Media “tent” is misleading, actually. Part of the Rocks Off team has spent the better part of the three days of ACL inside the media area, attempting to identify smaller, more unknown bands as they traipse through like Roma, wrapping our laptops inside garbage bags to guard them from the rain, fighting for space on the mud-covered overloaded power strips, bringing our own toilet paper from the hotel because there is never any inside the port-a-loos and keeping thick sap and insects out of our keyboards.
Despite those glamorous-sounding conditions, life inside the media tent is just as dirty and muggy as the festival grounds. Sure, there’s some shade and plastic folding chairs, but conditions are relatively the same here. Even the artists and bands aren’t immune to Mother Nature and her desire to redecorate their carefully-planned outfits with splatters of mud.
On the plus side, there is free booze. What kind of granola bar goes best with vodka?
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2009.