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Austin City Limits is far and above the biggest festival in an 800 mile radius, and it’s safe to say that both Sunbear and I have both avoided it for whatever reason we could muster up. Namely – the price. Turns out, this year’s 3-day passes were bought on Sunbear’s behalf on a whim, and mine due to the mere announcement that Kanye West would be headlining one of the dates. So we braved the heat and weathered the small storms to gather with the 75,000 people (on average, per day) at Zilker Park.

For Day One’s recap, I’ll be assisting Sunbear with the write-up, and he’ll be taking charge of Days Two and Three, coming soon. Recap after the jump.

-sunbear and grizzly

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Ahh, the familiar twinkle-pop of New York’s Cults. No longer dependent on the mystery and mystique surrounding themselves and their lucrative pre-album buzz, Cults has blossomed into an impressive live act, dispelling any notion that the band was only that. Kicking their set off with “Abducted,” singer Madeline Follin’s sugary voice made precious such dark lines as “He took my heart away and left me to bleed out.” No longer content to drape themselves in stark animosity, the band played a cheerful set that was as every bit as precious as their leading lady’s canary sundress.

En route to the Bud Light stage, i caught a swatch of An Horse, who a few months ago in Houston sounded like a scrappy garage band, today pummeling eardrums with the rowdy force of an arena-sized band.

Not one to let the colossal Bud Light stage slight his one-man act, Theophilus London brought a massive amount of energy to his set, drawing in all the passersby with his slick R&B electro-fusion. Garbed in a sequined shirt and quaker hat, Theo blazed through his performance, on a permanent joy-high, calling vigorously for a crowd call and response for Timez Are Weird These Days party track “Girls Girls $.” With everyone’s rapt attention turned on the day’s smallest act, Theophilus came and delivered in spades. -sb

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England’s Wild Beasts were the first to perform through the small, but first torrential downpour of this year’s festival, and their UK-brand of dreamy tropical pop went over very well with the wet crowd, who danced (Did I see a group of people shufflin’?) while they played songs from 2011’s Smother. Worth mentioning is the fact that guitarist Hayden Thorpe played through the humidity, in Texas mind you, in a completely buttoned and black dress shirt. -g

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For my money, no ACL frontman is as compelling as Delta Spirit‘s Matthew Vasquez. Not letting his band’s sore thumb presence on the Bud Light stage, sandwiched between Theophilus London and Big Boi, hinder their freewheeling nature, Vasquez, part pirate, part wolf-man, was an absolute whirlwind on stage, rousing the sun-weary crowd trough a rollicking performance of material from both of the band’s albums Ode to Sunshine and History from Below. Delta Spirit have a gritty, down-home swagger that begs to be drowned in a beer and sweat, both of which were plentiful that day. -sb

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While James Blake had originally been one of Day One’s “must-see” artists, the crowd were both delighted and confused as they watched Blake’s brand of ambient R&B/pop was both beautiful and awkward, all in the same right. Sure, Blake’s vocals were stellar under the circumstances, but his set suffered “The xx of SXSW 2010 syndrome” – a new proclamation of performances that are best suited for night-time, but fell victim to the sunlight. Despite the landscape, Blake performed crowd favorites like “Limit to Your Love” and set-closer “The Wilhelm Scream” effortlessly. -g

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To be fair, Smith Westerns released a fantastic album earlier this year, dye it blonde, that was full of singalong choruses that played fast and loose, kind of like a t. rex junior. But, at their set on the Goggle+ stage, the band had no choice but to feed off the mellow energy of a lackadaisical audience resulting in a very worn out set that dragged more than it roared. In no part do i blame this on the band, but rather the cool and casual response the crowd was giving them. Sometimes, supporting good music is more than catching a Tommy Hilfiger ad. – sb

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Could it be true? As a Houston weworemasks unit, we had seen Big Boi three times in one year. Was it necessary? Probably not, considering he had an identical set nearly all three times, save for the immense full band he encapsulated himself in this time. But was it still a great god damn time? Absolutely. Big Boi, yet again, manages to move massive crowds through seamless blends of his Sir Lucious and Outkast material alike. And yes, that’s his uniform every time. -g

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Here’s where things got tricky for us. We wanted to see about four artists who shared the same 2 hours or so of festival time. So we managed to clock our time wisely and attempted to catch bits and pieces of various sets, starting off with the Cold War Kids. Granted, we’re not as big of fans as we were during the Robbers & Cowards era, but the band sounded great on all fronts. And hey – we even snagged a spot-on performance of “Hang Me Up to Dry,” which the crowd definitely loved.

Our attempts to catch parts of Foster the People‘s set was feeble at best. We were mislead as to how big of a “hot ticket” band they really were, as this was easily the most under-prepared and over-stated crowd of the day. It’s easy to blame “Pumped Up Kicks,” but it’s even easier to blame the curious and fickle nature of the average concert-goer. Sure enough, we couldn’t hear shit, and decided to bail.

