The festival is held outdoors in Austin's Zilker Park, and because it would be impossible to re-schedule that many bands for another weekend, the festival is held rain or shine. In the past ACL has been in September, and historically it falls on one of the hottest weekends of the summer. This year we were excited that it was pushed back to October. My friend and I are big fans of Fall (note the capital 'F.' That's how much we love it.), so we envisioned cool breezes in the lush (new) grass of Zilker...which would have been nice.
We began checking the forecast for the weekend as soon as we were within 10 days, and with each passing day the chance of rain increased. By the time the big day arrived, I decided that I should invest in a poncho. Unfortunately, there were none to be had in any of the nearby stores. I finally wound up in a hardware store that was sold out of ponchos, but had yellow rain suits complete with a jacket, an attachable hood, and pants. I had a winner (although wearing the contraption I'm sure I looked like a loser. For the record, I didn't wear the pants.).
The rains definitely came. Fortunately, it only rained during 1 of the 4 concerts we saw on the first day. Unfortunately, it rained between all of them. During Flogging Molly, the rainy concert, we were standing in front of a group of guys with umbrellas. I'm not sure if we wound up under their umbrellas because they were being nice, or because we were in such close quarters. But wind up under their umbrellas we did...sort of. We were really half-shielded from the rain by the umbrellas, which meant that all of the umbrella run-off wound up on the other half of our bodies. By the end of the day though, it didn't really matter. Everyone was soaked, and the place was a mess. So much for the new grass.
By day 2 I had decided to forgo wearing shoes. They were more of a hazard than a protection, as my shoes were inclined to stay in the mud rather than on my feet while walking. Unfortunately, on day 2 I realized that I had also forgotten something very important--deodorant. And day 2 was hot.
A little history of my love for deodorant: When I was in 8th grade, my US History teacher assigned a "Utopia project." Each group had to come up with a limited number of rules that must be followed in a Utopian society. Somehow, I convinced the rest of my group (or manipulated, but who's really keeping track?) that one of the absolute necessities for a Utopian society was for all members to wear deodorant, and it became a law. I have also had a fetish for men's deodorant for quite sometime. One of my college friends used to give me his old deodorant bottles so that I could smell them...but that's probably too much information.
Still, by the time I realized that I had not put on deodorant before leaving for the music festival, it was too late. We had already parked downtown and had walked most of the way to the park. Neither of us had any in our bags. Luckily, I'm not much of a sweater, and Austin is a pretty forgiving city (I was going natural). Nonetheless, when I did my laundry a few days later and came across the shirt from that day, my love affair with deodorant was renewed.
We did have $xxx.xx of fun. The music was fantastic, and we realized, as B would say, that "Dave Matthews is one sexy beast!" Who knew?
Much fun was had, besides the squishy mud and drippy umbrellas. DMB was better than I EVER could have imagined. And for the record, I never thought you smelled bad. Of course, I could have been preoccupied with the mud that was plastered up to my knees. Oh well - it was awesome! The perfect way to begin Fall. I can't wait to see who is coming next year...
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