Sunday, September 25, 2005 Eisley ACL FEST
Sun Sep 25, 2005 1:18 am
Q U I C K • T I M E • C L I P : Click here or Pic Below
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This Movie:
Like I told you... the clip isn't anything super special. I had a pounding
headache, I could hardly see the band up there on stage from where I
was; I'm just too dang far away to get any detail; plus, I'm shaking and
jerking around. Sorry. But... it's something. I WILL easily grab more
songs... or at least a song. It's 15mgs. Thanks! boyd
Click for blank URL Window for large view.
Eisley at ACL It's one of those weird panaramic shots - I was just wanting to show how there were
100's of stragglers even in back of where I was. The crowd size doesn't really matter... but it was nice
that so many came. Thank you. Oh, and I'm working on posting a few clips. 'Have one almost finished.
Working on another... this posted 2:00pm Tues.
We're here. Saturday nite
We arrived in Round Rock from Tyler pretty late... (i find great hotels just
outside markets we play in and avoid congestion and traffic)... Everyone
is probably asleep by now. I've been working on colors and design to
new front page journals (eisley.com! - not the forum) supported by the
mad coding of the nerdy mind of young indi-gRegor; no he's from
Indiana; it's not some cred-savvy name, though the worthiness is
arguable.)
So, we get up too early... get all spoofed up only to face those dust
storms I saw on Channel 8 tonight... and get to the Cingular stage by
9:00am. No time for boring you with our schedule. Just know that Eisley
plays at 12:30pm. I did tell you about some new song right? Ok. cool. I
haven't heard it, but i'm sure it'll be weird enough for everyone to need
to hear it at least twice before we know what our heads think; and then
on the third time around, we'll need a 4th fix. Well, that's my grasp. I'm
sleepy now. nite.
_____________________________________________________
ACL. Prelude to an Obsessive Novel
First things first. It was reported to have been Austin’s hottest day of the
year. Our sunburned, wind burned, dust coated bodies bear the proof.
The Show is over. We're on our way back to Tyler, Texas. Home on
the Highways at night. The Perfect context for journaling.
I know I'm supposed to storytell in down/up chronology, but...hmm. No.
Tooling down our very own Texas highway at night – knowing that 31
would spill us out into our own beds and showers was perhaps the most
refreshing thought of the day. (I didn’t say BEST... I just said refreshing)
It’s only 12:30am and we’re already home; 5 hrs and we’re home sweet
home. It’s like being transported. Everyone is already scrounging around
for food; the traveling sleepers are awake now... Renewed, ready for the
morning shift, it seems a whole new day. Oh wait. It is a new day. I’d
better give an account for the day that just passed.
Pushing Through
Repellent phone noises clanged the earpods of band and crew sharply at
7:00am. I don’t like it even now. Why did I chose to prepare for a human
endurance test of monu-seismic proportion with sleep depravation? I
don’t think I woke up until we were pulling into the park... Where
volunteers with walkee-talkee’s were poofing words out of their heads
that sounded ( to me) like, “Oh, I’m sorry; you can’t drive your rig up to
the stage...you’ll have to cross-load your gear and have it dropped off at
your stage”. It sounded really, really wrong, so I plunged their faces with
anti-wrong gauze and appealed to my stage manager by way of cellular
device, which, of course, solved the problem without having to use sand
spray on their sunburns.
Speed Recant
I’m gonna haf’ to give recap this day really quick; how quick? So quick,
you’ll a texas dust devil just turned you into a human cyclone. Now how
do you feel. I just did it to you.
Anyway. Sorry. At 9:30am we loaded all our gear onto Cingular back
stage. Soon thereafter, we arranged for carts driven by nice ACL people
to take us to the artist area. After a quick glance inside the temporary
dressing room and a quick pass thru the breakfast line, we scurried off to
meet a 10:15am interview with Paste Magazine at the Artist Media trailer.
At 10:50am, ACL arranged to cart us BACK to the Cingular stage where
we set up... [ jibberish about how long it took and how we didn’t get a
sound check or even line check goes here ].
Oh wait... It seems I’m way too sleepy from being turned into a frying
crab today. It’s dark in here now. The fan i son. I feel brain damaged and
my bed is calling. More tomorrow. Night.
