Burns was silent. There's really no word, no genre, he said, that encompasses a Southwestern- inspired sound fusing Burns' melancholy lyrics with mariachi trumpets, syncopated drum beats, the whine of a steel guitar and weeping metal. All at once, it's jazz, Latin, Western, worldly and otherworldly.
It's the kind of sound that fits in just fine with this year's lineup at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, whose organizers strive to challenge listeners with diverse acts ranging from big names such as Tom Petty to the obscure Tristan Prettyman or Asheba.
"That's a rarity in America," Burns says. "Most festivals are pretty genre specific.
They cater to one crowd. This is about diversity; it's about turning people on to new music as well as highlighting and tipping a hat to those like Willie Nelson and Van Morrison who are important."
The three-day festival, which begins today, features 130 bands including Massive Attack, String Cheese Incident, the Flaming Lips, John Mayer, Gnarls Barkley, the Raconteurs, Los Lonely Boys, the Shins and Ween.
In its fifth year, festival organizers are expecting a sold-out daily attendance of about 65,000 people, with as much as 60 percent of those visiting the "live music capital of the world" from other cities, said spokeswoman Lisa Schickel. Daily attendance reached its peak two years ago at about 75,000, but organizers scaled back ticket sales after attendees complained about overcrowding in the vast lawns of Zilker Park.
Its inspiration is the public television show Austin City Limits, which, at 32 years old, boasts being the longest-running live music show in TV history.
"The festival probably in some ways has breathed new life into the show, but the show also helped the festival explode," said Maury Sullivan, Austin City Limits communications director.
The festival's diversity has echoed increasingly on the show's stage in recent years as producers have tried to shatter its roots and country-music-only stereotype by tapping a younger demographic and exposing traditional viewers, who tend to be older, to emerging, even edgy acts as well as icons, said KLRU CEO Bill Stotesbery.
News RSS