Festies

Ep. 35 Festies Recap: Austin City Limits 2025

• Sunny Balopole, Vanessa Gutierrez, Clark Lawson • Episode 35

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Austin City Limits 2025 Recap (Weekend Two)
We’re breaking down our Austin City Limits weekend — what worked, what didn’t, and what we’d do again. From Johnny Stimson’s opener to The Killers’ massive closer, we talk about favorite sets, surprise moments, and a few lessons learned along the way.

Festival food, crowds, heat, and the moments that made ACL 2025 worth it.

Head to YouTube and see our official ACL 2025 VLOG!

Follow @festiespodcast on Instagram and TikTok for more ACL content and updates.

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Sunny:

Hey Vanessa.

Vanessa:

Yeah, Sunny?  

Sunny:

What do you call two best friends that love music festivals?

Vanessa:

Hmm. I guess you'd call them FESTIES Welcome back, Festies. We've got a great episode for you guys. We've got extra people here today. It's stuffy up in the studio. We're back from our two-week break.

Sunny:

And we're really excited to tell you all about our experience at Austin City Limits weekend two.

Vanessa:

Oh, wait, I forgot to say why why it's stuffy in here. We've got Clark back on the mic, and we also have Drumroll. Drumroll, please. My fiance. Mr. Ed.

Ed:

Does it mean I'm a festies regular now?

Vanessa:

Yes, you are a regular now, baby.

Ed:

Honorary festie

Sunny:

Hell yeah.

Ed:

Thanks for having me back, guy.

Clark:

Yeah.

Ed:

Just happy to be here. Happy to be here.

Sunny:

I'm excited now that it's a recap from something we all went to. Yes. Last time Ed was here, it was the Bonnaroo recap, but only Ed and Vanessa went to that.

Clark:

It just took us a whole year to go to another festival altogether. Literally.

Ed:

It was well worth the wait. Yeah, yeah.

Clark:

It was a good time.

Vanessa:

This was the first big festival that we've all gone to since starting Festies, which is so wild. Only took a year over a year, so, real quick, Austin City Limits is a three-day music festival held at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. And it's held over two weekends, usually in October. It's all different kinds of music, anywhere from country to rock to indie to Latin, everything. Yeah. It's been going on for like 20 plus years. And that's all I got.

Sunny:

Yeah, that was a good amount of information. Um

Vanessa:

are we tired?

Sunny:

I guess we are tired.

Ed:

Hey, luckily it's Monday, you know?

Sunny:

Not even the Monday after the festival. It's the next Monday after.

Vanessa:

I know. We have no excuse.

Clark:

It has been a whole week.

Ed:

It's still a Monday.

Vanessa:

A whole week to recover. You know what? I did not feel shitty all week. Normally, like after a festival, I feel really shitty for like a full week.

Ed:

But I I feel great too. Yeah.

Vanessa:

I wasn't, I didn't have like a flu or anything. Normally I get like sick, but

Clark:

the only thing that felt kind of weird was coming from a time zone that's ahead and then coming back.

Sunny:

It felt like the longest day ever. Yeah, so long.

Vanessa:

It was an extra two hours.

Clark:

Yeah, we're like, what are we uh what are we doing? We flew back in time.

Sunny:

I got a little sniffly for one day.

Ed:

We inhaled quite a bit of dust over there.

Sunny:

Quite a bit of dust.

Clark:

Every night in the shower, just yeah, blowing our nose.

Vanessa:

Oh my god, I know it's well.

Sunny:

For this episode, we're gonna talk about our favorite sets, surprise sets, some festival logistics that we experienced. What else? Oh, the food?

Vanessa:

Food. Food, yes. And unexpected moments. Yes. Is that what you meant by surprise sets? Yes. Well, they're not always surprise sets, they were moments that were unexpected.

Ed:

I was surprised.

Clark:

I was I was startled.

Vanessa:

You gave me a fright.

Sunny:

You gave me a fright.

Vanessa:

Okay. What were your first impressions, Sonny?

Ed:

Day one, walking through the gate.

Vanessa:

So we walked in through the ladybird entrance.

Sunny:

We did. I remember just thinking how open it felt.

Ed:

I thought the same thing. I mean, it's a beautiful city park right in the middle of the city. Right. I mean, it was yeah, wide open. I'm sure weekend one there's more grass, but yeah. Yeah. We got a nice dusty patch.

Clark:

Yeah.

Vanessa:

How do what'd you guys think of the crowd?

Sunny:

I loved the crowd, like early afternoon vibe. People just like hanging out, grabbing drinks, finding their spots to make their camp set up for the day. Once golden hour hit, there was a switch in a fun way, obviously.

Vanessa:

Yeah, everyone's getting lit at that point.

Sunny:

Yeah.

Vanessa:

I don't really want to talk about the negative Nancy's, but there was a lot of like stuff on Reddit, people talking about how bad it was. But I always think that that's always like their fault too, you know?

Ed:

Yeah.

Vanessa:

They already just have bad attitudes. Not saying that people can't have shitty things happen out of nowhere, but yeah, your experience is what you make it. Right.

Ed:

If you have a positive attitude, you're gonna have fun. Yeah.

Clark:

Some of the things we read felt a little bit like, yeah, you stepped out of your house. Yeah. You know, like hey.

Vanessa:

There was a girl on TikTok that was complaining about like, I can't even remember exactly what it was, but she's saying she had the worst time. But it was like everything she was saying was typical festival shit. It's like, you know what is wrong here?

Sunny:

It's you don't like festivals.

Ed:

Yeah, there's gonna be a crowd, it's gonna be loud, right?

Vanessa:

Yeah, yeah. Sorry, there's music playing, like what?

Sunny:

Yeah, it's just so crazy to me how people can have such an opposite experience at the same event.

