10 reasons why the ACL Festival is still awesome

I can always critique a festival line up or proclaim that "it sucks".  For me this year I was not that impressed with Lollapalooza's line up except they did get one band right. I seriously believe if ACL had that one band Lolla has on their bill, it would be perfect. Here are my top 10 reasons why the 2014 ACL Festival and line up is still so great. 

1. There is something for everyone. There is no possible way to see every band at any given festival and there is something for everyone here. You like hip hop/rap? Check. You like EDM? check. You like people singing in another language? Check. ACL covers a wide range of genres so there really is something for everyone at this festival. 

2. The meat is in the mid-tier. There might be some people thinking..besides all of the headliners...it's crap. Oh my dear friend - if you think that, you need to follow this blog as my whole goal here is to highlight all the very good and lesser known bands that are in the middle of that line up. 

3. The Replacements!! Most of these bands are doing their own tour outside of these festivals and if you can't make it to ACL, you can find them somewhere later on. This year The Replacements only seem to be doing a few festivals and what a great choice. Sure there's Outkast that are hitting every single festival they can possibly fit in, but The Replacements has to be one of top bands to see on the list. 

4. They are selling Single Day Passes this year - yay! This is perfect for wanting to see a few choice bands on any given day and not paying the full $225. I of course will be there for all three days but I know last year some of the locals were not happy with them going to a 3 day only option for pre-sales.

5. The sold out crowd is not unbearable. Last year they seemed to get their capacity as a 'sold out' festival under control. I was able to move through the crowd and go to the bathroom without waiting forever and I could still get drinks and food without too long of a line.  Aside from the monsoon that happened the second weekend (I went the first weekend). The weather was pretty great last year. 

6. ACL supports the really good local Austin bands. I'm super excited for my top Austin based bands that are playing - Spoon, Saints of Valory, Blue Bear, Penny & Sparrow just to name a few. I'm glad they still bring in some local talent each year and support the local Austin music scene.

7. Samsung gave me free fully charged replacement batteries last year! I have a Galaxy s4 and my phone is my camera, my video camera and my everything but with all of my social media apps going at once and being there all day, the battery died pretty quickly. All I did was tweet #PowerOn and I didn't have to go out and buy multiple back up batteries just for ACL. It was pretty awesome so I hope they do the same thing this year. 

8. Barton Springs Pool is only a short walk away. Last year it wasn't super hot but all day in the sun it did get a little bit heated and since everyone is at Zilker Park it was perfect because there was hardly ANYONE there and I just walked over, took a quick dip and headed back for some more music. 

9. Bike Racks. I can't tell you how awesome it is to ride my bike and bypass the massive amount of traffic surrounding the festival. Even the bike racks were full - but it was so worth it. If you don't have a bike, there is always a pedi-cab! ;)

10. Overseas bands. This could possibly be higher up on the list for me but if anyone knows me I have a thing for overseas bands. There is no shortage of bands from overseas at this festival and I'm super happy for that.  Some of my top overseas bands playing this year are Chvrches, Paolo Nutini, Sam Smith, Kongos, Kodaline, Moats, Temples, Hozier, and Catfish and the Bottlemen. 

I still can't believe I have almost 5 months to wait. The band I feel should be at ACL is Royal Blood - good thing I saw them 3 times at SXSW because I knew they probably wouldn't be back in the US for a while. Public Service Broadcasting would have been awesome, too. All in all a great job ACL - you still support the really great unknown bands kind of like SXSW and put on a great list of big acts as well. 

Stay tuned for some great  blog posts about some of my favorite ACL artists that you probably haven't heard of. 

Who is going to ACL? Are you excited about the line up?