October is a pretty big month for music fans in Austin, as the Austin City Limits Music Festival takes place next weekend (October 12-14). I'll be attending once again, as the lineup this year is quite a bit better than last year. This years headliners feature The Black Keys, Neil Young, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Before the ACL Festival, however, there was Austin City Limits Live. This is a show that has been broadcast on PBS stations since 1976, and is pretty famous here in Austin. If you get to see a live taping, you can see some pretty famous bands (sometimes) performing in a very small venue.
Last night Christy and I saw our first ACL Live show, featuring the most famous of all the Pink Floyd cover bands out there: The Australian Pink Floyd.
The Australian Pink Floyd has been around for a very long time, gaining a pretty solid reputation as the best re-creation of a Pink Floyd concert (circa the '87 and '94 tours).
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The show started off well. "In the Flesh?" opened the evening, but since the Roger Waters production of "The Wall" was still fresh in my mind, I couldn't help but compare the two, and obviously it's better to see the real thing. Then they segued into songs from the David Gilmour-led Pink Floyd, with "Take It Back," "Sorrow", and "What Do You Want From Me?" They did a very good job with these later songs. The highlights for me, however, were the two songs that the actual band didn't even sing on. "One of These Days" sounded almost identical to the PF version from "Pulse." "The Great Gig in the Sky," performed by their three backup singers, was also quite excellent.
It would have been a pretty good evening, if it weren't for the smoke alarm that went off during the group's first set. After about 5 songs in, the house lights came up and the music was abruptly halted. The band quickly left the stage, and we were never told what happened. Only later did I find out that the smoke alarm was accidentally triggered. Any momentum the band was gaining was quickly lost due to this "What the hell just happened?" moment. I should point out that, even though the smoke alarm went off, the audience was never told about it, or asked to leave the venue.
Christy enjoyed the show and said it made her appreciate the original band more. But she still insisted that "a clone is still a clone." I think The Australian Pink Floyd serves a niche. Pink Floyd hasn't toured since 1994, and there's an entire new generation of Floyd fans who wish they could have seen them. Barring an unlikely reunion, this is probably the best they're going to get.
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The show started off well. "In the Flesh?" opened the evening, but since the Roger Waters production of "The Wall" was still fresh in my mind, I couldn't help but compare the two, and obviously it's better to see the real thing. Then they segued into songs from the David Gilmour-led Pink Floyd, with "Take It Back," "Sorrow", and "What Do You Want From Me?" They did a very good job with these later songs. The highlights for me, however, were the two songs that the actual band didn't even sing on. "One of These Days" sounded almost identical to the PF version from "Pulse." "The Great Gig in the Sky," performed by their three backup singers, was also quite excellent..JPG)
That line up is better than Stevie Wonder?
ReplyDeleteThe good news is that the good people who organize this thing really don't give a rat's ass if you all burn and die.
Last year was Coldplay, Stevie Wonder, and Arcade Fire. I'll take Neil Young over Stevie Wonder, and the Black Keys over Arcade Fire any day. I like Coldplay more than RHCP, but as Meat Loaf says "2 out of three ain't bad."
ReplyDelete