Ed:

It's kind of mind-blowing.

Sunny:

Yeah, like even with logistics and stuff, people are complaining about bathrooms and lines, and I didn't experience any lines ever. Like, I don't know about you guys.

Ed:

No. Well, um, we were using the urinals, so I mean, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa:

I never waited more than two minutes.

Sunny:

But is that because we're not over in the areas where all of the young people are congregating?

Vanessa:

Probably, but also they refuse to look around and look 10 feet from them.

Ed:

The most popular line becomes the most popular line.

Vanessa:

I was literally staring at people in line, and I'm looking at all these empty porta potties. I don't even want to call them porta potties because they were like nice, flushable.

Ed:

They were plumbed into the city sewer that you could flush and everything.

Vanessa:

I was impressed with the bathrooms.

Clark:

There's got to be a handful of things that we don't experience at the same way anymore, too, because we're not we're not young. Well, we're not, we're not like we're not trying to be as close as possible.

Vanessa:

I think you did make a good point though, and you were like, we didn't have issues with the crowd because we weren't really always in the crowds. Right.

Clark:

Where we were for the killers, you know, it wasn't pressed up super tight, but sounded yeah, great.

Vanessa:

Yeah.

Sunny:

Should we list all the artists that we saw by day?

Vanessa:

Who do we see on Friday Ed?

Ed:

On Friday, we start out with uh Johnny Stimson. Let's see. Uh we saw Crowe Boys, Jensen McRae, Maggie Antone, Bilmuri, Dylan Gossett, Role Model, Empire of the Sun, Dr. Dog, and Luke Combs. We saw a lot on Friday. We did so many people. Yeah.

Vanessa:

Saturday. Saturday. Saturday between the four of us, we saw Leisure, Joey Valence and Brae, La Lom, Olivia Dean, Marina, South Hall, Doechii, we did some silent disco, and we saw Sabrina Carpenter. And the chicks.

Ed:

Oh snap.

Sunny:

Hell yeah.

Vanessa:

We'll talk about that later.

Sunny:

Sunday. We saw The Point, Anderson East, Super Taste, Lucius, Midnight Generation, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, Passion Pit for a little bit, T-Pain, and then The Killers.

Vanessa:

Woo!

Clark:

Nice.

Sunny:

Ed, who are your favorites from the weekend? Gotta pick three.

Ed:

Killers Killers was definitely my favorite. Yeah. I would not expect that at all, but it was an amazing show. I would say the third best show I've ever seen in my whole life, probably.

Vanessa:

Yeah, Ed's face during the killers was the best. Just such a Kodak moment. So happy.

Sunny:

Yeah, it was joyful.

Ed:

But uh Let's see. After the killers, Doechii was so good. Really liked Doechii And Luke Combs was my third favorite one. Loved Marina too.

Clark:

Nice. That's dope.

Sunny:

Who are your favorites, Vanessa?

Vanessa:

Uh I hate to repeat what Ed said, but they like

Ed:

Hey, when I'm right, I'm right.

Vanessa:

I mean, yeah. When we're talking like favorites, favorites, then yeah, the killers is Doechii and Luke Combs, I have to say. But my honorable mention goes to role model.

Clark:

Yeah.

Vanessa:

I actually really liked him. Yeah. I mean, everyone around

Ed:

He is super cute

Vanessa:

us is having so much fun. What'd you say?

Ed:

Nothing.

Sunny:

He was cute.

Vanessa:

He was so cute. I was like,

Clark:

He's a good looking fella. Yeah.

Vanessa:

I don't know. He winked at the crowd at one point, and I like something happened to me. Like, what? Sorry, baby. Yeah.

Sunny:

I mean, he started. He said he was cute. Yeah, I know.

Ed:

He got he got me too. So don't worry about it. He got me too.

Vanessa:

He definitely did make me feel old though.

Ed:

He's like 28 or something, right?

Sunny:

Yeah. Yeah, I know. He's not even like that.

Vanessa:

I know. It just felt like everyone around us was like young girls, like going crazy.

Sunny:

They were having so much fun. Yeah. And it was awesome.

Clark:

Absolutely cutting a rug. They were all just dancing super hard. One of them acted like she was going to pick her friend up, but instead pulled her leg up and was playing her leg like a guitar. That was awesome. I was like, dude, there's going so hard. It's so great.

Sunny:

Yeah, at one point, one of the girls turned around and was like, This was the best moment of my life. Oh my gosh. Oh man. Oh, to be young. Enjoy your youth. Yeah.

Clark:

So many memories of saying shit like that to each other.

Sunny:

Totally. Um, Clark, who are your standouts for the week?

Clark:

Um, yeah, I think Bilmuri was a huge standout like musician ship. And I love when bands say crazy shit and they said so much crazy. Yeah, they did. Like

Ed:

they were very funny.

Clark:

Literally just talking in memes. I don't I don't care about almonds. I don't care about peanuts. Well, about cashews, because I gotta bust that nut. And you're like what? And then they but but then they start playing, and you think it's gonna be some silly thing, but it's like incredibly musically amazing, yeah, which is very impressive, yeah. Yeah, and like the saxophone mixed with metal guitar playing. Yeah, didn't know I needed that. I did. Dope. Basically, everybody but the drummer also sang incredibly well, too. They really blew me away. And then Sabrina Carpenter's set was fantastic, just the level of production. I don't think I've seen that type of pop performance at a festival with like the dancers, all of those fun vintage little ads in between the songs, like um, what was it, like Manaway spray, and it was like a spray to like get rid of douchebags and stuff, like amazing, and the whole set, how how they interacted with it, like the dancers having their moment, little duo dance off thing, and then her bringing out the chicks, which was just like was not expecting that at all, but so badass to

Ed:

so perfect.

