ACL 2007 - Part 2 - Saturday with video

Saturday was a different experience for us. Chad had run 24 miles in the morning, we had chilled out in front of the TV watching Heroes and Longhorn football, and neither of us were anxious to go out in the heat until later in the evening. If the weather had been a little cooler, this was the day that I would have been out all day watching act after act.

At halftime of the football game, we figured it would be a good time to leave, and it turned out to be a great evening. Here's the scoop -

- We got there right before the 5:30 show, so we caught the end of the Blue October show as we were planting our chairs on the hill by the Blue Room stage. They sounded pretty good.

- Andrew Bird - Probably the most pleasant surprise of the whole festival. We really dug him. He whistles as one of the many 'instruments' that he plays, and the sound was pretty mesmerizing. Sitting on the hillside, chillin' to his music, doin' some people watching was really fun.

- We headed over for a snack and to catch Kelly Willis. I didn't really care if we were missing Damien Rice or Arctic Monkeys, it was great to get a strawberry-coconut snowcone and relax in the shade. It also didn't hurt that I like Kelly Willis's voice and knew several of the songs that she played. I think Chad enjoyed this show, too, because of the shade and because he knew the song that her husband wrote and that George Strait took to #1...Wrapped.

- Indigo Girls - I have heard them play a couple of times in Austin and it is always a good show. The show on Saturday was a sampling of lots of different songs from their albums over the years. I knew several songs and it was fun to sing along. Mostly, we enjoyed getting to sit down and have a good view. We were also in a great position for the last show of the night...Muse.

- Muse was the band that I was the most excited to see in the whole festival. After The White Stripes canceled, I was a little disappointed that Muse was bumped into their late time slot against Arcade Fire. I wanted to see both, but for me, Muse was the obvious choice if I had to pick between the two. They absolutely did not disappoint. The show was really entertaining both with the video and the music. Muse was the band that I think made the best use of the screens and the lighting for their show. They didn't just rely on the ACL cameras to project their show on the screens, they brought their own video and graphic effects to go with the shots of them live on the stage.

I absolutely loved the show! They played everything that I wanted to hear, plus some things I had not heard (I should have definitely bought their complete albums long ago instead of downloading a few songs here and there from iTunes.) Here they are playing Hysteria, my power song on my iPod running mix.

Here is a clip of part of 'Time is Running Out'.

Things I learned on Saturday (Yes, I can be shallow, but it was great people-watching on Saturday.) -

• Everybody sweats, but some clothing shows sweat marks more than others.
• It really is okay to be in the back. You might just have a better time.
• Snow cones attract bees.
• The majority of us are really unattractive.
• America might be having an underwear problem...why do guys have to have theirs peeking out the top of their cargo shorts? Why can't girls get the thong right?...yes, I can see your blue thong underneath that dress because the material is too thin.
• White tube tops and gigantic breasts do not belong on the same woman. Yes, really.
• There are lots of people whose gender is difficult to identify by their appearance.