Pictures by Tigole Bitties

My sister and I headed to the festival around noon. We parked on Trinity and 17th street and walked to 14th street to take the shuttle. There was no line. We go to the park and the ‘Will Call’ process to claim the tickets was quick and easy. Then we rushed to see Aterciopelados playing and guess what? They cancelled, last minute… So we went to see Maneja Beto, a local band that plays Mexican music with a rock style.

After that we had lunch under the shadow of a tree. The heat was horrible: 40oC in September is crazy! Record temperature for ACL.

Then we checked a band called Bukka Allen which was ok. We stayed there mostly because the stage had a nice shadowed area.

Then we listened for a little bit this women Ruthie Foster. Her music was mostly gospel and she started singing ‘church’ music, so we left very quickly.

After that we took a break and then we met with the rest of the gang: Alejandro del Castillo, Marcos, the Correa family, Midori, Alma, among others. We also checked out Ricardo Lemvo & Makina loca, a salsa band that played really good.

Then we went to the stage where Franz Ferdinand and Coldplay were going to perform to get a good spot, which didn’t really happen. We were very far from the stage, so when Coldplay started playing I went on my own and got as far as I could to the stage. I could barely see the stage, but at least the sound was much better in that spot. Coldplay was awesome. Live, they sound better than when you heard them from a CD. The show was amazing and they played their best songs: In my place, God put a smile upon your face, The Scientist, Fix You…

Picture by Tigole Bitties

The best part was when they started playing Yellow and they released about 20 big yellow balloons filled with little gold pieces of paper. It was so cool.

Finally we had to wait a long time to leave the park because of the huge amount of people (the Colplay singer mentioned that we were 60.000 people!).

The heat, the dust, the lines at the end: it was all worth it.

Check my not-so-good pictures here.