11:00am: I wake up already tired, faced with a choice between seeing Fleet Foxes for the fifth time in almost as many months, or drinking coffee and watching the presidential debates that I DVRed last night. As confident as I am that Fleet Foxes will put on another solid show, as with everything in my life, I put patriotism first.
2:00pm: Standing around waiting for Sharon Jones means listening to The Fratellis' chewed-and-regurgitated pub rock over at the Blue Room stage. I try vainly to remember the iPod song that made them briefly famous before realizing that I wouldn't recognize it even if they played it, because the part of my brain that remembers iPod commercials is currently occupied with that irksome Chairlift song about handstands.
2:30pm: True to their name, The Dap-Kings take the stage in dapper wool suits and ties. All you indie-rock groups with your jeans and your deep vee-neck tees could learn a thing or two from these guys. And while we're on the subject, more of you should have nicknames like "Shug" and "Rick The Pick." Also, you should all live together in a single room apartment where you sleep head-to-toe on a Murphy bed and then wake up bickering about whose turn it is to make breakfast. And in between gigs you should solve crimes.
Oh yeah… The Dap-Kings. So they're here to warm it up nice and toasty for Sharon Jones, but first they need us to give them "all the power that ACL commands." Unfortunately, thanks to our totally wussy mayor's belief in that insidious global warming conspiracy, our city has made every effort to "go green," which means installing giant solar panels to power everything–and since we all know that solar power doesn't provide nearly as much energy as good old American fossil fuels (drill baby drill!), The Dap-Kings just might be out of luck. Nice one, Mayor Tree-Hugger. While you're at it why not just power everything with "groovy vibes"?
Oh yeah… The Dap-Kings. In a way I suppose they're making up for Amy Winehouse's last-minute cancellation in 2007, which I believe had something to do with her charity work in Darfur. But no time to dwell on the past: The guitarist tells us that it's "that very special time," the time when they bring on the "super soul sister with that authentic je ne sais quoi." (Duffy?)
2:35pm: Sharon Jones backs her considerable je ne sais quoi up onto the stage and unleashes a blistering set of songs primarily split between cuts from Naturally and 100 Days, 100 Nights. Jones' passion is contagious and her band is tight, stretching things out when called for and nailing every hit. If Jones runs her group like James Brown did his, The Dap-Kings won't be docked a red cent today.
2:50pm: Before "How Do I Let A Good Man Down?" Jones says she needs somebody to dance with her, then asks the security at the side of the stage to let a man down–which I guess answers that question. A big, burly, bearded guy comes bounding in from the wings and proceeds to get the-white-man's-equivalent-of-funky while Jones grinds on his thigh. It's actually a pretty good day to be an awkward white dude: A few songs later, Jones picks another one out in the crowd and demands that he get up there. Her new friend "Rudy" immediately starts arrhythmically humping the air–kind of like our family dog used to whenever we'd interrupt him making love to the couch pillows. Jones tells Rudy to "slow it down," then gives him a few lessons on how to "Be Easy." When the song is through she tells him, "I bet some girl's gonna grab your arm as soon as you get out there." Everybody laughs. Poor Rudy. (But you gotta love his hustle!)
3:27pm: Jones is clearly having so much fun playing to an appreciative audience this size that she's not quite ready to give it up, even though CSS is already taking the stage nearby. She ends things with a cover of James Brown's "It's A Man's Man's Man's World" that's pitch-perfect. Finally someone puts those dames in their place.
3:45pm: Speaking of James Brown, I've heard his name invoked a couple of times about Eli "Paperboy" Reed and I've been meaning to check him out, but gazing across this field I just don't have the energy to struggle over to the WaMu Stage right now. [Insert joke about the stage collapsing/hastily changing its name to JPMorgan.] Part of my reluctance is due to the dust that's swirling everywhere, a fun potpourri of various allergens that's been slowly settling in my lungs since yesterday morning. In fact, the air is so bad out here that a lot of my fellow concertgoers are walking around with their faces partially obscured by bandanas, giving the impression that any second we're about to bear witness to a riot. Or a train heist. Still others are wearing those industrial dust masks that scream "zombie virus." I'm not quite there yet–I just have a case of what my friend Ben so charmingly refers to as "Fest AIDS"–but I will probably be coughing up chunks of ACL for the next few weeks.