Sunday, September 28 at the 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival was a more relaxed day for us, but was still packed with great acts. Artists we saw included Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck, The Octopus Project, Gillian Welch, Stars, Xavier Rudd, Blues Traveler, Okkervil River, The Raconteurs, Band of Horses and Foo Fighters.

Read more about the day and watch videos after the jump

Due to a 12pm hotel check-out deadline, we arrived at the festival grounds earlier than anticipated and had time to meet up with our Infobury friends for the last half of Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet featuring Béla Fleck. Their soothing Americana style coupled with impressive displays of the musicians' technical prowess made for a perfect early afternoon set and start to our day. Of particular note was their excellent cover of the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby." Washburn's original compositions sung in Mandarin, including the extensive version of "Kanding Qingge" (which they referred to as the "Old Timey Dance Party"), were also compelling. The set ended with an Washburn original written about her days in the Orient, entitled "Great Big Wall In China." Washburn's set captured the true feel of traditional bluegrass while adding several different worldly influences (and another remarkable banjo player) to the mix.

We saw Austin-based instrumental indietronica group The Octopus Project for the first time recently and were blown away by their onstage energy and the danceability of their music - not to mention frontwoman Yvonne Lambert's mad theremin skills. Immediately after Abigail Washburn's set ended, the sounds of Octopus Project's first song came bouncing across the field. As we danced our way over to our usual spot, it dawned on us that we were hearing live horns - not a usual aspect of the quartet's live shows. And there were a gaggle of high school-age musicians onstage, clad in black and white and brandishing their brass while hopping around in apparent glee. Also not a usual aspect of OP's live shows. Turns out the group invited members of nearby Austin High School's band to join them for "Malaria Codes," the first song of their set. The students looked thrilled to be part of the performance, and their enthusiasm in turn cranked up the audience's involvement in the show. They left the stage after the first song, but OP's energy didn't lessen. The rest of the set balanced music both old and new, with each of their three full-length albums represented. We definitely preferred the club show we caught back in August, but the Octopus Project proved to us on this day that they are capable of holding their own at a festival.

There wasn't as much cloud cover on Sunday as there had been on Friday and Saturday, and by the end of the Octopus Project's set, the heat had really started to get to us. Luckily, the fence along the left side of the AMD stage was casting a decent shadow, so we and a couple of friends were able to sit and cool off while listening to Gillian Welch's performance. Welch's folksy bluegrass was the perfect soundtrack for relaxing in the mid-afternoon heat. She and musical partner David Rawlings delivered a consistent set that was so euphonious we temporarily forgot about all the dust clogging up our nasal cavities. We would have been satisfied enough with Welch and Rawlings' sample of their repertoire, but they generously presented us with another treat: Alison Krauss joined them onstage for an a cappella version of "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby" (Rawlings sang Emmylou Harris' part).

Montreal-based indie-pop quintet Stars were up next on the adjacent AT&T Blue Room stage, so we peeled ourselves away from the shady fence line and ambled over. The band's lovely 2007 release In Our Bedroom after the War has been in heavy rotation since we first picked it up, so we were pleased to hear a few of its tracks. "Take Me to the Riot," one of that album's singles, was a first-half highlight; its fast pace and stirring lyrics (You despise me and I love you/It's not much but it's just enough to keep) started to to re-awaken us after our Welch siesta. The band sounded even better live than we'd expected them to, so it hurt a bit to leave mid-set, but we wanted to catch all of Xavier Rudd's performance - (didgeri)dude doesn't come around all that often. Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to catch Stars at an indoor venue soon.

