David Byrne Was a Wanted Man at Austin City Limits

Posted on Sep 29th 2008 3:00PM by Jolie Lash
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Under some of the coolest temperatures in its recent festival history, Austin City Limits wrapped up over the weekend, bringing together 65,000 patrons on each of the event's three days to catch the likes of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, David Byrne, Fleet Foxes, Hot Chip, MGMT, Beck and Foo Fighters.

The event kicked off on Friday in Texas, where indie-darlings Vampire Weekend churned out two new songs, including one currently-untitled cut which finds frontman Ezra Koenig and guitarist Rostam Batmanglij dueling on their instruments, and another number not found on their self-titled, 2008 debut album. "The working title of [the other one] is 'White Sky,'" bassist Chris Baio told Spinner. "We've been kind of coy about saying it out loud, but it's all over the internet. I don't really care at this point."

After thrilling the crowd with their set, which featured -- at times -- string quartet Tosca, Baio said he was hoping to catch David Byrne, who hit the stage in all white, complimented by choreographed dancers.

"He wrote about us on his blog when he came to see us open for Animal Collective last year," Baio said. "He said some very nice things, but we've never actually met him in person."

But Vampire Weekend weren't the only band looking to find the former Talking Heads frontman. Brits Hot Chip were also on the prowl. "Yes, he's the one that we've targeted," band member Felix Martin said backstage. "We'd love to meet him."

Though Hot Chip, one of the few British acts who played ACL, aside from Robert Plant, were geared up to meet their hero, they revealed they hadn't planned a script following their introduction. "I had a dream about meeting him and it was very awkward," the Chip's Joe Goddard said. "I ended up somewhere else, but for that moment, it was a great, but awkward, moment for me in my dream life."

And there were bizarre moments too for bands like Philadelphia's quirky rockers Man Man, who hours before their Saturday ACL set, had a central part of their sound -- a Rhodes keyboard -- break.

"We were in Athens, and I was just freaking it too hard," singer Honus Honus, aka Ryan Kattner, told Spinner. "We were playing the best show we've ever played. There was crying and it was like God coming down and being like, 'You know, I gotta keep you guys humble."

Luckily for the gents -- who took to the ACL stage in white boxers, T-shirts and primitive face paint patterns -- Honus' dad, an Austin transplant, was ready and waiting.

"We drove straight through the night," Alejandro "Cougar" Borg, aka Russell Higbee, added. "We got to his house and he had a little station set up and ready to work on the Rhodes."

Having fixed their instrument, the band made it on to the Dell stage, which was shadier than the AT&T Blue Room stage, where CSS were playing at the same time.

"Everything was hot," CSS guitarist Luiza Sa said. "It was crazy. We were wearing the totally wrong outfits -- all of us. At one point I was like, 'We're gonna pass out.' But we pulled it off. The people were amazing. It was totally great. ... I love Austin."