Clark:

Oh, yeah. And then um, I actually put role model, even though

Ed:

that was good,

Clark:

even even though I'm not into the music, I'm not the demographic,

Vanessa:

it was the vibes,

Clark:

it's more yeah, there's this whole meme of him having fruit snacks in his back pocket, so it's like a bit he does now where he's like, Oh, what do I have in my back pocket? And like sometimes he doesn't have anything and he just like flips off the crowd.

Vanessa:

He had a little red purse, yeah. Yeah, like a little red birkin pocket,

Clark:

that type of stuff, and in between songs, going, Oh, thanks. We're we're

Vanessa:

he said, We are maroon five, yeah, and then we are with 21 pilots.

Sunny:

Yeah, something genius that he's doing is how he brings out a guest for the song Sally, and it's like a different girl every time. So I wanted to stay and wait.

Vanessa:

Only cared because he fucking brought out Hillary Duff the first weekend, which that would have been so awesome. I had no idea who the girl was that he brought out the second weekend. I mean, I can tell you her name. I'd have been fine with Hillary Duff again. Lizzie McAlpine.

Clark:

And she is

Vanessa:

she's a singer.

Ed:

Was she performing at ACL?

Vanessa:

No. Oh we thought it was Maggie Antone in the moment.

Ed:

Well, I don't really know her too well. We were kind of far away.

Vanessa:

Well, you were you didn't say Dr. Dog. I thought you would have said Dr. Dog.

Clark:

Nah. Ah. I mean, honorable mention Dr. Dog, too, but I tried to pick ones that like surprised me.

Vanessa:

Oh, yeah.

Clark:

And Dr. Dog, I knew what it was gonna be. What about you?

Sunny:

Bilmuri. The energy was just insane. He was funny. I mean, they were all funny, but still super tight musically. They're very, like you said, impressive. Before Bilmuri, we all split up to go do different things. And as soon as we got to Bilmuri, I texted them, you guys need to come over here. Like, I don't know if you like the music, but they're so funny. And I was like, hot girl playing saxophone, because Vanessa loves the saxophone.

Ed:

And hot girls playing.

Vanessa:

And hot girls.

Clark:

It was fine with that.

Sunny:

So I was like, get over here. I also loved how you couldn't pinpoint a genre. No, it was metal, it was punk, it was sometimes country sounding, it was electronic. It was just

Vanessa:

jazzy,

Sunny:

jazzy, yeah. It was just such a beautiful mixture of all genres.

Vanessa:

When I was listening to the playlist, I always liked their songs. It reminded me of like my high school days of listening to Fallout Boy and all that.

Clark:

Yeah, there's definitely a call to that.

Vanessa:

I just love that his voice doesn't match his face. Too they look so like grungy, and then his voice is like so it sounds like pretty boy almost.

Sunny:

His name is Johnny Franck. Apparently, the project started as a joke with a play on Bill Murray, the actor, but they spell it different. B-I-L-M-U-R-I. But now it's like evolved into a really well-respected project.

Clark:

Yeah, it's dope. Who else did you have on?

Sunny:

Enough about them. Super taste. They were at the BMI stage, and we were walking by and they had a little musical interlude going on of dreams by Fleetwood Mac, like a cover. So that kind of sucked us in. From then on, it was just dancey, funky, and the crowd was vibing.

Ed:

Yeah, that was fun. I liked that. I never had heard of them before. Yeah. Never saw them, but that was cool.

Sunny:

Yeah, we were able to get to the front. I think the closest we ever were for something.

Ed:

Definitely.

Clark:

That late in the day, yes. Yeah, sure. There were other times we could just walk to the front. Sure. I was like, Yeah, at two o'clock. Yeah, three o'clock.

Ed:

We just didn't, though. There was no shade up there. Yeah. Yeah.

Sunny:

Oh, so hot. and my third one is Johnny Stimson. That was our first set of the weekend, and I just thought he nailed it. Flawless voice, tight band, especially the keyboard player. He was incredible. And it just like totally set the tone for the rest of the weekend. Um, like fun, soulful, just all around good energy.

Ed:

Yeah, he had a little ukulele there.

Clark:

Yeah, yes, yes, yes.

Ed:

Yeah, he was he was good. He was fun.

Vanessa:

I just want to say Joey Valence and Brae also knocked it out of the park.

Ed:

Oh, yeah, they were high energy.

Vanessa:

Yeah, the whole crowd. I wish you guys could have seen the crowd.

Sunny:

No, I mean, in your videos that came through. That was the craziest crowd I saw the whole weekend.

Vanessa:

They were lit.

Ed:

It was like the hottest part of the day, too. I was like, people are gonna be dropping like flies out there.

Vanessa:

I'm the baddest bitch in this club.

Sunny:

Vanessa was singing that all weekend.

Vanessa:

All weekend, dude.

Sunny:

Speaking of the heat.

Vanessa:

My gosh.

Sunny:

How were you guys?

Vanessa:

It was hot, but it wasn't unbearable for me at least.

Ed:

Yeah. Well, second that. They should have a water fountain or something at ACL.

Vanessa:

Right?

Ed:

Nice water feature, get people to cool off in.

Vanessa:

Oh, like a t Bonnaroo?

Sunny:

Like a splash pad?

Vanessa:

A splash pad, yeah.

Ed:

Anything be good. Anything be good. I didn't get sunburn or anything.

Vanessa:

Me either. I think the fan also helped me.

Sunny:

The neck fan?

Vanessa:

The neck fan. Yeah.

Sunny:

Yeah. I don't know how you guys were doing it without a fan.

Ed:

I just didn't need that burden in my life.

Vanessa:

If he says burden, it literally just sits around your neck and you don't have to hold it or anything. Is it a is that a guy thing or something? Because Clark didn't like it either.

Clark:

No. It felt more annoying on my neck than just not having it.