Eggs has been a fan of Australian didgeridoo extraordinaire Xavier Rudd for several years, but hasn't had the chance to see him live since Bonnaroo 2004. Rudd's ACL set, then, had been a top priority since the festival's lineup was first released. We crammed in near the front of the WaMu Tent just in time to get a spot right in front of a speaker that happened to block out Rudd's didgeridoo and drum set-up completely while at the same time blasting us with bass. A few songs into the set, during an incredible solo jam (see below), we decided to make a push a little closer in so we could all see better. Being able to see and hear Rudd makes a world of difference. He feeds off the energy of the crowd, and the crowd in turn responds to the energy he projects. Early set highlight "Mother Earth" shouted his message of green to the sweaty tent, while "Come Let Go" called for peace. The addition of a drummer to the live set-up made for a much different showing than Eggs' first time around. The show had a much harder edge than the mostly acoustic shows of the past. The one exception to this was with a stirring rendition of "Messages," which made the attentive audience sway along. To the delight of many, Rudd closed with an incredibly powerful version of Neil Young's "Rocking in the Free World," adding his own lyrics about sustainability and world peace to the mix. It was good to see Rudd and we had a great time during his rollicking set, but we had been expecting a calmer, mellower show that featured more of his older material, so we left with mixed feelings.

After Xavier Rudd's set, we spilled back out into the dusty late afternoon air and made our way to the nearby Dell stage to position ourselves for Blues Traveler's set. While we waited for John Popper and company to take the stage, we listened to the last few songs of the Silversun Pickups' set across the field, including their catchy 2007 single "Lazy Eye." Blues Traveler began their set with the instrumental "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" from four, the jamband's 1994 breakthrough album. The band then immediately shook things up with an excellent, fun cover of the Cheap Trick classic "I Want You to Want Me." Next, they got the aforementioned album's best-known song, "Run-Around," out of the way, to the delight of the large audience gathered there. There was a noticeable efflux of people who had obviously come to the set just to hear that song, which is too bad because the band proceeded to showcase their impressive improvisational skills. We stayed for about half the set before leaving to snag a decent spot for The Raconteurs.

En route to The Raconteurs' set, we stopped off to hear the last few songs of Okkervil River's performance. We had tickets to the band's aftershow the night before, but when we managed to procure tickets to Band of Horses' concurrent show at the Parish, we made the tough decision to skip Okkervil's late-night set. Hearing how great they sounded at the festival made it sting a little more that we'd missed them at Emo's, but we're glad we got to hear a least some of their early evening set. The Stage Names was one of our favorite releases of 2007, so it was nice to hear "Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe" and "Unless It's Kicks," two of that album's standout tracks.

The Raconteurs delivered a strong set of blues-rock, despite Jack White playing with a slipped disk in his neck. As expected, their show was heavy on material from their latest studio effort, this year's Consolers of the Lonely. Eggs has been a fan of the band since its inception, but hadn't yet caught their live show. It would seem that this was the case for many others in attendance as well, as fans were packed closely to the stage. "Level," from The Raconteurs' debut Broken Boy Soldiers, was an early highlight - it was the song that Eggs most wanted to hear, and his excitement was infectious. Another standout was "Rich Kid Blues," which had arguably the best vocals we heard from Brendan Benson the whole set. Fan favorite "Steady As She Goes" was also great to finally hear live. We left near the end of the set happy with what we'd heard, but some friends have opined that previous performances they'd witnessed were better. No doubt true, but since we hadn't seen them previously, we didn't have anything to compare it to. But hey, if it gets that much better than what we saw at ACL, we can't really lose, right?

Even though we'd just seen them the night before, we were itching for more Band of Horses. We decided to be a bit less hardcore this time around, though, and opted to enjoy the show from a bit further back. The band opened with the aptly titled "The First Song," the first song from their first full-length release, Everything All the Time. It would be difficult to list specific songs that were highlights, because the whole damn set was a highlight. Seriously, if you are able to experience their live show without thinking to yourself, "Holy shit, this is band is bloody incredible!"...well, we seriously doubt your taste in music. Go see Band of Horses - they were incredible both indoors and out.

When Band of Horses' set ended, we hooked back up with our friends and together walked toward the AT&T stage, where the Foo Fighters were closing out the festival. All were in the mood for chilling, so we found a spot a good distance back from the stage and spread out our blanket. We still wish that someone else had closed the festival, but it wasn't completely awful to engage in a little '90s nostalgia with the likes of "Big Me," "My Hero," "Monkey Wrench," "Learn to Fly" and "Everlong." After we'd had our fill of Foo, we parted ways with our friends and the festival, yelled back at the religious fanatics stationed outside the gate (God hates garbage!), and drove to Houston.

Check out our other ACL 2008 reviews:
Friday
Saturday

-Cereal & Eggs