ACL: Day 3

 

The Morning Benders. Photo by Holly Aker

 

The last day of Austin City Limits was a challenge. After a whole weekend of no sleep, hot days, and a ton of walking, I was ready to sit at home, take a bath, and do nothing. But I manned up and went to ACL.

The first band I saw was The Morning Benders, an indie rock band from Berkeley, California. Although I had never heard of the band before, I really enjoyed them. The weather was perfect, the sky was beautiful, and the chill music had me and everyone else in the audience swaying back and forth.

Cage the Elephant. Photo by Holly Aker

Then my friend and co-editor decided to leave the festival in search of feather hair extensions. We had seen girls with feather hair extensions all weekend long, and I had heard a lot about them, so we were dying to get them for ourselves. After visiting every boutique inside the festival, we came to the conclusion that the extensions were not sold in the fest, so we took our quest outside the gates. We walked up and down Barton Springs for about 30 or 45 minutes until we finally found the booth. About an hour and $7 later, we had our beautiful feather extensions, and we were ready for more music.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros was the next band we saw, but as we were so tired from the whole weekend, we decided to take it easy for this show and enjoy it sitting down. It turns out, Edward Sharpe is the perfect kind of chill music to rest up to. Next, we walked over to see Cage the Elephant at the Austin Ventures stage. With most people seeing the bigger acts like The Nationals or getting in line early for The Eagles, the audience was smaller. However, Cage the Elephants put on one of the most exciting shows of the weekend. With their fun, super energetic lead singer, who had a thing for crowd surfing, and the band’s quality rock and roll, which I had been missing all weekend, it was a great way to end not only the day, but also my first time at ACL.