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?