The Muddy Blues

Austin City Limits music festival is one of "those" experiences. Not sure how else to describe it. Right at the end of summer each year, probably 200,000 strong invade Zilker Park for three days, deep in the heart of the Live Music Capital of the World, to bathe in a 150-decibel ocean of rock, reggae, alternative, hip-hop, and blues.

This year was different: (1) we also had Irish drinking music -- thank you, Flogging Molly -- and (2) all us music enthusiasts were bathing in mud, too.

Let me set the scene for you: I make the trek from Dallas to Austin late Friday morning, with visions of Eddie Vedder, Jack White, Dave Matthews, and Dave King on my mind (full line-up here). I park my car and begin what seems like a 39-mile journey on foot to the park, and am greeted with this pristine picture:


Mmmmm, just look at that blue sky. And that green grass! Don't you just want to roll around shamelessly in that beautiful Bermuda? In prior years, a lack of adequate ground cover combined with bone dry weather caused the crowds to kick up tons of dust that would get EVERYWHERE, with the most unpleasant side effect being dusty, gray snot. No more this year, after the city of Austin spent $2.5 million and multiple months renovating Zilker Park by laying down grass and a better irrigation system. Money well spent, I'd say.

Until it rained on Saturday, that is. And then the skies opened up:


And I don't mean a passing shower. I mean a downpour. I mean a monsoon. You know when Forrest Gump is talking about Vietnam ("Lil' bitty stingin rain ... big ol' FAT rain ... rain blowin' sideways ...")? I mean that kind of rain. I think 3-5 inches of rain fell over the course of about as many hours. Which is OK on its own, but you combine that with the huge throngs of people in attendance? Well, this is what the scene looked like on Sunday:


How about a close-up?


And it smelled about as good as it looked, too. It took about four times longer to walk anywhere than it normally would, just to avoid slipping, falling, and eating that soupy, delicious mud. I tell you, we all complained at least once about how much it sucked. (I think our exact words were, "Man, this sucks!") But the whole time, in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but think that after a day or two passed, I'd look back on what an awesome experience it was.

I'm glad I went. And I'm glad it rained 5 inches. And I'm glad I had to slog through one and a half inches of mud everywhere I went. To cap it all off, Eddie Vedder (lead singer for the headliner Pearl Jam), after finishing off "Corduroy", proclaimed to the crowd, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm personally not leaving until I'm covered in dirt."

Cheers.