Author Archives: Diana

About Diana

Canadian-Vermonter, Texas transplant. Cowboy boot wearing, maple syrup connoisseur, music lovin', wine and micro-brew drinkin', two-steppin' traveler who loves finding all the hidden gems the world has to offer. Come join me on the ride!

Austin City Limits 2011 – Day 3

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September 18, 2011 marked the last day of the 10th Anniversary of ACL. Even though we were all tired from the previous two days, I was still pretty excited about this last day of concerts, there was a good line-up to check out. Little did I know, three of my top five highlights of my weekend would be happening today.
Here is a wrap up of my day:
Chiddy Bang – Interesting. I say interesting because I wasn’t overly impressed. I guess its probably because I wasn’t drunk or high which was their primary target during their set. “Who here is on drugs?!” Yea.

Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses – If you have a chance to see these guys live, grab it. They are phenomenal! He reminds me a bit of Jakob Dylan with his raspy, honest voice and lonely lyrics. We’ll call this highlight #1 – they were wicked!

The next show I wanted to catch wasn’t for another hour so I caught bits and pieces from Death From Above 1979 and Jack Ingram. I will say typical shows. Jack Ingram is very Texas country.
Highlight #2 – Fleet Foxes. This was the best show I got to see all weekend, hands down. They were unbelievable. Talk about going into a show with already high expectations from everything you’ve heard about a band. Typically, what happens is you are let down, that you’ve set your expectations so high that you are just left disappointed. Oh, no sir, not in this case. They blew me away and I think everyone else that was there to listen to them as well. If only I was able to know the feeling of what it was like for them on stage. To be able to look out into the crowd and know that everyone there was there for them. It must be a feeling that is just out of this world.
Highlight #3: Randy Newman. If you don’t recognize the name, you will recognize his work. He has been composing music of television and stage for decades. I guess the best way for you to say “Oh Yea!” is to list off a few (there’s too many) of his hits. One of my favorites is “You’ve Got a Friend In Me”. You can say “Oh Yea!” now. He has worked on soundtracks for the Toy Story movies as well as Parenthood, The Natural and James and the Giant Peach. He wrote “Mama Told Me Not To Come” performed by Three Dog Night, way back in the day. This entire post could be about the impact this man has made in the movie and music industry. I have a hard time understanding if you are an ultimate music lover if you can’t appreciate Randy Newman. He really knows how to work the crowd. He would tell stories, tell some jokes and have you sing along with his songs. He wasn’t playing for the crowd, he was playing with them. It was a great experience.

Mr. Newman’s show took place at the Vista Equity tent, which is the only covered concert space at ACL. This is suppose to offer a more intimate experience. It wasn’t so intimate when the bass could be heard from neighboring stages. This didn’t seem to happen at any other performance which I attended but as much as you were trying to tune it out, it was still heard. In order to really hear Mr. Newman, you had to first fight to get under the tent. If you didn’t you might as well have been standing at another stage. Dear ACL – please fix this. It really took away from the performance and I’m sure it occurred at other shows at this tent during the weekend.
These guys often go unnoticed at shows but do the bulk of the work.
Final show of the evening and top headliner of the night – Arcade Fire. I would love to provide a full blown review of this show. Like Fleet Foxes, I’ve heard nothing but great things about this band and their live performances but we stayed for about two songs and then left to 1) beat out the crowd and 2) we had to get back to the house we were staying at to cook a delicious meal for letting us crash there for the weekend. If they are near wherever I am in the future, I’m going to make a point to attend their show. Keep an eye out for it in a future post.
If you are interested in going to this festival, be prepared to get your tickets early. The 2012 Early Bird tickets have already gone on sale and sold out. The regular season tickets will go on sale in the early spring, but it’s pretty hard to get them. The ticket prices seem to be going up as well from one year to the next (2012 regular ticket price is set at $200 for the weekend pass.) Entertainers are not announced until all tickets have gone on sale. What a marketing technique, eh?
My first ACL experience was awesome. When I was there, I just wanted to soak up every single second of every minute which is just down near impossible. The variety of artists, the scheduling is insane. If I could just walk away with one thing from a festival, it would be – how do you feel when you are on stage and you see a sea of people, singing every word of your music? They’re trying to soak up every second of your set. What does it feel like?