Ed:

Right. Yeah. I would agree with that.

Vanessa:

 They're so annoying

Clark:

Not in a not in a I'm tough way.

Ed:

Right. Yeah. If someone could like suspend a ceiling fan above my head all day and I didn't have to feel it other than the wind, then it'd be great. That'd be sick.

Sunny:

I liked my clip fan that I got.

Ed:

Yeah.

Clark:

I preferred that one

Ed:

because you could put it on your belt or something?

Sunny:

I kept putting it everywhere.

Clark:

Keep moving around. And it wasn't as cumbersome.

Ed:

Cumbersome, yeah. These girls do not like that we didn't like that neck fan. Sorry.

Vanessa:

You know what? I don't know why I care. I just want you to be comfortable.

Ed:

And I sure was.

Clark:

I was good.

Sunny:

This is how Vanessa and I are. Like we always just want everyone else to be having the best experience they can possibly have. And if we have a way for you to not be as hot, we're going to try and force it on you.

Ed:

We Sure appreciate that.

Vanessa:

And we don't take rejection well either. So

Ed:

my goodness.

Clark:

And that and that we said no was basically like a saying you should just go die.

Sunny:

Say yes and thank you and just deal with it.

Ed:

You would have been more upset if I said I have to have this now for the rest of the time. You wouldn't have had one.

Sunny:

We would have felt so good because we helped you guys.

Ed:

Aw

Vanessa:

No, it's okay. I'm glad that I didn't burden you with this neck thing.

Ed:

You did actually a couple times, but it's okay.

Clark:

I forgive you.

Ed:

Yeah, it's all right. I just wanted you to have it, you know?

Vanessa:

Oh, thanks.

Ed:

Yeah.

Sunny:

There was only one point on Saturday where I felt not well from the heat. I felt like Clark had to take care of me for half of the day, and I'm normally not the one needing to be taken care of. But um

Clark:

I didn't I didn't feel that way.

Sunny:

Okay. Thankfully we went into the

Vanessa:

Okay.

Sunny:

Thankfully we went into the Tito's tent.

Clark:

Yeah.

Sunny:

And they had big ass fans at the top of that tent. So that really helped. There were a lot of people taking naps in there.

Ed:

I was surprised that they don't have more tents, you know, like they only had the one. You know, it seemed like it would have been nice if they had like stagecoach does or like a

Vanessa:

maybe not a tent, but like

Sunny:

like the Do Lab

Vanessa:

Yeah, like the Do Lab.

Sunny:

it's big mushrooms basically

Vanessa:

not a tent.

Ed:

Where do they do that?

Sunny:

Yeah, Coachella and um lightning in a bottle. Lightning the bottle, thank you.

Vanessa:

Because it's like an art installation, but it serves the purpose of the city. So there's just so much open space. Like something for shade would have been I'm with you. Yeah. I think we experienced exactly why they maybe don't, and that was for Passion Pit at Tito's. Even if we had been on the edges of that crowd, you still couldn't like hear anything. No, that's bullshit. They should have been on a different Passion Pit for sure. Yeah. They should have been on like Miller Light or something. Even well, even Ladybird. Yeah. Anywhere else. Literally, literally anywhere else. Yeah, true. Oh man. Beatbox. I mean, I feel I I felt that way a little bit for Catarella and Paco Moroso, but that's also just because like I'm a huge fan of theirs. So I'm like, put my boys up on a big stage.

Sunny:

Since we keep talking about the stages, can we list all the stages? Yeah, all right. There is the American Express stage, which is basically like the headliner stage. There was the T-Mobile stage, which also felt like a main stage, but just slightly more spread out. And then next to that, there was the Miller Light stage, which was kind of a middle ground, not as intense as the main ones, but still big enough to draw crowds. Like when we were walking through for Phineas, it was packed. I mean, that's where Empire of the Sun played. Right. Yeah. And then you have Ladybird, which is smaller, but it's in the middle of the whole festival. So it's a good stage for discovering new artists because you are forced to walk by there. And then we have Tito's tent, which is the tent we were just complaining about with Passion Pit. But it was a cool tent. Did you guys even go in there? No, we could never get in there.

Ed:

I don't think it was big enough to get into or hear what was going on in there. Yeah. We're gonna have a bigger pen if I'm gonna walk into it.

Sunny:

Shaded and intimate and um near the ACL Eats. And then we have the beatbox stage, which is more so for up-and-coming acts, and it's tucked off to the side away from the main stage traffic. So there's a little bit more room to breathe. And then we have the BMI stage, which is run by Broadcast Music Incorporated. And they've been a part of ACL for 22 years now. That's definitely the spot for up-and-coming artists. And you can get really close to the stage.

Ed:

Yeah, I like that stage. We saw South Hall there. Oh, you did? Yeah, how was that? That was cool. That was good. I liked that. He's a crooner. What does that mean? It's like a singer.

Vanessa:

Oh, oh, crooner, yeah. Um I was like about seeing them. Yeah. But I was like surprised by them.

Ed:

He has a good voice.

Vanessa:

Yeah, he's got a good voice. That one sad song where he was like, if you just went through a breakup, this might be a good time to go to the bathroom because the song is sad. I love that. It was so good. I love that. Sonny was like, Do you know what BMI stands for? Like body mass index. I knew what you were gonna say. It's like, yeah, body mass index.

Sunny:

But what did you say BMI was? Broadcast Music Incorporated. They're basically in charge of royalties being distributed.

Vanessa:

One of the big companies that does that. Yeah, I didn't know that. The more you know.

Sunny:

Are there any disappointments that you guys are still thinking about? Like stuff you missed. Yeah.

Vanessa:

Edward here wanted to see Pierce the Veil. Oh, really? I didn't even know that.