--------------------------------------------
O.B.B.B.B.S.D.M.B
Obsessive Blow-By-Blow-Behind-the-Scene Detailed-Madness-for-the-Bored
11:00am – 12:35pm
Eisley cooked along with the thriving, emergent crowd for better than an
hour prior to the onset of their 1 hr show. Delays from nearby Ambulance
LTD (they were amazing) threatened to push back Eisley an additional 15
minutes. I watched Stacy, Sherri and Chauntelle’s faces grow beat red as
the Texas sun slapped them unmercifully.
Interviews and photo ops from “Spin”, “Rolling Stone” and others took
place back stage as Texans kept pouring into the park... I was very
shocked to see the throngs assemble... and they (you) WAITED patiently
for so long!
Flickers of eyecatching movement from fans (no the kind you wave to
keep cool) created a visual delight... a nice backdrop (frontdrop?) for the
problems our engineer was facing on stage. What should have been a
perfect, lenghty sound check turned into a less than desirable line
check... if at all; it was almost a cold turkey performance... without a
warm up or a line-check. ouch; spray me with water.
Technological Troubles... what's new?
Let’s talk about that “sound check”. I love behind the scenes info, don't
you? WELL... It seems that our monitor crew (one John Alderman), was
sucked up by Rita so we had to wing it with one sound engineer who had
to build the monitors from scratch... That’s all connectivity, all levels, all
eq’s, effects, etc. One guy doing 2 jobs... That’s trouble. Add mysterious
buzzes, weak signals, all sorts of unforeseen problems...like the bass
guitar shorting out – completely screwing up Garron’s brain during the
set, etc and you have...sadly, sound business as usual. Technology
bites.
12:35pm – 1:30pm
Add the human factor... (human imperfection), coupled that with
Chauntelle almost fainting and dropping like a dead girl 3 times during
the set, having the sun full-on in their faces for 2 hrs, being off the road
and in song writing mode (22 newbies), thinking that the Festival would
surely be cancelled because of Hurricane Rita... Well, if you combine all
of that together with “chance”... you have what happened: Eisley’s best
under the circumstances. Hey, it was 5280 times (the exact number of
feet on the legs of half that many humans) better than COACHELLA,
(heretofore known as: Disaster in the Desert).
Eisley’s Set
There were moments of agonizing weakness as well as soaring stretches
of supernatural strength between the the introduction and the last chord
of Tree Tops. Peak moments for me: “Lady of the Wood” (the opener),
“They All Surrounded Me” (magical song, powerful performance), “Many
Funerals” (omygosh. My first encounter with the song), surprisingly -
“Telescope Eyes” (Sherri’s guitar was finally up in the mix), and “Golly
Sandra” (because, hey... This is a Texas crowd).
Stacy’s Mac buckled after the first few tunes... Yes, under the
excruciating heat, rendering her Rhodes the keyboard of choice. I
thought it was interesting... She said the keys were too hot to touch; they
were burning her fingers. Guitars are hard to keep tuned in that kind of
heat... Tube amps freak out... It’s a test for everything and everyone.
I especially enjoyed when Sherri started talking to the smart people who
were in and under the glump of tree’s to her right. I never saw them but
the girls said there were hundreds. Speaking of numbers... this show, by
far, was the largest number of people Eisley has ever drawn on their
own... bar none. I recognize this was a result of the power of ACL to draw
enormous crowds. Still...the turn out was at least 4 times more than
Coachella. I mean, it’s hard for me to pin point even a rough number, but
Chad of NFG, who’s played so many huge shows, arenas, festivals, said it
looked like 5k...possibly 6k. He was on stage... I dunno. The crowd
pressed all the way back and around and behind the sound board area. It
was a thick expanse of hot, sweaty, beautiful people. I only wish I could
have been on stage w/ my little video camera to film THEM. Instead I
was trying to capture something decent for you guys in the sound booth.
Oh well... I just hope some of you/them/whoever they were enjoyed the
show.
Pain in Performance. Pain in Load out
After the set, we started slamming gear around, screaming OUCH!!... I
swear, I couldn’t close Chauntelle’s guitar case. We needed gloves to
touch anything. So freakin’ HOT. Stage hands were grabbing burlap to
pick up gear to keep from burning their hands. We got off stage as fast
as possible under the circumstances. Poor Mark helped load into a ACL
truck and escorted them out to Parking Lot B to cross load all the gear to
our trailer in that scortching heat. This is where John A. got heat
exhaustion at Coachella. I was worried for Mark but he survived it.
Signing 1:50pm – 3:00pm
After the set, ACL had carts waiting to whisk us off to the Waterloo tent,
where eager employees had prepared everything to perfection. What a
relief... out of the sun, sitting down... In the sweltering heat. No water.
