Click the picture above to see pictures and stories from the 2004 ACL Festival featuring Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse, the Pixies and Elvis Costello

The festival was great fun - a bit jam-band heavy, with a lot of pot smoking String Cheese fanatics hippily and happily smoking their dope, passing along 'good vibes' and the like, but with so many stages and so many folks around, it was hard to concentrate on the music at all.  With each act playing approximately 45 minutes, you had to make a concerted effort to catch a band you were there to see, often leaving another act early to cross Zilker Park and get to a far off stage.

The show was eased by being in Austin - a laid back city filled with friendly folks, and the food booths were filled with hometown delicatessens - my humble favorite by far was the chicken in a cup, although the lines were long and the food pricy.  Despite the even higher prices on beer, I was able to catch a fairly good buzz all three days, which helped a lot, especially with a drizzly threat in the air that hung over the festival.

The crowd watching was spectacular, filled with hippies, punks, hangers-on and a cast of characters that never ceased to amaze and bewilder.  They even had cute girls in cigarette girl like jobs hawking the aforementioned chicken specials. 

This was also my friend Lindsay's first taste of Austin, a recent transplant to Colorado from the East Coast.  The festival was a great time, a good laugh, and I think I might have even seen a little bit of REM to top off the experience.  Or did I?