Ed:

Yeah, what were we doing at that time? Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, that's silly. That's fine. That's yeah, that's not really a conflict at that point.

Vanessa:

I did want to see her, but I was a little disappointed with the sound for Catarella and Paco Amoro, so their vocals were a little blown out. I was like squinting a little bit in the crowd, like it kind of hurt my ears a little bit. Um and it was and I was sad with Passion Pit too. I was really looking forward to seeing them. And I was excited to see Don West because I feel like he was a lot of what we all like to listen to, like funky dancy music. But he like didn't show up or something. What happened?

Sunny:

Apparently, he dropped out due to an illness. Um he did end up putting it on his his Instagram. I'll read it to you guys. He said, Hey everyone. As some might be aware, I had some health issues arise on tour in Europe. I've been in hospital since I landed back in Australia, and the doctors have advised that I need to remain in their care. So unfortunately, I won't be making it to America. I want to apologize to everyone that bought a ticket and made plans around the shows. I am sorry I couldn't make it happen. But thanks everyone for the love and support. And I can't and I can't to see you all next year. That's what it says. I think he missed the word wait.

Vanessa:

Um I didn't know he was coming down under October 1st. Oh so he didn't even perform first weekend. No. Then they didn't say anything, right? There was no like he was still on the schedule that day. I think he was.

Ed:

I don't know. We were looking at old schedules. Yeah, I still had DojaCat on my schedule. Whoopsie. God, good thing she dropped out of it. Thank goodness. Jesus. You know who that is.

Vanessa:

The killers took her spot, so that's why we said that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, and some something else happened.

Sunny:

Yeah, that's what I was just gonna say. I fucking lost my phone.

Vanessa:

Whoops.

Sunny:

Whoopsie. But luckily, I had put on my screensaver the schedule and like, you know, circled everything we were gonna see. But I also wrote on there belongs to Sunny Ballopole, and then call or text, and I put Clark's number. And sure enough, it's a great one. It works. Yeah, that was a genius move, right there. Highly recommend doing that.

Ed:

As soon as you lost your phone and then got it back, Vanessa put my number on her screen.

Vanessa:

So thank you to the people that found Sonny's phone. Yeah.

Sunny:

But the best part about all this is when I got my phone, I got to ring a bell. Oh yeah. What kind of bell is that? A cowbell.

Ed:

Yeah, yeah.

Sunny:

Um, I don't think I've ever held a cowbell with the actual like ring in it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because in music they don't have like the bell in it, right? Yeah. Anyways. Um cowbell.

Ed:

Shape is a cowbell, like a dinner bell or something. Come and get it.

Sunny:

Has been calling bells. A few days ago I told Clark, I was like, hey, you should send them that video of me ringing the bell. So he sent it to the people that turned in my phone. Yeah.

Clark:

And they were like, Oh, that's awesome.

Vanessa:

Hope you guys had a good weekend. It is very nice.

Ed:

Yeah.

Vanessa:

I was like, Thanks again. Here's Sonny getting her phone back.

Ed:

They're like, cool, lose my number.

Clark:

These nerds keep texting me.

Ed:

Are you guys going next year?

Sunny:

Are you guys going next year? Enough about my phone. Yeah. Yeah, fuck your phone.

Vanessa:

Take it easy. Okay, let's move on to the most important thing. Food. Food.

Ed:

Food.

Vanessa:

Honestly, I think this is me too. This is I'm so hungry. I think this is like the best food I've ever had at a festival. Better than outside lands? I I don't really eat at outside lands. I can't remember like really eating at outside lands, to be honest. But can I just tell everyone what I ate? You're please. I had a quesa barbacha from La Santa Barbaca, but I actually ordered three barbecue tacos and they gave me a kissid, and I was like, it's fine. So you just ate it and didn't complain. Yes. Classic. In true Vanessa fashion. And then I also had the Bang Bang chicken bowl from Chilantro. It was really good. And then I had from Four Brothers Venezuelan Kitchen, the pork arepas and the beef and panada. It was so good.

Ed:

They could have called that place one dad instead of four brothers.

Vanessa:

Maybe they're not, maybe it's not the same dad. Um papa. It was after I ate that that I got like really tired. So maybe it was like too much fried stuff, but it was so good. Yeah, worth it. And then I had the ceviche from Veracruz All Natural.

Ed:

That was good. That little cup you had looked small, but there was more in there than it seemed like.

Vanessa:

Yeah, we shared it and it was perfect. That was one of the recommendations from my manager. It was so good. Yeah. Um what did you like to eat?

Ed:

Uh I don't remember for sure what I ate. I had a lot of chicken, actually, yeah. From kebab cue, the chicken kebab skewers, those were really good. Um happy chicks, chicken nuggets, yeah. I was a chicken boy. It was delicious, though. That happy chicks, they had uh some kind of special breading on there that was unique, that was really good.

Vanessa:

And then I couldn't find the place where you got them from, but the philly cheese steaks were.

Ed:

Oh, the Philly cheese steak egg rolls. Those were probably my favorite. I love a Philly cheese steak egg roll. You can't find them everywhere.

Vanessa:

I didn't even know that was a thing. Yeah, where else you eat them at a restaurant? Somewhere in Des Moines. Um Iowa Taproom. Iowa tap room, yeah.

Sunny:

What about you, Clark?

Vanessa:

Um, we had the chicken skewer that's on like a a roti from Oco. That was super, super delicious, like super flavorful. I didn't realize that was a Filipino place. Yeah, yeah. I tried it, it was so good. Yeah, yeah. I had tacos twice from Cuantos Tacos, one time the campachana, which is chorizo mixed with brisket, and I also had carnitas. Sane and I shared the brisket bowl from KG Barbecue, which is like an Egyptian uh guy started barbecue spot in Austin. So it that's where the influences come from, where it has like a yogurt sauce on it with candied nuts and pomegranate. Oh so like this cool mixture of sweet and savory. And then we had a hot dog. I had a hot dog because they had because they had the hot dog vendors that were just walking around in the middle of the festival. I didn't see it. Because I was walking to everyone.

