Posted on 10/09/2009 12:15:49 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
Night fell on the Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park this past Sunday under a full moon and over a sea of mud. (It wasn't strictly mud, but more on that in a bit.) Many in the crowd, especially those in the proximity of the Dell stage, responded the only logical way possible — by dancing, or something close to it.
Since the squishy, slippery ground made it a little difficult to move your feet — people weren't so much walking through the grounds at this point as gingerly creeping — Spearhead stepped in to pick up the slack. The Michael Franti-led Bay Area band has never let a sizable social conscience interfere with its mission to move the crowd, and its high-energy combination of rap, rock, reggae and R&B (and a little salsa and dancehall) had hands up and bodies moving from note one. In fact, it sparked a fascinating phenomenon Noise will remember forever after as the "electric mudslide."
For the ten minutes or so we stood on the fringes of the crowd, feet planted up to our ankles in the Zilker muck, a steady stream of people slid by, contorting their bodies to the beat in a parade of live-action stop-motion animation. How they kept their footing we'll never know, but considering Spearhead was sampling Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" at the time, maybe the Gloved One was supplying a little extra equilibrium from above. (We heard a similar phenomenon was happening simultaneously across the way at Girl Talk, but never made it that far.)
Now, about that "mud." The brown soup that subsumed Zilker Park Sunday was the unfortunate and probably unforeseen byproduct of several factors: years of drought in Central Texas that turned previous ACL fests into airway-choking dust bowls; an ambitious effort by the City of Austin and ACL producers C3 Entertainment to resod the entire Zilker Great Lawn — which, to be fair, did look lovely Friday; and the first real rainy day in ACL's history, which drenched the park for the majority of Saturday.
But mostly, Sunday's quagmire was due to the substance the city and C3, which contributed a $2.5 million donation, used in the resodding: something called "Dillo Dirt," a compost of curbside yard clippings and recycled sewage. Hats off to the city for its environmentally conscious efforts, but that didn't exactly lessen Noise's disgust that he and the 65,000 or so other festival-goers on hand spent an entire day trudging through treated human shit.
It smelled like it, too, and the ACL staff scattering bale after bale of hay around the park to shore up the footing only made the atmosphere that much more stable-like. In their post-ACL damage control Monday, the city and C3 were quick to point out that the composting process superheats said sewage to a temperature that destroys any harmful bacteria, but it was still gross. (As of Monday, officials were unsure how much permanent damage the new sod had sustained.)
This "Million-Dollar Mud," as a friend called it late Sunday evening, caused entire puddle-strewn sections of the park to be closed off with yellow police tape, and completely destroyed what had been a beautiful expanse of golf-course-caliber grass just a couple of days earlier. Monday, the Austin American-Statesman reported that the ACL area of Zilker would be closed until at least November for cleanup — after already being closed for the better part of a year to let that ill-fated grass grow in the first place — and that C3 would pay for the damage to the turf as per its contract with the city.
No doubt the outcome of this year's ACL wasn't quite what C3 was hoping for, and the damage is bound to make this the most expensive festival yet, both financially and in terms of public relations; angry commenters were already coming out of the woodwork Monday morning on the Statesman's Web site. But this weekend was also the most extreme example yet in what is becoming an annual demonstration of the hostile environmental conditions people are willing to endure in the name of three days of almost uninterrupted music.
Noise is no different. More and more, we use ACL more than SXSW to see which recent buzz bands are worth their salt, and of course to check on how some old favorites are doing. This year, tops on our new-to-us list were Blitzen Trapper, who managed to condense most of the late '60s and early '70s — Dylan, the Dead, CSNY and a lot more besides — into their hour-long set Friday, and MuteMath, neighbors from New Orleans whose echoing guitar, propulsive rhythms and spacious vocals made them a sort of junior U2 shortly before the rains came Saturday.
Not far behind were Phoenix, who energetically outdistanced their "French Strokes" tag with super-catchy indie-pop leavened with disco and even a little Bo Diddley; and White Lies, Londoners whose elegantly gloomy, melodic post-punk rivaled MuteMath for sheer scale — especially on closer "Death" — and made the Arctic Monkeys, who followed them, seem like yesterday's NME news.
Various soul, gospel and R&B acts bowled Noise over all weekend long — especially Raphael Saadiq, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, the Gospel Silvertones and Henry Butler — but our happiest discovery of the weekend came right here in Houston: brand-new Austin trio White Dress, who opened for the Heartless Bastards Thursday at House of Blues with a sound similar to the Velvet Underground fronted by PJ Harvey or Siouxsie Sioux.
Unable to Boogie Because Feet Are Stuck in the Mud ping
But mostly, Sunday's quagmire was due to the substance the city and C3, which contributed a $2.5 million donation, used in the resodding: something called "Dillo Dirt," a compost of curbside yard clippings and recycled sewage. Hats off to the city for its environmentally conscious efforts, but that didn't exactly lessen Noise's disgust that he and the 65,000 or so other festival-goers on hand spent an entire day trudging through treated human sh*t.It smelled like it, too, and the ACL staff scattering bale after bale of hay around the park to shore up the footing only made the atmosphere that much more stable-like. In their post-ACL damage control Monday, the city and C3 were quick to point out that the composting process superheats said sewage to a temperature that destroys any harmful bacteria, but it was still gross. (As of Monday, officials were unsure how much permanent damage the new sod had sustained.)
