fun fun fun fest

Let me start off by saying this. I'm so glad this is over, only because I'm pretty much tired of the letter "f" and repeatedly saying "fun". While the name of this new-ish festival (this was year #2) is apt, speaking of it felt pretty unnatural to the tongue after a short while. I feared my mouth would keep going (rattling "fun" to the point of insanity and/or speculation of it) or want to stop working altogether. At any rate, nothing will be vocalized as "fun" any time soon. "Exciting", "entertaining", "enjoyable", even "neat" will work in a pinch.


Now that I have that over with... this past weekend Austin saw the likes of Explosions in the Sky, Mates of State, MC Chris, New Pornographers, and countless others perform. I'm rattling off some of my personal favorites, but what I'm mentioning doesn't even begin to cover the number of acts or the diversity (local and national). This year's fest not only grew since last year in terms of the amount of bands that performed, but also in how it attracted higher profile artists and really established itself as the fest for everyone.


FFF will assuredly attract the ACL comparisons. In many ways I almost enjoyed this more (not all ways mind you). While many folks were in attendance, the crowds were not overbearing. If you wanted to see a band, you pretty much could and if you wanted to go to the front you didn't have to fight too hard. A quick jaunt across Waterloo Park enabled you to check out dj's on one end, metal on the other, and some indie favs in the middle... and that's reducing the kind of music that was offered to the simplest of terms. And it wouldn't be a music fest without tons of dust and artery clogging food, which I became covered in (inside and out).


Stand outs to me, aside from what I previously mentioned, were Busdriver (shown above), Celebration, Diplo, and locals Clap! Clap!, Car Stereo (Wars), and Mothfight. It was hard to see everything and I caught what I could. Low points... getting wedged out of Girl Talk (I was waaaay too tired to fight), wearing boots for 12 hours day 1 (stupid), not having a better lens for my camera (camera fairy feel free to leave under my pillow or give me some $$$), and texting my friends more than actually seeing them (eh, such is life).


Check out the rest of the photos here and the Fun Fun Fun site to see what you missed.