ACL Capsule Reviews: The Walkmen, Kings of Leon, Levon Helm Band

FRIDAY
The Walkmen

New York’s The Walkmen took the stage at ACL on the Xbox 360 stage just after peak heatstroke hours (although the sun on this first day of this year’s festival was a lot more forgiving than previous), somewhere around 3:30pm, and kicked into gear with a relaxed island feel. “Louisiana”, the first single from 2006’s A Hundred Miles Off, soothed the crowd with singer Hamilton Leithauser’s lazy afternoon vocals and acoustic guitar. Horn blasts from the four-person section rose over top and mixed with the beach-drinking beat and keys to create a ripe fun-in-the-sun atmosphere as our star peaked out between the clouds periodically through a veil of strung together cloud puffs. A myriad of shakers, rolling and stomping percussion, guitar twinkling, breezy triangle, and a mix of light and heavy flows followed. The Walkmen played a tune in the works from their forthcoming sixth studio album to be released next year, which was a slow and easy ramble and whistler. Then, they broke into Bows + Arrows’ “The Rat” and the group went right into the full-blown, rocking, dance-inciting, guitar-driven favorite for a knee-bouncing crowd shaking their hands in the air and singing the memorable chorus.

Coheed & Cambria

At the jump, they darted off into a tune that began with a triumphant, sci-fi film score intro in front of their signature dragon fly banner but quickly left the memory of emo behind and was more prog metal than anything. Singer Claudio Sanchez swung is overflowing quaff over his guitar, and it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. His fingers sped across the fret board, and the guitars squealed and shrieked between double bass explosions. The crowd cheered wildly for “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3” from the 2003 album of the same name. The track had everyone singing “Man your battle stations!” during the spirited guitar noodling and bursts of distortion while Sanchez used his screams sparingly as if they were in a warship in space taking fire from an alien race. “A Favor House Atlantic” followed with less prog and more palm mutes, chords, and a chorus that’s as hard to quit as the head bobs rippling through the crowd. Just before “Mother Superior” a sweet piano intro was played and Sanchez offered a heartfelt thanks to the crowd for coming, after all they were competing with Phoenix across the park, which pulled a significant hipster element away from the performance. The crowd for Coheed, although, wasn’t meager by any means. The audience, populated mostly by younger attendees, enjoyed a cover of The Church’s “Under the Milky Way”, sharing in some “Wha oh”s on “Blood Red Summer”, and an ending with Sanchez playing theremin and striking guitar at the same time.

Kings of Leon

The park at Austin City Limits Friday night was polarized with vast crowds gathered either watching KOL or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on opposite ends. The brothers Followill have come a long way since their early big-in-the-U.K. days, and they can thank the singles on last year’s Only by the Night, which are still getting heavy radio play, for their sudden stateside impact. The crowd couldn’t help but sing along to hits off the record like “Use Somebody” and “Sex on Fire”, the latter of which the raspy vocalist sung in front of six screens of red and orange lights like beams of fire that burned white hot during the chorus. These newer tracks made it clear that their American guitar rock had transitioned from the garagey southern rock sound of their earlier recordings into a more mainstream sound ready for arenas and the larger venues they’ve been playing of late. This thought was further validated when Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder hopped on stage with a tambourine in each hand for Aha Shake Heartbreak’s “Slow Night, So Long” Vedder shouted and shook along with the Followills, giving the crowd a taste of what’s to come Sunday night when his band takes the stage for the finale.

SATURDAY
Eek-a-Mouse

At first it was hard to tell whether the flocks of ACL attendees sporting raincoats, boots and gear gathering under the tent at The Wildflower Center stage were there to see Jamaican reggae singer Eek-a-Mouse or just to take shelter from the rain. It didn’t take long, though, before the sound of the crowd’s feet trolping to the beat in the soaked earth and the sight of bobbing umbrellas cleared that up. The laid back, party vibe of the set was punctuated by frequent drops of mentions of marijuana between song lyrics and the presence of dancing girls from the crowd on an already packed stage. Every once in a while you could hear the roar of competition from Bon Iver’s performance across the field.

The Levon Helm Band

Rumors had already circulated before The Levon Helm Band took the Livestrong stage on Saturday prior to their performance that Helm would not be singing. Helm, a throat cancer survivor, was on “doctor-ordered vocal rest.” Even though many were looking forward to the raspy, rootsy pipes of this former drummer/vocalist for The Band, the four different vocalists including guitar player Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams lead the bluesy, country and rocking tunes with tremendous affect. It was a spirited sight as the crammed stage full of everything from horn section to fiddle player to Helm’s drum kit pumped out old covers like “Before I grow Too Old” and The Band’s “Long Black Veil” and newer tunes such as “Tennessee Jed,” which is the opening track off Helm’s Electric Dirt album released this year. Helm came out from behind the kit to play mandolin sitting in front of a mic teasing the crowd, which was enjoying the break in the rain clouds, just before the band broke into a short, inspired Dixie Land-ish sidestep. A busy stage and a thick sound with piano punches, twanging guitar, accordion and much more helped fill the void left by Helm’s vocal absence.

DeVotchKa

One of the more surprising moments of the festival happened during DeVotchKa’s Saturday evening set. The Denver gypsy folk rock band began 20 minutes late once a crowd was firmly planted beneath the tent seeking respite from the spotty downpour and looking for music with an international influence punctuated by instruments like the violin, accordion, sousaphone and theremin. Shortly before their energetic, heel-kicking set came to a close, a scantily-clad woman emerged and climbed up two red curtains dropped from the tent ceiling. She then spent the next several minutes performing a suspended acrobatic burlesque act to the music which held the audience’s attention as if waiting for tragedy or triumph. The added bonus impressed an already enthusiastic crowd, and the band finished out their set with high applause. Some of DeVotchKa’s earlier songs included “Head Honcho” off 2008’s A Mad & Faithful Telling and “How It Ends,” which helped put them on the map with the soundtrack for Little Miss Sunshine.

SUNDAY
The Dead Weather

It’s just too easy to put Jack White at the front of your mind when you think of The Dead Weather, a rock and roll supergroup featuring Alison Mosshart (The Kills, Discount), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs, The Greenhornes), and white, but after spending a short period of time watching the band and their explosive, raven-haired frontwoman it was clear that this is her show. It’s partially due to the fact that it is far easier to keep an eye on one woman with long hair in all black than three men of the same rotating instruments. The other reason is she destroys it in a loud and dangerous rock and roll kind of way. The audience Sunday after the heavy rain a day before was quick to fill in surrounded by forgotten shoes entombed in the mud and their wilder peers dancing in it as the heavy guitar squeals and groans blended with the popping drum beats to help give those holding out for Pearl Jam’s headlining spot one last jolt of energy. Jack White did offer a few vocal contributions to the set, such as the cover of Them’s “You Just Can’t Win”, which switched the set momentarily to a more soulful vibe. And, of course the group got a warm reception for their debut single, “Hang You from the Heavens”.