3 days of full on body sweat

	Christ All Mighty it's hot. That pretty much describes the exerpeice at the 2004 ACL Fest. It should have been expected, 2003 was cool and cloudy all weekend. This year we paid! It was HOT! But as always it was worth it. The crowd this year was a lot bigger, this meant not getting to see every show we wanted to. Or at least not getting to see every show we wanted to in a good spot.
	This year I had my half assed stealth rig with me. I managed to get some decent recordings, I pulled even more off the web though. I think I ended up with about 20+ bands that played this year. Some of the ones that I missed got taped. All in all it worked out well. Some of the best were the ones I had never heard before. Los Amigos Invisibles were kick ass! Elisabeth and I went over to the Heiniken stage to get ready for G-Love. I forget which band was on at the time but they were pretty good, Oh, it was North Missisippi All-Stars. I think. Anyways, we had about an hour gap to wait. After the band was done we picked up some spots just infront of the sound board.
	After an hour had passed LAI was on, I totally expected lame polka mexican stuff. NOT the case, this band rocked. The whole crowd was energized, it truly was a cool experience. After LAI we had another hour to waste. Then finally G-Love came on stage. As usual there was a Jack Johnson cameo. I just wasn't feeling the G-love set as I did in 03. Maybe it was the smaller stage or maybe it was the fact that they had been delayed for a day due to the hurricanes. Regardless it just didn't seem like the same set. They only played for about 45 minutes tops, I think I put about 30 mins down on disc of their set.
	Day after day was hot and hotter. Beer was the usual crap arse selection I was smart this time and brought my flask and a backup water bottle filled with rum. It helped keep the costs down for sure. For a dollar less than the cokes you could get tea. It had a mixture of Mint, Honey, and sugar. It made for a good poor mans mint julip. We were also smart in that we rented a pop-up camper and a beautiful spot at THE Pecan Grove RV Park. This place is spectacular. Enormous Pecan trees line the park. The camper was a great rest area, and you could sleep in late, wake up, hit Shady Grove for some queso catfish and a Margarita. The camper really set it off.
	With a cold AC, mini fridge and a place to bunk we were set. John and Alice came by to hang out. We also met up with a few other friends thru the 3-day event. Joe, Laura, and Jackie Joe were at the far end of the park camped out in the bus. Shady, aka Putty, aka, Jim was there as well. We had a lot more people there but I forget the names at this time. Camping for this event is THE way to go. You are right there, within 5 minutes. It's the only way to enjoy the festival. Otherwise you are just too stressed.
	We met up with Jackie and Yianna Saturday night after the Cake concert. Of which the Cake concert was great! I hadn't seen them since I was a sophomore in college, but since I was a sophomore for about 3yrs I guess it's better to just put a date on it. Hadn't seen them since 96. Sounds just as good then as now. I picked up some good recordings of the set. Yianna and Jackie stopped by, along with Rod and his ex-girl. We also ended up meeting a local resident who came by and was pulling an Uncle Creepy trying to get the chicks to go see his kids and wake em up. I ended up getting a full bottle of still yet to be drank Tequilla out of it. So not a bad deal, Steve just had to do dirty things to get it :) just kiddin.
	The guy in font of our camper had a sweet Airstream. Along with that he had this motorized Zebra equipped with running lights, neon accent lighting and a coyote call. The mouth had a working set of teeth and lights behind them. It was quite unique. He was giving people rides all night long. It hauled ass too.