I saw:

• Gomez
  
• Thievery Corporation (only a few minutes)
  
• Gnarls Barkley (only a few minutes)
  
• Wolf Parade (only a few minutes)
  
• John Mayer (only a few minutes) (ugh)
  
• Ben Kweller (only a few minutes)
  
• Nada Surf (only a few minutes)
  
• The Shins
  
• The Raconteurs
  
• Massive Attack
  
• Ween
  
• The New Pornographers (only a few minutes)
  
• The Greencards
  
• Muse
  
• Tom Petty (only a few minutes)

My top picks were Muse, Massive Attack, The Raconteurs, and Gomez. Three of those bands happen to be from the UK and they happen to be bands I’ve been waiting to see for three years, so this ACL was kind of a big deal to me. These bands don’t come to the US often.

Muse was phenomenal.* Everything was there – musical accuracy, stage antics, variety of song choice, and sound quality. They must have a great sound guy. I was concerned they’d have a hard time translating the complexity of their studio recordings into a live performance but they seem to have a good handle on it. In fact, the same goes for Massive Attack. I didn’t know what to expect with them. I wasn’t even sure they’d have a full band, but they did. They had two drummers. I pegged them as more of an electronic outfit with various keyboards and synths doing all the work. I was also happy to see they toured with the two extra vocalists featured on their studio tracks. Massive Attack are experts at gradual builds and they pulled it off well in the live performance. The light show was also impressive. The main vocalist made a few comments about our buddy W, and on the next song, the light display behind the band scrolled factoids about the Iraq war: the number of Americans killed, the number of Iraqis killed, the cost of the war to American taxpayers, the number of displaced Iraqi civilians, so on and so forth. It was sobering.

The Raconteurs, Jack White’s new band, were insane. That guy is possessed. I saw The White Stripes a long time ago at Emo’s in Austin and I thought he was nuts then. He’s only more crazy now. If you get the chance, definitely check this band out. They will not disappoint.

Gomez was a little more reserved than I had hoped for. They didn’t really let loose and kept to the more mellow tracks. There was one song in particular I wanted to hear with a (surprise) distorted bass part, but they didn’t do it. What really bugged me was that the bass player hung back the whole show and stood by his amp. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a bass player who hides behind the band, musically or physically. Otherwise, they played some good songs and had a good time on stage.

What about Tom Petty? Yeah, there were about 50 million people standing between me and Tom Petty. Tom had already started by the time the Muse show ended. I walked for a while towards his stage and there was still at least a half-mile of people in front of me. There was no way I was going to get closer to see or hear anything. No amount of wattage could have moved the sound to where I and thousands of other people were. So I heard traces of a few songs and left with a couple friends. We ate at Magnolia, they went back to the hotel, and I hit the road to get home in time to sleep a few hours and be at work at 9.

Just my luck, I ran into a torrential downpour on I-71 that brought me down to 30 miles per hour. My sight was limited to 10 feet in front of me. Thankfully I finally got away from the rainstorm and cruised the rest of the way, getting home at 2 am. Seven hours later, I was at my desk, ears ringing and head groggy.

Pictures i lifted from flickr:

Muse:

Massive Attack:

The light towers:

The Raconteurs:

Jack White screaming his head off:

Gomez:

*Addendum: My only complaint about Muse was that ACL pulled the plug on them too early. They were supposed to have a forty-five minute set (which was already too short), but since Tom Petty had started playing, the singer said, "We'd love to keep playing but the people running show are going to pull the power on us because Tom Petty has started." Hence, some of my ambivalence towards seeing Tom Petty.