I had the privilege of playing keys at ACL Fest with the talented Patrick Davis and his band (follow the link to read his blog of it, it was a crazy fun show)...just being there was an experience, but the perks of an artist pass blew my mind.  While the 60,000-80,000 daily attendees toiled in the sun we were given open bars, air-conditioned trailers, blackened salmon, free massages (thanks Ouida), and backstage/onstage access to the shows (meaning we could watch from the shade of tents with drink in hand).  I said 'nice show' to Ben Gibbard as he toweled off the sweat worked up with Death Cab, but decided not to harass him further (i.e. be a dork).  And these kinds of things went on for 3 days.

So you're thinking "The title said Coldplay, right?" well I'm getting to it! Blogs are meant for meaningless mildly entertaining rants and I intend to take full advantage.  The irony is (don't correct me on the f#@$%n definition of irony) I was pissed that I couldn't see Coldplay because I forgot to put in my contacts Sunday.  But it was a great show to listen to and after about 10 text messages I found Justin amongst the crowd and the dust-from-hell (it was like a thick fog, you could barely breathe or see the stage anyways).  Death Cab was the only cab to be had at the festival and we walked a good few miles from Zilker park under Mopac to Shakespeare's on 6th street to regroup.

Patrick invited us to an ACL afterparty where the Black Crowes were supposed to be playing (finally got a cab).  As we arrived somebody with an artist pass (what I had) was being told the pass would not get him in here, only an invitation...I found it humorous that there were more degrees of elitism within the already select crowd of insiders. The place was a small noisy warehouse and parking lot and I couldn't imagine the Crowes having fun there - sure enough they cancelled.  They were replaced by an obnoxious DJ who blasted top 40 so loud that most people preferred the heat outdoors to the noise inside.  Many prominant musicians were pointed out to me and we found out there was an upstairs party that was even more exclusive, complete with a giant bouncer at the stairs.  This kind of crowd is new to me, but Justin, Patrick and the rest of the friends we were with quickly tired of it and called it a night.  I had counted on Tbay joining us since we live close and nobody else was headed up north, but he wasn't feeling good...so I was facing a $35 cab ride and nobody left at the party I knew.  To entertain myself I decided I would try and sneak upstairs somehow.

I scoped out the stairway and bouncer for a bit and determined that I was neither sneaky or smooth enough to slip past him....Not suprising since I'm not sneaky or smooth.   I did figure out that the "entry badge" was a "Hello My name is..." sticker that could be bought at any nearby office store if it weren't 1AM...people had them stuck in various creative places.  Armed with that knowledge I was lucky enough to find a torn third of one of these stickers left on a crumpled sheet of them laying around.  I placed it sticking out of my shirt pocket so it looked like the rest of the sticker was inside...and it was clever enough to get me upstairs...to the prize of...another couple of open bars and more people I didn't know.  It did remind me of the scene in The Doors where Jim Morrison is at the Andy Warhol party.  I was bored again was getting ready to leave when I ran into Brendon Anthony, who fits right in with the rock stars, and had a drink with him..maybe a few...in fact, I think it's safe to say that by this point I'd become quite trashed...This matters because it was mentioned that Coldplay was upstairs, but it went in one ear and out the other.  I was in the kind of calm hazy intoxication that comes from more than 12 hours of attempting to pace myself around free booze and failing....not embarrasing myself, but not acting myself.  I'm not a lush but I think Justin has this effect on me, the last time I was drunk like that was his Christmas party.

I did say I was going to get to the point right? No I didn't, but here goes:  I followed a girl I was talking to into a small back room where I didn't recognize any of the 8-10 people but Aarron Barrera (beer goggles didn't replace my missing contacts). A group of guys had heavy english accents so I asked one who wasn't in a conversation if they were a band or if they were at the festival.  Little did I know this was Guy Berryman - and little did he want to tip me off.  He said they were a band but I didn't reconize the name he gave, probably an obscure reference or a clever insult... So I stood inbetween him and who I later realized was Will Champion and just shot the shit for about 5 minutes..about Texas history, Eddie Izzard (Guy thought he was dumb), and other minutia... They were friendly but the conversation eventually ran it's course so I moved on.  As I was walking out a lady, presumably the organizer, started yelling for everyone to leave - that the party was over.  As the remaining crowd (not coldplay) shuffled out I heard Guy say "That massage sounds nice about now" and some girls were talking about how cool it was that coldplay was here...and at that moment I put it all together who they had been.  The bouncer was assisting in the mass exodus at this point so all I could do was catch my cab home to face the hangover on a workday.

Not too exciting if you were expecting an insider's story of fame and glitz, but a very fun weekend for me...and as a bonus I can say I got to meet coldplay for as long as my liver will support me.  This musical weekend was sponsored in part by Reality and The Day Job, so back to the grind now.

-Chris