Clark:

When Sunny showed me that clip, I was like, wow, I didn't know I said it so stupid. I didn't know it came up so dumb. I got a hot dog.

Vanessa:

I love that part in the vlog. I got I found a hot dog. Um yeah, I mean it was like it was a hot dog, it was like a you know, uh in a heat pack. Yeah. Looking for a hot dog. And you had pizza. Yeah, I had pizza from that place, but we can cut that out. Yeah. Oh, never mind. But the uh Sunny got a burger from one of the places that was over by her say that. The beatbox place. Oh. Um and that burger was super juicy, super well seasoned. Did I mention I was already hungry and we're talking about it? Sunny got uh a watermelon awa fresca from Juice World, I believe. I have nothing. I think Juiceland, I can't remember the name of but that was super delicious, and this just tasted like super fresh watermelon juice. And we we also got sweets.

Sunny:

Oh yeah, on the last day.

Vanessa:

Yeah, yeah. Uh you got a float.

Sunny:

I got a kaleidoscope float, which was a sherbet and nerd.

Vanessa:

Strawberry sherbet.

Sunny:

Yeah. So I just got something that I normally would never ever Get. Normally I would never get that.

Vanessa:

That was super good. And I got some pistachio gelato. Nice. That was super good. When we went over to the sweets, I wanted to get gelato because that one that you had was so good. Yeah, I know you were like, whoa. I know. And we never made it back over there. But the day before we went, we walked over there, and the only place that didn't have a line was the soft serve in a like one of those like little kid couch. The squeeze. Like applesauce package. Yeah, apple sauce package. But it was like soft serve and it was so good. And it was so funny. The back of their thing was like we're proudly non-vegan. Like we're the first to do this. There might be copycats, but we were the first. What else did they say?

Ed:

They give a little cute little koozie to put it in.

Sunny:

Yeah, and they give you a little ice cream koozie. Yeah. 10 out of 10 for the food at ACL? Oh, hell yeah. And coming from San Francisco festivals, the prices at ACL felt a lot less. I think that's why maybe we tried way more. I paid like $11 for a burger one time.

Ed:

I would say, yeah, everything was like two-thirds of the price. Yeah at ACL. Something similar to that. I felt like the portions of good size, yeah. There was a lot of fusion places.

Vanessa:

Yeah. That was cool. Okay, so we said we'd come back and report about the entrances and exits because we kept getting so many mixed things from people online, like Andrew through this side to do this, to enter blah blah blah.

Ed:

Yeah.

Vanessa:

So the first day we uh didn't really know what we were doing. So we just hopped in an Uber and said, take us to Zilker Park. And the Uber driver took us to the Ladybird entrance, which is on the north side, and that's the side you have to cross the bridge.

Ed:

There's like a pedestrian walkway.

Vanessa:

Over the bridge. Over the bridge. Can you see the high school? It's by the high school, which was a fun way to come in. Getting there, great. Not a terrible walk. But we also should be worth mentioning that we got there at like one. So I can't imagine what that bridge looked like at like 4 p.m. It's 5 p.m. So during the time that we got there, it was great. And then we also exited from that entrance exit, which was probably the worst. What no, maybe second worst exit we did. We tried a lot of the exits. Festi no no and did not have an exit plan.

Sunny:

Yeah, we didn't have an exit plan.

Ed:

I got caught in the bottleneck of that bridge. Same pedestrian bridge. Yeah. There was maybe enough room for six people wide and uh 10,000 people deep.

Vanessa:

We were just like cattle trying to get like what is it called? I don't know. Yeah, but slaughter.

Sunny:

Everyone was in good spirit, everyone was in good spirits. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa:

It was fine, but it was crowded and I was wearing flip-flops and they kept falling off.

Sunny:

Also you did not try too hard. Also a big festy no-no for how much Vanessa talks about wearing comfy shoes.

Vanessa:

I did a no-no and wore boots, which everyone said not to do. But thankfully, we have this angel with us named Clark who left a set and went and got me flip-flops from like one of the bodegas or whatever. Without telling me, you just handed me flip-flops and I almost cried out. My feet hurt so bad. But thankfully, we had a locker and we just I just stuck the boots in my locker. Side note if you have T-Mobile, you could get a free locker. Anyways, okay, so So leaving leaving out of that one, yeah, wasn't it? Was a little rough. I would not recommend that exit unless you have a plan and somebody's meeting you and picking you up there. Yeah, yeah. We got really lucky, and after we walked a little bit, we found a cab that took us.

Ed:

He was just sitting there waiting, and everyone around us was waiting on an Uber that was gonna take, I'm assuming, hour. Yeah, so we just caught it perfect. Yeah, I believe that yeah, he was available. Yeah.

Vanessa:

Saturday we Ubered to Sand Beach Park to catch the shuttle. These were free shuttles, and that took us to the Barton Springs West Entrance, and that was really easy. It was like a one-minute walk into the festival from the buses again around 1 p.m. Again at one yeah, one pm. Yeah, yeah. I like that they just have free shuttles you know as part of it. That's awesome. So our exit plan for that day was to just take the shuttles back, and I think that was our least favorite thing to do. It really didn't really take that long, it was like 30, 40 minutes, maybe. Yeah, but it was just kind of like a dud. I don't know. I thought we entered another dimension and we were stuck in that loop for the rest of our lives. Yeah, because it's got like the zigzag lines like back and forth, back and forth, and we're like, we just walked by here. And we just kept doing that. And then I thought we were entering another one once we got past that. Yeah. And I was like, we are gonna do this for the rest of our lives.

