On the ride over to Barton Springs, Lily and I discussed our continual fine-tuning of some dance phrases. As is right, she wants to adhere to the choreographers’ creations, but she wonders if we could both honor their intentions and tighten up specific bits. I suggested we take it bit by bit. Perhaps making the phrases at the end of “I Feel My Stuff” less in phase — in 3 or 5 as opposed to 4 (which we agreed seemed to be Noemie’s original intention) before varying the arm movements. We’ll see…
The abbreviated show tonight at the ACL festival was fun; we played as the sun was setting, so we could actually see the massive audience, which gave them a human face. Massive festival audiences can sometimes lose their identity as individual human beings. We cut a lot of the ballads from the set to both keep the energy up and to adhere to the 60 minute time limit — it worked.
Before our show, Jenni, Natalie and I caught a little bit of the Hot Chip set at one of the other stages, which was great. Great grooves, nerdy guys, funny but moving lyrics and catchy tunes. Natalie was hesitant to go see them at all given our time constraint; our show was looming and the festival runs like clockwork, but we made it to their stage and back to our dressing room with minutes to spare.
As festivals go, this one is special. Though they sometimes end up with mega bands as headliners, it’s almost an accident when that happens. For the most part, the booking seems to be less about blockbusters and more about a mix of some interesting music that’s out there.