Soul machine (sorry, Cee-Lo) Charles Bradley played in the Vista Equity tent – a huge change of pace from the wide open and very hot mainstages. His band introduced him with a jazzy, instrumental rendition of Jay’s “Roc Boys,” to which Bradley came out, with near tears in his eyes. He looked genuinely bewildered that thousands of folks came to see his set, and he did not disappoint in the least. He came out swinging in his bedazzled blazer and purple blouse, belting his ass off to songs from No Time For Dreaming, his Daptone Records debut. -g

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Earlier attempts to catch Bright Eyes at March’s SXSW were unfruitful, with one show reaching capacity in mere minutes and the other being located miles away from the brunt of SXSW activities, so this was a ‘can’t miss’ act for me, an avid listener since 2000’s Fevers and Mirrors. Kicking things off with the folksy dissent of “Four Winds,” Bright Eyes were in stupendous form, with Conor Oberst more an adept frontman than his former poster-image of a fragile, dark-haired emo child. Playing kind to the entirety of his back-catalog, Bright Eyes’ set read like a highlight reel: The recent “Shell Games” was nestled in between “Lover I Don’t Have to Love” and “Landlocked BLues,” the electronic-infused “I Believe in Symmetry” rubbed elbow with the classic “The Calendar Hung Itself,” all the while, Conor’s wobbly voice was as strong as ever, his stage-presence an actual presence, and his band, with perennial favorite Mike Mogis, jumping from instrument to instrument with reckless abandon. It was everything I could have wanted in a Bright Eyes show greatly improved by the band’s maturity. -sb

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Nas and Damian Marley’s Distant Relatives has been a huge mainstay in the festival circuit over the last two years. After catching their crowd-captivating set, it’s very obvious as to why. Their blend of Queensbridge hip-hop and Jr. Gong’s reggae make for stadium-sized tracks. I’ve never seen a bigger disregard for a festival-wide “burn ban,” and the Distant Relatives seemed all but encouraging of the crowd blazing it up, enjoying songs from their respective catalogues, as well as their collaborative songs like “As We Enter” and “Nah Mean.”

photo credit: brooklyn vegan

This year’s headlining Kanye West set came at the expense of a poorly-scheduled Coldplay set, which unfortunately took the backburner for us. In lieu of Chris Martin and company, we hit the Bud Light stage to rumors of a Jay-Z appearance, or at least a Bon Iver/Rick Ross cameo. Turns out, Sir Yeezy bypassed all of those for a nearly 2 hour set of himself, a gaggle of well-trained (and toned) professional dancers and an unbelievably talented (and I’m assuming patient) crew of stage hands.

Like many other festivals, an intro of “H.A.M.” and its opera-centric bridge kicked things off, only to find Kanye West emerging from the middle of the crowd on a riser which hovered him a good 20 feet over the crowd – just the way he liked it. Down below, us lowly concert goers yelled back the words to “Dark Fantasy” to him – and it was hardly audible. His three-act “play” was the last in a line of endless festival dates – a tour that was the only viable option for the grandiose nature of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

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Act 1 boasted eight songs – and mostly hits at that. Personally, I’ve never been a part of a louder, more cult-like crowd than the ones I heard during performances of “Jesus Walks,” “Power” (which was comprised of all three original verses and an annexed verse from the remix) and most notably – “Can’t Tell Me Nothin.” Have you ever imagined what 20,000 people singing “La, la, la…” sounds like? It’s terrifying. Sure enough, all rumors of a Jay-Z, Bon Iver or Rick Ross appearance were shot down after a performance of “Monster,” which West commanded all by his lonesome.

Act 2 was the main bulk, and brought to light tracks from 808s & Heartbreak, as well as a show-stopping medley of “Through the Wire,” “All Falls Down” and a deafening “Golddigger.” Want to know what type of performing presence Kanye West is at a festival? He’s the kind of guy who stops performing “All of the Lights” during the first, when he feels that the crowd doesn’t sing “Our nigga dead!” loud enough.

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Act 3 was where shit got real, weird and real weird. A change of clothes seemed normal for Kanye West, and he shows up on stage immersed in ballerinas, MPC on hand, striking the necessary notes to kick off a 10-minute version of “Runaway,” which was promised to be different than the other 37 versions of the song he’s performed on the festival circuit. And while I (along with this blog) are inclined to worship every move he makes, his rants throughout any given one of these versions has been fairly nonsensical and entirely stream of conscious. But what else would make this a Kanye West show, right?

After he declared himself the number one douchebag of all time, he blazed into “Lost in the World,” an emotional mind-bending set-closer, that included a farewell speech of sorts, as he thanked any and everyone involved with this touring cycle, as well as a bookend of “Hey Mama.” Being on a tour with a gigantic stone/statue/sheetrock/whatever that is Greek art and 20 ballerinas can’t be easy, and the Austin crowd let the thank yous and applause ring out as they gathered for a curtain call. -g

For the full setlist click here.

Stay tuned for Days Two + Three coverage!