Ryan Grimm

That's a big bunny, even for Tate

Ah the third and final day. The strangest thing about this year’s festival is that Friday and Sunday had the best lineup (in my mind) and yet neither day was sold out.

First up for the day was Priscilla Ahn. Will had seen her when she opened for Amos Lee a while ago and suggested we check her out. She was a last minute replacement for Adele which had to be somewhat difficult, especially given that it was just her on this huge stage. But she delt with the pressure really well, in fact she’s pretty damn funny. One of her songs in particular titled “The Boob Song” was really enjoyed by the crowd.

At the same stage after Priscilla was Tristan Prettyman. I’ve been a Tristan fan for over three years now and I’ve seen her in concert a number of times and always look forward to each performance. I was especially excited for this show because I wanted to get a recording. Things were going great, Tristan was playing some of her new material which I really enjoy, but when I looked down to check my levels I realized that my recording had stopped. I tried to start things back up but it would immediately stop recording once it started. What the hell. After a few moments I realized that it was out of space. So I abandoned the recording process for the rest of the set and simply enjoyed the set.

I suspected the problem with the recorder was that when I deleted the old files from the CF card that they really didn’t get deleted. Sadly I needed a computer to remove these old files and Dell and AT&T had a booths setup with laptops so I figured one of them might have a USB cable. No such luck. My only option was to reformat my CF card to free the space but that meant I’d loose my Tristan recording. Given that there was two more shows that I wanted to record, I saw little option.

With free space at hand, we headed over to see Neko Case. When buying some cables for my recorder I started talking to this fantastic guy that works at Gleb Music and along the way I mentioned that I was going to ACL. He immediately stated that he’d love to get his hands on a Neko Case recording and told me stories of how he’d traveled from California to Washington to see one of her shows. How couldn’t I check her out after hearing a story like that.

We then hung out for an hour, keeping our spots a few feet from the stage to see The Raconteurs. Their show was amazing. As much as I love Tristan, I think The Raconteurs edged her out just a little bit. Unfortunately Jack White (lead vocals) had a slipped disc in his back but somehow managed to pull himself through the show. Their studio albums most definitely have a rock feel to them but their live performances are much more intense, but how couldn’t they rock with a guy like Brendan Benson on guitar?

Initially I wasn’t sure about this years lineup, but thankfully those feelings were unwarranted because in the end I had just as much fun this year as I did the last two. Plus, this year was a lot cooler (temperature wise) than previous years and the grounds were much more enjoyable thanks to volunteers picking up bottles in exchange for t-shirts. I was really glad that Tate could join us this year and am hoping that we can have an even larger group for the next festival.