Austin City Limits Festival Day Three: Gillian Welch is a hillbilly, Against Me! are more than just punk, Silversun Pickups are…in a jar?

Photo: Brian Birzer

Day Three in Austin was about heat: who had it, who didn’t and who was suffering as a result of it. Day Three was also a banquet of many flavors, and the discerning concertgoer (or the crazy one, depending on your definition of such words) could trek from earnest country to punk rock to indie in a matter of scorching strides, were said goer so inclined. To wit:

Gillian Welch came calling from just ‘round the bend in Nashville, stopping by with long time band mate David Rawlings to give an unlisted set that Rawlings promised “would be become boring pretty quick,” as soon as they started forgetting songs they wanted to play. This, luckily, did not come to pass, as Welch’s bluegrass/country/beautiful hybrid provided for a pleasing entrypoint for many of Austin’s arriving early afternoon crowd. Welch was charming and affable through her set, relaying the benefits of being a banjo-touting female (“Everyone loves a chick with a banjo. It may be just a fetish, but there you have it,”), and cursing the heat for making Rawling’s guitar “spazz.” She made a clear-as-a-bell go at “My First Lover” and the adopted child’s lament “No One Knows My Name” before noting that her set was being overshadowed by the nearby BMI stage. “How do we sound with a rhythm section?” she asked, and receiving a huge cheer of encouragement, explained that she and Rawlings were there to “uphold the hillbilly quotient.” Smiling at the notion, Gillian Welch took up her banjo and carried on.

Downfield, Against Me!’s set provided the answers to two potential festival questions: Where are all the teenagers at this festival? And who has all of the pot? Ahem: They’re here! And they do! But perhaps another question should be, How does Against Me! do it? By most accounts they appear to be a face value punk band from Florida, the exact act the Kids with Pot would love. And they are that, but Jesus—they’re much more. They’re a stellar live act, with a massive output of energy that’s not to be sneezed at, even while you’re inhaling Zilker Park dust. Most material stemmed from 2007’s New Wave (“Thrash Unreal,” the trippy “The Ocean”) but with that record only clocking in at 30 minutes, they pulled from older material as well. An appearance by Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara (“Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart”) was a welcome diversion, but the boys in black hardly needed help winning Austinites over. To most, whether Kids with Pot or not, it felt like Against Me! was transmitting at a higher, cooler frequency than most of ACL's other acts.

On the subject of frequency, Silversun Pickups may have a thing or two to say. Like, "How frequently will we play a set that sounds like we’re inside a glass jar?" To this the crowd would like to respond, “Hopefully only the once.” The Pickups show was plagued by a strange technical issue that kept the sound low and the mix muddy; as a consequence many, grumbling, headed for some shade in frustration. It’s too bad, because it looked like Brian Aubert was enjoying himself immensely, and that his band was most likely playing a fantastic set behind the glitch. As Aubert later explained (his vocals were the one thing that didn’t sound like they were coming from inside a fishbowl), this appearance was the last before the band releases new album Swoon, in October. Even through the problems, “Rusted Wheel,” and “Lazy Eye” conjured cheers and raised arms from the crowd; here’s hoping that when Silversun Pickups return with new material, they’ll be returning with a new sound crew, too. -- KAITLIN FONTANA