

f__k) andI decided to risk it and go see KT Tunstall. Peter gave us a couple of umbrellas just in case. The park condition was decent, with just a few soggy patches, so we took our place and watched.

Once KT finished her pleasing set, David (

metacub) and John (

gtijohn) came out of the heart of the crowd, finding the bear flag. They had gotten there early to specifically see KT. None of us had plans for a bit, so we hung out together again, which was certainly great. I could go on and on about how good it was to meet our Bay Area visitors, but you get the idea.

So, who did we see on Sunday?
KT Tunstall
Jack Ingram (he was there, we just didn't move)
Matisyahu
Ween
The New Pornographers
Greencard

Jack Ingram was just one of those things where we were parked, and he came on the stage. He wins the prize for worst stage banter as he went on and on about who he is, repeating his name ad nauseam, and telling everyone he plays country music. In contrast The New Pornographer's had good banter, especially when singer Neko Case, complaining that her monitors weren't working sing-songed "I'll give a blow job to anyone who can give me some reverb!"

Of course it was nothing like the banter of the heavily bleeding Ben Kweller the day before, asking and getting a tampon from the crowd to stop the flow from his nose. It was the most talked about event at ACL, even getting the Flaming Lips to to mark the incident with red paint and tampons on stage.

The last set we all saw was the Greencards at the small Austin Ventures stage, while most of the crowd was either listening to Ben Harper or the Flaming Lips. The Greencards is a British bluegrass group that had done the Austin circuit for a few years before moving to Nashville. They played a satisfying set, trying not to be drowned out by Ben Harper. I think all four of us were fine with ending our weekend with a smaller, more intimate performance by some talented musicians.

Since Chris had jury duty on Monday, we had to leave early. David and John joined us for dinner at another Austin institution, Chuy's. As we had dinner a large thunderstorm moved in drenching the town. We knew that Scott and Peter were at the park watching Tom Petty. I saw stories later that Petty had to stop, and much of the crowd ran for the buses, but that eventually he came back and finished his set. By then we were long gone, back up I-35.

David and John chill, ACL style.

I know Chris and I were sad to leave the company of David and John, and hope that they will come back in future years. We were glad to see Scott, but we did miss the other guys who were there the last two years. I hope that for 2007 we can bring in more folks, because the event is just fun, with some incredible acts and a great city. Chris and I plan plan to continue making this an annual tradition.

As Chris and I travelled back home, Sirius was playing several ACL artists on 18- the spectrum and 26 - Left of Center. They did have a person "in the field" so to speak, doing a few reports back, but it wasn't as if they were an event sponsor. I was very glad that for whatever reason someone was allowing me to remember the event in music through the rain, across the state.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Time - The Greencards - Weather and Water

Yesterday started well with a trip to the Magnolia Cafe on South Congress where I had some yummy gingerbread pancakes. We had to wait a while, but it gave Chris and I plenty of time to talk to Scott (

xkot) and Peter (

texaspenguin) and allow John (

gtijohn) and David (

metacub) to arrive from the northern location, where they went first.

Lines were longer to get out to the park today, and the crowd had swelled. Where on Friday there was a different crowd from one stage to another, yesterday there was more of a mass that just turned from stage to stage. A big deal is made out of grabbing territory, but there's a real difference in people, some sit down early, if possible, try to get a good comfortable space, and others like to run in in the last second and take up any remaining space you carelessly tried to control a few minutes ago. Case in point, we set down chairs about half an hour early for a band, and we were the only ones there for a while. The crowd comes in like a tide and suddenly there was a person sitting right where my legs would go. A minute later, this thin cowboy is actually using my legs for a seat back. If he was cute...but he wasn't. As it is usually with these guys, halfway through the set they were bored and gone.

David and John had it bad for the Shins set where a gaggle of pot-smoking teens descended in front of them. These kids were talking, tripping, calling more of their friends over to the already small space. They seemed to have no reason to be there, because they weren't into the band. I had to tell one of them to shut up when they were yelling for their friends to come over.

Again it was hot, but not too hot, and some welcome clouds came over for Aimee Mann's quiet acoustic set. We had occasional visits from Ben and Nakia as they hopped about the park, and saw some other bears as well.

Here's what we saw:
Phoenix - good and energetic of a early afternoon show
Ben Kweller
The Shins
Aimee Mann
Kings of Leon
Willie Nelson
We caught a little bit of Massive Attack, but we found them a little boring - probably because we were about ready to go.

I have to say that Ben Kweller is a real trouper, as he came on stage late because of a nosebleed - well, two nosebleeds. He tried to make it through a few songs, but the nosebleed remained, and he was not only reddening a towel, but also his guitar. We're talking gushers here. At one point he asked for, and was given a tampon from the audience, but couldn't make it through the song before it had expanded and was unusable. We were in the audience thinking, man, this is going to be his last show, ever. He got through one more song, this time on the piano, which when he begged our forgiveness, had also been stained with an octaves worth of red keys.

The audience was happy he tried, but happy to let him go get some medical attention, too.

John and David (photo by Chris) joined us for dinner (or might I say we kidnapped them). It's been really nice getting to know these guys and I hope they will come back next year.

My allergies have been on overdrive. Let's just say that having to go for Benadryl at 5:00 so you can sleep is entertaining, but not entraining enough that there is a story there.

Still one more day to go here. There's not as much going on, but I'm still interested to see KT Tunstall and the New Pornographers.

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Everything is Everything - Phoenix - Alphabetical

So we're in Austin for Austin City Limits Festival 2006. So far the festival has been sunny and hot, but not nearly as hot as it was the last two years. The grass is greener this year, and more lush, and there's more water stations this year, but since the heat is not quite as oppressive, and the breeze is up, we haven't been going through all of our bottles of water. I think it's supposed to be warmer today, so we'll see how it goes.

Guster Plays over there

I don't think I actually saw a band yesterday. Sure, they were there, but generally I was far enough away that they looked pretty small. No big deal, none of our little possies seemed to really mind. Much of the time we seemed content to just listen, gab a bit and to look at the shirtless hotties in the audience.

Bands Chris and I heard yesterday:
Guster
Stars
Gnarls Barkley
Gomez
Thievery Corporation
The Tragically Hip
then we hopped back and forth between John Mayer and Van Morrison both were good, though Van was much more subdued. Both had large crowds, but they really turned out for Van Morrison.

At various times we were surrounded by Jamie (

dwdsevenbelow) and his friend, Mike (

austinmike) and David (

davidtx), and hotty Jared (

geisel). We also ran into Ben (

qualitykill), Nakia and Roger over at John Mayer's set. We knew that Scott (

xkot) was over at the AT&T stage waiting for Van Morrison, so we never saw him, but he should be at the Magnoila Cafe this morning for our bear brunch.

Do you have a flag?

We flew the Bear Flag all day, attached to my chair, which was having a hard time dealing with my weight. We'll probably throw the chair away at the end of the festival. We got a smaller flag this year, and it flies great and is easily visible. We could hear other people around us on their cell phones trying to explain it so they could meet their friends. Dog Paw? Brown stripes? Still, friends found us, and we attracted several other bears and cubs strolling the park.

alphaschnitz's brother and his girlfriend also found us in the crowd.

More today. Now i just have to keep my arm from getting further sunburned than it is now.

Current Mood: thirsty
Current Music: Tear Your Love Apart - Gomez - How We Operate