Texas MBAs Talk

It’s hard to believe that an entire year has gone by since my first experience at the Austin City Limits Festival last September. Having had such an amazing experience at my first ACL, I was refreshing the page to ensure I got tickets as soon as Early Bird 3-Day Passes went on sale in April. I had been looking forward to ACL for an entire year, and could not wait for the festival, whose announced lineup included Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Kings of Leon, Airborne Toxic Effect, the B-52s and the Zac Brown Band and touted a total of 130 bands that played on 8 stages over 3 days.

The weekend started off with a beautiful afternoon on Friday. Prior to the start of ACL, C3 Presents (the Festival producer) put up a large chunk of change to help the Austin Parks and Recreation Department with a massive Zilker Park (home of ACL Festival) improvement. The park, which is a beautiful Austin locale with amazing views of the city skyline, got a new grass makeover, and the improvements were obvious to all festival-goers. With the sun overhead and the new (springy!) grass beneath our feet, my friends and I set up shop in one area for a large part of the day and watched as bands like The Walkmen, Them Crooked Vultures and John Legend took the stage. The beautiful weather was much appreciated, and the night ended with the Kings of Leon show before closing up the day.

With rain predictions on the horizon, I went to multiple stores Saturday morning in search of ponchos to prepare in case of a storm. Although Target was out, I found a secret stash in nearby Walgreens and bought out almost the entire store supply of Longhorn ponchos. When the rain started coming down in the middle of the Flogging Molly show, my friends and I took cover in our trash bag lookalikes. Between my $35 wellies, my $5 poncho and the buckets and buckets of rain that came down, I’m pretty sure my raingear ROI was out of this world. The rain certainly did not stop our fun. The skies cleared up for the Zac Brown Band, which was one of my favorite shows of the festival. We stayed for the DMB show and then headed downtown to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

By Sunday, Zilker Park was nearly unrecognizable. Mud covered the beautiful grass, and half of the festival attendees looked like they’d come out of mud baths. Sneakers, sandals and flip flops were orphaned all over the place, and most of the crowd was trudging through the mud barefoot. Again…wellies…amazing investment. But there was something pretty incredible about watching thousands of people running around like kids, jumping in puddles and doing mudslides, completely unaffected by the dirt and totally excited by the music and their surroundings. Day 3 was muddy, but ended with an extraordinary Pearl Jam show that ranks up there with one of my favorite concerts. There’s nothing better than hanging out with good friends, listening to good music and appreciating a wonderful city. The dates for the next ACL Festival have just been announced. Although I don’t know where I’ll be next October, I know that ACL is something I’d like to return for. Muddy or not, here I come.