Austin City Limits Festival, Day 2

We learned some things on Day 1 that were helpful on Day 2. For example, there are free water stations onsite and you can bring your own water bottle. Sweet! Big money savings for day 2.

Unfortunately, our sweet free parking garage was charging $10. At least we got one day free.

I discovered about a block from the car that I didn't have my phone with me. We went back to the car, only to discover that I'd left my phone at Cindy's house. D'oh! She had spent Day 1 concerned about her fun new phone (we both just got the new G2), so she grabbed her crappy old phone for day 2. I went without once I discovered we'd have to drive back to her place to get mine.

Here's what we saw yesterday (after arriving later than we wanted to and completely missing Silversun Pickups):

• Broken Bells. Yes, they were on at the same time as Silversun Pickups, but closer to the gate and at the other end of the park. The guitar player also played keys. Pretty complex sound. They had a trumpet player too. We liked them reasonably well.
• Kinky. We caught quite a bit of their set inadvertently as we stood in line for food and ate. I don't remember much about them other than they were a dance band, so they weren't really attention grabbing. Or I was hungry and P. Terry's distracted me.
• Gogol Bordello. My son described them as "gypsy rock," but their first song was definitely reggae influenced. I initially thought the boy didn't know his genres, but as they continued I agreed with his labeling (and he later told me he'd read the description). Pretty frenetic rhythms at times, lots of people up and dancing around. Fun stuff.
• Monsters of Folk. We walked by on our way from Gogol Bordello to LCD Soundsystem. We didn't stay; they were way too mellow (i.e., sleep inducing). Pretty big crowd there, though, and this was the only band given a two-hour set on Saturday, maybe due to this being a Conor Oberst band.
• LCD Soundsystem. Dance. Good beat, not too cookie cutter or samey-samey from song to song. They did go a little screamo one song, but only one.
•  Deadmau5. Holy cow, the BASS. We were a long way back, and it was hitting us pretty hard. Awesome dance groove, great light show (I took several short videos). All the freaks came out to play for this one. It got really samey after 20-30 minutes, and lots of people left to get a spot for 
• Muse. According to the numbers on the web site, this was the most popular show of the fest. My sister previously told me she liked them better than U2 when she saw them together. I haven't seen U2 live, and this was my first Muse show, but they were amazing. I only own their newest album, but I need to correct that. For the most part Cindy has been really laid-back during the fest. This has been the one time she's put her foot down and said, "Let's move forward," and "We're staying to the end of this set!" Not that I wanted to leave, but it was great to hear that she was really enjoying the set. The lights were fantastic. The sound, honestly, could have been louder. We started out pretty far back, but we were getting some bleed through from M.I.A. clear across the park. Once we got closer it was louder, of course, but we could still talk pretty comfortably. Muse was definitely the best of day 2 by a wide margin, no contest.