ACL Pre Show Thursday 2009

ACL Pre Show Thursday 2009

We're on vacation. And yet, there we were, at 7am, in line at Threadgill's. What were we thinking? Every year, KGSR does a live broadcast highlighting a half dozen or so bands from the festival. Each band does 2 songs. This was the first year they were at Threadgill's and we decided to check it out.

David Garza was first up. On his own, his songs are unusual and interesting. I love hearing him with a full band though.

Next came Black Joe Lewis. These are a bunch of young guys who are doing the soul/funk/rock thing. Can't wait to hear a full set from them. They should kick some serious ass this weekend.

Reckless Kelly was classic Texas Country/Folk (whatever that is).

Somehow, on such a small stage, they managed to set up Asleep at the Wheel. Country Swing never sounded so good.

The morning finished off with Bob Schneider by himself. He did a fun acoustic version of Tarantula and then a beautiful song (I believe from the new CD) on piano.

Changing things around this year, we hit Waterloo Records early. Having spent lots of money, we ended up having a long chat with John Kuntz, the owner of Waterloo Records. He's probably the nicest guy in Austin (which is saying a lot) and runs a world class record store. Walking away for a nice bag of schwag (again, thank you so much John), we did a quick stop at Amy's Ice Cream (very cool website and great ice cream) and then headed over to Chuy's for annual margaritas and Mexican food.

After picking up our wristbands, it was off to The Lucky Lounge for what may turn out to be the most rockin' set of the weenkend; Ian Mclagan.




Ian, who played with Rod Stewart in the band Faces back in the 60's is still putting out good music and can rock and roll with the best of them. Switching between a Hammond B3 organ and an electric keyboard, his 4 piece band just laid down classic riffs and had us bopping around during 2 50 minute sets. Bring on the festival!