Ed:

It's one of those lines that's so long, it's like I can't even see the buses that we're getting to get, you know, they're way up there.

Sunny:

I was like, is this a social experiment? They're just seeing like how long we'll do this for. So long.

Ed:

Yeah, but it we also took our sweet time getting into the line. Let the let the line really build up that before we got in it. That's true. That's true.

Vanessa:

It's an easy way to get to get back if you don't mind waiting 30, 40 minutes. Last day we entered the same way, but we exited through the Barton Springs east entrance, and that was the most fun.

Ed:

Yeah, it was wide open, there was no line, no choke point, really. It was just like a wide street that everyone could just walk out of.

Vanessa:

And there was the party bikes, I call them.

Ed:

Yeah.

Vanessa:

The party bikes, the petty cabs, yeah. And I think that's the one that has all the vendors and everything, and that's the one I wanted to go in from one of the days, but we didn't do it. But now we know for next time, if there is a next time. But that was the most fun because we took two of those bikes all the way back to our hotel, so we got like sick views of the city downtown. So fun. Blasting music. The guy was like, What do you want to hear? We're like, the killers, because we had just seen the killers, we were like their biggest fans now. So yeah, it was so much fun. So our recommendation is take the shuttle to get in there if it's early enough. I don't really know what it's like at 4 p.m., but for us it worked great. And take the uh east Barton Springs exit.

Sunny:

Another tip that I have, something that our Uber driver to the airport actually told us about is she only does uh scheduled pickups for ACL. So we could have in the morning scheduled one for a certain time at a certain place um like farther out and could have like met up at that.

Ed:

We should definitely look into that. Yeah, all right.

Vanessa:

Anything else? Talk about the headliners. I don't know. Yeah, I thought we we didn't really talk about the headliners.

Ed:

You don't want to talk about the killers killing it?

Sunny:

Yeah, Friday was the phone, Saturday Sabrina, Sunday the killers. Did they live up to the hype? What do you guys think?

Ed:

Um Yeah, definitely.

Vanessa:

The only thing that didn't live up to the hype was our location for Sabrina Carpenter. I like wish that we were in the crowd.

Ed:

I thought we had a good view of the stage and the sound was good, but I don't know.

Vanessa:

What I wanted for like the doji set was to be around people that were like rapping every fucking lyric, and I was the only one doing that where we were, so that was where my disappointment was. But sorry, no, it's okay. It was still a good time. Yeah.

Sunny:

Oh, say that out loud next time.

Vanessa:

Okay. We were all cozy in our spot. I didn't want to make everyone move into the chaos, but I think we didn't know how that was gonna be like putting your chairs and and stuff down, you know, after we watched some vlogs of people, they were not bullshitting you. Yeah, you can just put your chairs, don't leave your valuables and stuff, but just like put your chairs under, you know, in some shade that you want and just literally leave them there.

Ed:

I will say about the lawn chairs in general at festivals. I'm not a big fan of, but I'm not gonna say I didn't like sitting in the chair when it was there, but in general, they just caused, I don't know, more grief than they're worth, I think.

Vanessa:

Did you like Luke Combs? Yeah.

Sunny:

I really did like Luke Combs.

Vanessa:

I we made Sunny Watch Country for a full day, actually. Yeah.

Sunny:

He has this way of making a huge festival set feel intimate. He's a really good storyteller. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa:

There's bits of like the craft of being an artist like that that can feel stale when someone does them all the time, but did not feel that way, even though I'm I'm sure he said some of those same things before introing a song, right? Or whatever. Uh ACL, he gave us the shortened version of all the things he said. Um it was still a really good show, but I really enjoyed the Bonner one very because his storytelling and stuff was longer. Like he had more than that.

Sunny:

Yeah, the band was very groovy. Yeah, and I like how he let all his musicians show off. Yeah, yeah, that was that's fun how he does that. Yeah.

Vanessa:

Also, it was really sweet talking about his kids and stuff. They were there for his first show. That's so awesome. I heard him talking about that on uh somebody's podcast that he was like, My kids have no idea what I do. Like they just know daddy sings, but they don't know to what degree, you know. Yeah, they don't know the level. And he was saying that that his kid was gonna go out to the first show soon. So that was cool that it was ACO and we were there for it. The warmth he had for Texas in general, too. It was it was that was you know really sweet, very sweet.

Sunny:

Thank you for bringing us over there because we might have gone to Hojo.

Ed:

Yeah. Which I kind of wish I would have been able to see Hojo too, but it's like, what are you gonna do? Yeah, you can't be in two places at once.

Sunny:

Should we move on to Sabrina? Yeah. I like Sabrina. No, you start. The whole time I was just like, damn, this took a lot of rehearsals. She was working, and you know, she's not like a powerhouse vocalist by any means, but that's kind of what I love about her. She was an entertainer.

Ed:

Yeah.

Sunny:

What'd you think, Ed? How was your Sabrina experience?

Ed:

I I enjoyed it. It wasn't my favorite, but I definitely thought Dochi was better, and Dochi should have been the headliner, but hey, yeah, I have to agree with you on that one. But I mean, I felt like when Dochi went off stage or DJ was like giving a dig, kind of like, oh, you know, enjoy Sabrina or whatever. Oh, interesting. I kind of I kind of was like, oh, she's saying like, hey, Dochi should have been the headliner.

Vanessa:

Oh, interesting. Uh I did not think that might be. I didn't catch that.

Ed:

I didn't hear that in her tone, but maybe that's just me in put inferring that on my own, but that's just kind of what I went through my head. But yeah, yeah.

Vanessa:

I I liked Sabrina. I enjoyed Sabrina, but I just to me she just felt so like rehearsed. I don't know. I don't want to say she had no like personality up there, but like it was robotronic. It just yeah, I don't know what it was. Maybe it's just because I was didn't like where we were.