This "Million-Dollar Mud," as a friend called it late Sunday evening, caused entire puddle-strewn sections of the park to be closed off with yellow police tape, and completely destroyed what had been a beautiful expanse of golf-course-caliber grass just a couple of days earlier. Monday, the Austin American-Statesman reported that the ACL area of Zilker would be closed until at least November for cleanup — after already being closed for the better part of a year to let that ill-fated grass grow in the first place — and that C3 would pay for the damage to the turf as per its contract with the city.
No doubt the outcome of this year's ACL wasn't quite what C3 was hoping for, and the damage is bound to make this the most expensive festival yet, both financially and in terms of public relations; angry commenters were already coming out of the woodwork Monday morning on the Statesman's Web site. But this weekend was also the most extreme example yet in what is becoming an annual demonstration of the hostile environmental conditions people are willing to endure in the name of three days of almost uninterrupted music.
Gee, that seems to have worked out well.
Michael Franti played basketball at the University of San Francisco. He was required to wear shoes.
Woodstock on the Colorado...
It was sad, the Green Lawn section of the park was really beautiful before ACL. It really was golf course calibre, green, lush and trimmed. When you go by now, it’s just an endless sea of brown mud. And like the article says, it does smell nasty. C3 is now attempting to use pressure hoses to wash the mud off the trampled sod.
But they MEANT well.
And this being Austinweird. It’s probably somehow Bush’s fault.
http://www.statesman.com/search/search/search/UnifiedSearch?query=zilker+mud
Crews begin hosing mud off Zilker grass - (10.08.2009)
Crews begin hosing mud off Zilker grass , R,Stuart Strong, aastravis, aascentex, ACL, aasmobile, Zilker Park, Parks Department ... organizer of the ACL Music Festival, used hoses to ‘wash’ Zilker Park’s lawn on Wednesday. C3 will cover the costs of the hosing ... mud off Zilker grass Park staffers still think healthy grass lies beneath the muck. By Sarah Coppola
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF ... hosing down Zilker Park’s Great Lawn on Wednesday in hopes of finding healthy sod beneath a thick layer of mud. City officials are ...
Zilker lawn may be closed this month due to mud - (10.06.2009)
Zilker lawn may be closed this month due to mud , FN,Zilker, aastravis, Austin City Limits, Great Lawn, aascentex, aasmobile, mud ... The grounds of Zilker Park, which were trampled by 65,000 fans during each day of ACL Fest, were covered in mud Monday. Festival ... peeked out from beneath the mud Monday at Zilker Park. Vendors have been asked to wait until the mud dries to move equipment ... A mud pit Full ACL coverage on Austin360.com —> AUSTIN CITY LIMITS FESTIVAL Zilker lawn may be closed this month due to mud City ...
I’ve got a Dillo of an idea, if you can stomach it - (10.09.2009)
... of an idea, if you can stomach it , R,john kelso, dillo dirt, zilker, 360acl, kelsocol, aascentex, , parks, music, fans, soil ... October 09, 2009 The Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park had one thing in common with Woodstock. At Woodstock, the ... Some music fans played in the mud at ACL last weekend. Just got covered up in it. Actually, mud’s what they thought they were ... Department collect samples of the mud instead of hosing it away? Put the Dillo mud in small, attractive commemorative perfume ...
Taser cash, Zilker Park, Obama and Glenn Beck - (10.09.2009)
Taser cash, Zilker Park, Obama and Glenn Beck , R,letters to the editor, aasletters, opinion, aasmobile, editorial, , dogs, people ... and contacted her. —> LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Taser cash, Zilker Park, Obama and Glenn Beck Friday, October 09, 2009 Zap and cash ... heat, sun, clouds and rain. This past Sunday we encountered mud. Despite wearing only sneakers, neither my wife nor I got our feet ... stages. Let’s not lose perspective because of one day of mud over the course of eight festivals. This is a first-class event that ...
Willingham case, schnauzers and mud - (10.08.2009)
Willingham case, schnauzers and mud , R,letters to the editor, aasletters, opinion, aasmobile, editorial, , dogs, governors ... tru —> LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Willingham case, schnauzers and mud COMMENTS FROM READERS Thursday, October 08, 2009 Obstruction of ... Jr. mvjr2serve@yahoo.com Dale Here’s mud in your eye It was so beautiful, Zilker Park. They had just made it so, so beautiful. And ...
Not sure I buy into all the ooze and ahs over music festival - (10.06.2009)
... in the mud while listening to David Garza perform during the Austin City Limits Music Festival on Sunday at Zilker Park. — ... smells-like-something-else mush that coated Zilker Park after the rain at the Austin City Limits festival was Dillo Dirt, the city ... made its way through the Dillo Dirt recipe, wound up at Zilker and then came back to my house. This, I believe, is what they call ...
Best of the blogs - (10.09.2009)
... got me to talk to Ethiopian Christians who lived in huts with mud floors. They understood God better than I did. They had a better ...
The ecos never think things through.
The dillo dirt is filthy. When they first started selling this “crap” they told people not to use it for parks, ball fields, etc. They found out the hard way. Some kids had slid into second and got infections. Dumb ass liberals.
Being a forever denizen here, that crowd trampling in the sod might be a good thing, in the long run, compacting it before the rains washed it out.
Although I didn’t catch the species: bermuda? Anyone know?
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