If you’ve decided not to participate in the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend, you’ve still got plenty of options. Here are some recommendations, or where I’d be, if I wasn’t standing in the middle of Zilker Park with 70,000 of my closest friends for three days.
Thursday night kicks off early at the Lucky Lounge with pub rockin’ Ian McLagan & the Bump Band. A free happy hour show, this week Mac and friends welcome a new bass player, Jon Notarthomas, to the fold.
Austin Monthly cover girl Erin Ivey brings a carnival of sorts to the Rollins Theatre at the Long Center. She’s calling it an “evening of interdisciplinary exploration and improvisation,” which means more than just music. Some of her fellow travelers include Jon Dee Graham, JJ Johnson, Libby Kirkpatrick, Stephen Doster, and Ephraim Owens. Knowing Ivey this will be the most enterprising performance of the week.
Later the Continental Club hosts the traveling road show of the Minus 5, the Baseball Project, and the Steve Wynn 4. It’s really just one band, R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey with Wynn and his wife/drummer Linda Pitmon, performing music from various projects they’ve all been involved with. It should be a night of great guitar pop, and besides, Wynn’s highly charged music comes to Austin so infrequently, this one qualifies as a can’t-miss.
Friday night there are two options. Blues diva Leeann Atherton does her regular gig at Maria’s Taco Express. The food is good and cheap, and you can join the dancing hippies if you’re so inclined. Later, again at the Continental, guitar god James Burton’s in town (he’s played with Elvis Presley and Elvis Costello), followed by T Bird & the Breaks, whose soul revue gets hotter every time they hit the stage.
Saturday, there’s another festival taking place that’s been under the radar. Chumbofest at Kenny Dorham’s Backyard celebrates the culture and music of those transplanted here from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, mixed with the welcoming vibes of Austin and appearances from Big Chief Kevin Goodman & the Flaming Arrow Mardi Gras Indians, the Austin Nights Brass Band, and Cyril Neville with Tribe 13, as well as authentic Big Easy cuisine and some Texas chili. Meanwhile, out in Bee Cave, Dale Watson brings his stick-to-your-guns country music to the Hill Country Galleria Amphitheater.
Late night the Funky Batz crew breaks out the Texas soul, funk, and blues at Lamberts, with the sax and guitar jams of Uncle Bruno and the swampy sound of Topaz and Mudphonic with special guest Gary Clark Jr. That’s more than a weekend’s worth of fun and a lot less costly than one day at ACL Fest.
This article appears in September 25 • 2009.