Ed:

I liked all of her little ads and all the little things she did in between songs and yeah.

Vanessa:

And of course the chicks.

Ed:

Oh god. They were awesome. Yeah, that was.

Vanessa:

I love that they did please please please with her too. Because it totally is like their type of song, too. Especially their research. That's probably why they came together, huh? Yeah, yeah. Because the lead singer like went through divorce and her whole album is a big fuck you to guys. Kind of badass to to bring them out in like a country music state, yeah, and country music really turned their back on them for like not even anything that crazy with what they said about that was yeah, that that wouldn't happen now. No, you like look up that video and you go, This is what calls big stir. Yeah. And they think we're offended by everything. They were the top of country music for uh it really put it down from my career for like a few years. So I feel like that was kind of badass them being with this huge new pop artist.

Sunny:

Yeah.

Vanessa:

And last but not least, we are the killers brought to you by fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. We are the killers.

Ed:

God, that's that's probably the best festival set I've ever seen. Yeah, I would have to say. They did not fuck around. Yeah. I mean, they came out like a coiled up spring. I don't know. Like a shot out of a cannon. I almost fell over.

Vanessa:

Your face says it all. I am gonna post a video of you singing, I got soul, but I'm not a soul.

Sunny:

That song goes. This was my third time seeing the killers, and they always deliver, but this one, there was something different in the air. Everyone around us was just locked into the same energy, everyone was having so much fun.

Vanessa:

Well, and we had a freaking bachelor party behind us going crazy for every song. So that yeah, that was a vibe. We had a bunch of young people like that came obviously came from John Summit. Yeah, and then they were they were in the crowd just gigging super hard, too.

Sunny:

So well, I was walking around putting clothespins on people. Um we do this thing where we write compliments on a clothespin, and then on the other side, write at Festies Podcast, and we stick them on people on people's bags.

Ed:

And uh shout out to anybody who got one. Yeah. If you're listening to this, we got you. You're welcome.

Sunny:

You're fucking a few times.

Vanessa:

They got caught.

Sunny:

But uh, where was I going with that? Oh, yeah, it was like that everywhere. People were just having so much fun.

Ed:

I had no idea what to expect. And yeah, I was totally blown away. Yeah, right.

Vanessa:

Me too. I mean, I obviously like I know Mr. Brightside and a couple of their other songs, but I wasn't like, oh yeah, we need to see them. Well, I mean, I did want to see them.

Ed:

I definitely did want to see them, but yeah. I mean, we were considering going to John's exceeded my expectations. Listen to me.

Vanessa:

Ed at one point was like, we should leave early before they started. He's like, we should leave early before the killer started. And then, like, halfway through there said, I'm like, You still want to leave early? He's like, No. Hell no. I posted a video of them doing Mr. Bright Side on our TikTok, and it it has like 17,000 views, which is like the most we've ever had. But people in the comments, they were arguing back and forth about which weekend was better. I was like, Are you guys fucking five years old? Also, Brandon Flowers himself was like, Who was here weekend one? That was just rehearsal. This is the real fucking show. So we made the right choice, not splitting it with John Summit. I know we did, and I don't regret it at all, but I still want to see John Summit out. I still have not been able to see him.

Sunny:

Did you guys catch the kind of like influencer vibe that was there at Awesome City Limits? Um Coachella, where like people are taking pictures over just in front of the flags.

Vanessa:

Yeah, it's really the only place I really noticed. And the ACL, yeah.

Sunny:

Yeah. Oh, also, guys, I just want to say it was so nice staying at a hotel. I forgot how nice hotel life is when you do a festival. Yeah, it was coming back to a bed that's made. Oh my gosh.

Vanessa:

Yeah, it was satisfying. It was made in the shade, not sleeping on the couch or the floor.

Sunny:

All right, guys. Would you go again?

Vanessa:

I would go again if we got free tickets. I mean, don't get me wrong, I thought it was cool. We actually ranked it our third favorite festival.

Sunny:

Oh, wow.

Vanessa:

After Bonaroo and Outside Lands.

Sunny:

Until money's not a factor, like I probably won't be doing any repeat festivals other than like local ones. Yeah.

Vanessa:

Or Bonaroo. Bonnaroo's our big travel one. Festival get us there. I was telling Sunny, like, how badass would it be to just like ball out and just be there for a whole week. Stay in Austin for a whole week.

Sunny:

We'll go both weekends, is what you said. Oh, yeah.

Vanessa:

I was like, yeah, go both weekends and just stay like there like on Wednesday of the before the first weekend and then be there all the way until we're going to be able to do that. But would be actually then we wouldn't have to see every artist every day. We wouldn't have to go in early. Then we could choose the first time.

Ed:

Yeah. Right? And then weekend two, just only go at night. Yeah. Saying that we're never going again.

Sunny:

Now we're talking about going two weekends in a row.

Vanessa:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's like that's like if these are hypothetical.

Sunny:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa:

What were we gonna say?

Sunny:

Oh, I was just gonna ask you, where does ACL rank for you in your I think it's up there?

Vanessa:

I might be outside lands Bonnaroo ACL.

Sunny:

I have ACL as number five behind Outside Lands, same same but different. Sasquatch and Bonaroo.

Vanessa:

All right, you guys. We did it, guys. We did it. ACL. Thank you guys so much for listening. Please make sure you check out our ACL vlog on our YouTube. Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. I was gonna say Twitter. Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Festies Podcast. And leave us a five-star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Yes. And we'll talk to you next time. Thank you, Ed, for being on the podcast. Thank you.

Ed:

Thank you so much for having me, guys. We love you. I love you. Oh. Okay, sorry. Okay, bye. Bye. Bye.