Photos by Marco Torres

Pachanga Fest Latino Music Festival
Feat. Los Lobos, Celso Piña, Intocable, 3BallMTY, y más
Fiesta Gardens, Austin
May 10 & 11, 2013

Since 2008, the annual, family-friendly Pachanga Fest Latino Music Festival has showcased the vibrant blend of Latino-created music and art and its impact on American culture. That includes rock, alternative, Tejano, mariachi, cumbia, salsa, electronic, funk, hip-hop, and their many blends and mash-ups. A portion of the proceeds benefited FuturoFund, a collective effort to engage the Austin community through philanthropy and leadership.

My journey to this year's festival was long and wet. What normally takes a bit over two hours took almost four due to traffic and a string of strong thunderstorms that blew over Texas that day. The show was postponed for about an hour on Friday night due to the heavy rains, which made for an interesting and very fun dance party under the covered pavilion near the main stage as the show continued with a strong performance by DJ trio 3BallMTY.

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Photo by Marco Torres

ACL at sunset, 2010

UPDATED (Thursday, 2:50 p.m.) to reflect the Houston-area roots of a few ACL performers this year, as pointed out by reader comments. We stand by our original point, though.

As most of our readers no doubt know by now, the Austin City Limits Music Festival announced its 2013 lineup at the stroke of midnight Tuesday. This fall will mark ACL's twelfth edition in Zilker Park on the shores of Town Lake, and its first expanding to two identical weekends: October 4-6 and 11-13.

Rewind:

Depeche Mode, The Cure, Kings of Leon, Phoenix, Lionel Richie Head 2013 ACL Fest Lineup

Looking over this year's lineup, what leaps out first about the headliners is that, perhaps for the first time, the festival seems to consider thirty- and fortysomethings as the absolute upper range of its audience. This year's "heritage acts," what few there really are, all arrived on the scene in the late '70s or early '80s -- Depeche Mode, The Cure, Lionel Richie -- compared to the baby-boomer icons of ACLs past: Al Green, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan.

The other thing that stood out is that, once again, the lineup is utterly lacking in any representation by artists from a most active if not outright thriving music scene barely 150 miles to ACL's east, aka us.

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Photo by Marco Torres

At least Val Kilmer was allegedly working on an upcoming Terrence Malick film at Fun Fun Fun Fest 2012.

So Ashton Kutcher allegedly got in a fight at the Stagecoach Music Festival. I know, it's a little mind-boggling, that whole idea. Ashton Kutcher was not only at a country-music festival, but reports say he somehow managed to stay true to his douche-roots and get into a fistfight with a security guard over a chick. I guess it can get more demoralizing than when he made an ass out of himself at the Country Music Awards. I'm borderline impressed with his abilities.

But this blog isn't focusing on good ol' Mr. Kutcher's constant fame-seeking.This is about all of the actor fame-seeking that's been taking over music festivals and stomping them into the ground.

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Ed. Note: This is the final post of our piggyback Coachella 2013 coverage, with an eternal debt to our friends at LA Weekly and OC Weekly.

Photo by LP Hastings

Butterfly?!

The Visual Stimulations for People Who Were High
Coachella's art installations -- the ones designed to impress you while you're high, aka all of them -- were particularly impressive this year. There was the tesla coil, the crane that was formerly a flower but now a praying mantis, the giant florescent snail, the golf cart that looks like a jellyfish, as well as remote controlled sharks and butterflys (above).

There was also a structure designed to look like a mid-century, Palm Springs modernist mansion, called the Mirage. Projections onto the house created the illusion of a swimming pool, and a swinging cocktail party. Then there was the "Coachella Power Station," at which guys in hippo masks and white lab coats stood in a glassed room, like mad scientists, playing around with computer, video, and stereo equipment.

Occasionally, they danced to Ricky Martin. BEN WESTHOFF

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Ed. Note: Brought to you by our tired, dusty and very tolerant friends at LA Weekly and OC Weekly.

Photo by Timothy Norris

Here's everything that bothered us about Coachella's second weekend. Hey, at least there was no dust storm!

Native American Headdresses
These have still not gone away. In fact, one particularly irritating woman (not pictured) wore a towering feather Mohawk weave, a sartorial statement that combined racism with rave gaudiness. On Friday, she pushed her way in front of us, obstructing our and everyone else's view of the show. Congratulations, lady, you're Coachella's worst person! ANDREA DOMANICK

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Ed. Note: This is part of our sister papers LA Weekly and OC Weekly's coverage of the Coachella festival's just-concluded second weekend.

Creative Commons

We told you earlier about the ways folks try to sneak drugs into Coachella. Also, we told you about how to avoid trouble with the police. But what if, despite your best efforts, you're arrested? Or even taken to Coachella jail? Yes, it is a real place.

We got the story on it from a guy we'll call Derek, who was arrested for possession of pot and cocaine in 2009. It went down like this:

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Photo by Jim Bricker

Forro In the Dark
Fans expecting to hear gentle renditions of the lilting folk melodies of northeastern Brazil from Forro In the Dark were probably initially shocked, but ultimately awed, by the New York City quintet's high energy and relentlessly rhythmic live set. The group played both days of the festival's first weekend, performing on both the Bud Light World and Center stages and adding a lively workshop set for good measure.

Each appearance offered the multitude of dancers who soon gathered an excellent opportunity for a musical workout, provided they could meet the challenge of keeping up with the spirited onslaught of sound from the stage.

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Photos by Matthew Keever

Shinedown

Buzzfest XXX feat. Shinedown, Bush, Stone Sour, Papa Roach, P.O.D., Hollywood Undead, The Dirty Heads, etc.
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
April 20, 2013

Zombies, alt- and jock-rock, new-age reggae, tank tops and tribal tattoos abounded at the Woodlands Pavilion Saturday for Buzzfest XXX, local radio station 94.5 FM's semi-annual concert festival.

As is the norm, the lineup was dated, consisting of more nostalgia acts than current heavy hitters, but everyone in attendance was fully aware of what to expect from the show and what it entailed when they bought tickets, and subsequently sold out Buzzfest in less than 30 minutes.

The festival's headliners were Shinedown, whose front man's strong vocal abilities, coupled with a few pyrotechnics and impressive musicianship, held fans' rapt attention until the wee hours of the evening. Their capability as musicians is unquestionable.

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Ed. Note: This article comes to us from West Coast Sound, and was co-written by Mary Carreon.

We've spent a lot of time this Coachella talking about the magnificent bros in attendance, but how about the fair and talented ladies?

Per usual, they were everywhere, doing their thing like it wasn't a chicken wing, or something. In any case, here are the hottest dancing girls this year -- in GIF form.

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Ed. Note: Can't have a Best of Coachella without a worst, right? Thanks to our (tired) Southern California friends at West Coast Sound and Heard Mentality.

Screenshot of the Daft Punk commercial at the Main Stage

The Daft Punk Fake-Out
Friday and Saturday, all anyone could talk about was if Daft Punk was going to show up during Phoenix's set. Why? Because we were fucking teased. On the main stage before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a long commercial for their new album played, and then we found out that members of the duo were in attendance.

Yeah, sure, the group denied they would perform this year, but it seemed at the time to be one of those winking denials. Now it just seems like they were trying to hype their album. As our pal Andrea Domanick put it: "Shouting Daft Punk at Coachella is like shouting fire in a crowded movie theater." DANIEL KOHN

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