We started weakening. Seriously. With only a nibble of breakfast, and
small doses of water, some of us were starting to cave. Friends darted
out to snatch jamba juices which provided coolness and temporal
sustenance. We needed to eat food.
Hope most of you got a chance to mill through the line and say hi. The
line swirled and twirled around the side, back and away from the
Waterloo Tent out into the trees. When I first got there, I saw the guy in
the bright blue shirt at the end of the line and thought... “oh Lord, this is
going to take a while”. Toward the end, I saw him talking to the band and
looked out to see the line was just as long. Unfortunately, Waterloo had
to cut it off to prepare for the next band’s signing. Sorry. News 8 jumped
in and got close up shots and words from the band during the signing... I
wonder how that turned out?
The Hot Aftermath
ACL carted us back to the artist area to eat. But, it was too late for lunch.
The food was being put away. This was a bad thing for us. WE didn’t bring
much cash. Headaches, nausea, overheating set in... But we had to do
more media. More jamba juices from Chad, 2 interviews... Hopes of
seeing favorite bands diminished as we stood in the sun, trying to figure
out what we were up for. Then Weston started getting sick. The decision
was made to call it a day... To get back to Tyler.
Celebs and Sightings
While waiting in the long crowd for a cart to get the fam’ to the van, in
scuttled Gwyn n Apple. Her poise, elegance, her presence commands the
attention and respect of Princess Di'. It’s so weird... She’s so normal; no
airs about her. And being on tour with them 2 years before, bumping into
her and chatting at V-fest... It wasn’t important to make connection. It’s
not a need. We’d just seen her in some movie 2 nights before...and there
she was... Seated in an understated entourage with Chris’s dad in the
back seat; for me, it was happening in slow motion...little flickers of sun
beamed through the oaks...lighting the faces of she and her blue eye’d,
strawberry blonde cherub. And as she was paraded by, she caught
glimpse of tattered Eisley; she perked, turned her head almost
backwards as the cart continued into the crowd, waved and said, “ohhh...
hey guys!!... I wanna talk to you later!..” and she disappeared. Smiles,
waves and cheerful acknowledgements... but hopes waned as utter
weariness settled in. We knew we had to leave.
In line, the sun zapped what was left from us... A chipper Chris Martin
grabbed the attention of the band as he walked by moments after...which
was also nice. Oh, and Jason Mraz walked right up to the band and
confessed he had all the records and was a huge fan. We’d met him as
Sasquatch festival where he spoke to Eisley and later told Rolling Stone
or some publication he was a fan. You always see artists and crew and
people you’ve met from other tours in the Artist area, but we didn’t hang
there but for a few minutes during the entire day. At this point in the day,
we were spent. It was time to go home.
Un-Settling
That meant, the long process to “settling” was ahead of me. (for live
show and merch) It’s not grueling, but when you’re as wasted as I was...
with head pounding hard, even waiting in the artist area...while they
walkie-talkie to re-assigning carts to accommodate was laborious...
Finally being carted all the way back to merch tent, waiting, counting out
every item, settling... being carted with boxes all the way back around
the park to parking lot B where Weston was puking and getting worse...
before being carted back around the park, dodging people, dust
and hot wind torching my face...to another trailer to wait and finally
settle... To then be cared back out to parking lot B to find the entire
family laying on the pancho’s we brought because we thought it would
rain, sweating, groaning, waiting on me. I felt bad and was in bad shape
myself. I’m NOT complaining. The day was amazing. It just licked us;
that’s all.
We wanted to see The Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, Rilo Kiley and
beloved Coldplay. I actually saw and heard some of these while driving
on carts after the band was gone.
Closure
This was the best run festival of any we’ve been to from our small
perspective. Or maybe it’s because friendly, Texans were running it. I’m
not kidding... Everyone was SO amazing; from our stage manager, to all
the support people, to the drivers – even to stage hands and the likes...
It was wonderful.
We finally got loaded up, Weston kept puking in the van... We finally got
him some crackers and Gatorade; he got better, we ate at McAllisters
leaving Austin, had a happy drive home, laughing and talking, listening to
Chad’s new demo’s, some mix cd’s.
Thank you EVERYONE who came to see Eisley. I hope you weren’t
disappointed. You guys are SO great. So amaaazing. I can’t say how
thankful everyone is for you... You forum guys. Much. Much. Much
appreciation. Thank you for enduring that heat... For staying the course...
For being so cool. (hot?) We love you. All of this is understated.
I didn't spell check this.
The End
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