WhirlyBall!!!!!

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Last Friday, a few friends had heard about a free event for “WhirlyBall“. Turns out a local radio station was going to be there and it was going to be free all night. Who doesn’t like free?! I had heard of a group at work going to Whirlyball as a team building event but wasn’t quite sure what it entailed. As soon as I looked up what “WhirlyBall” actually was, I was ready to go!
Whirlyball – Take a seat in one of these little bumper cars. (Steer clear of #13, it’s a slow one.) You have a little basket/glove followed with a plastic whipple ball. The goal is for each team to hit the backboard (see below) with the ball for 1 point and if you get the circle in the middle, congratulations, you’ve just scored yourself two points! This goes on for 7-10 minute games.
Don’t fool yourself, this is a lot harder than it looks. Those little cars are pesky! The car has a pedal. You don’t have to push it to go, it just kind of goes on its own. The pedal just makes you go faster. You have a joystick that you use to steer. Turn it left, you go right. Turn it right, you go left. Turn it all the way around, you stop. Turn it too much, you may go backwards, you may not go anywhere at all. Takes some adjusting.
You may find yourself pinned by an eight year old who proceeds to sit there and laugh at you and say “I got you stuck!”, but that didn’t happen to me. Nah. 
Some people take this pretty seriously. Check out those chin guards.
There’s even some leagues. Intense. I have some bruises on my knees from that joystick hitting them.
It’s still worth the fun!
When playing, be wise on who you pick to be on your team. You want them on your side.
There’s only a few of them in the entire country, but if one is near you, you may want to check it out!
It was one heck of a good time!

Oktoberfest, Southlake, TX

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This past weekend seemed like a blur, there was so much going on and lots that I need to fill you in on, however let’s start with Oktoberfest! On Saturday, we checked out the Oktoberfest in Southlake, Texas. It almost seems like each year there is a new Oktoberfest popping up in either your own town or a town close by, here there have been at least three or four of them in the past two weeks, so we had to at least check out one of them!
The Oktoberfest in Southlake is held in the Town Square. It is actually a pretty nice area with a gazebo, small park which is surrounded by a shopping center (outdoor shops) which holds numerous restaurants. Obviously, there is a ton to do to begin with, throw in some tents in the middle of the Square and you have a party. Top it all off, the event was free to the public.
The gazebo hosted a series of entertainers. There was even a nice patch of grass in front if you wanted to bring some chairs and just hang out. A beer tent was conveniently placed nearby.
Southlake seems to show a huge emphasis on family based events, this one included. There is a section of kids games and bounce houses for entertainment. Even a rock climbing wall for the older kids, or adults young at heart. There was even a martial arts instructor teaching children how to break a board with their hands. It’s all about respect and confidence. He seemed like a great instructor and was great with kids. (I have no idea what company / organization he worked with but if I had a child, I would enroll them.) It was probably one of the biggest highlights of my day.
The center of the park was full of vendors and craft tents.
Look at these cute little guys! I love pretty much anything that has to do with fall. I could’ve bought and made a village!
I love this truck! If only I could drive around in this beast!
Food and brews?
Getting there… the event itself was free, however if you wanted any food or beer, tickets would need to be purchased. I believe tickets were $0.50 each and the amount of tickets depended on the item purchased. Numerous vendors were these selling their delicious treats (even soft serve ice cream there on the end).
Beer tents were scattered throughout the area.
This is a good family event, even to get out of the house for a couple hours on a nice day. It appeared to be more family oriented than food/beer driven. You may even see a celebrity or professional athlete as Southlake is the home to many of them. Sy is convinced he saw Jon Kitna, Tony Romo’s back-up. By the time he figured out why he looked so familiar he was walking off with his family. None the less, the man was pretty happy.
If anyone else attended Southlake’s Oktoberfest, what’d you think?!