Austin City Limits served as the ultimate break from the status quo, an ephemeral voyage to a utopia far removed from normative daily life, embedded in the heart of one America’s most interesting cities. Also, the extended weekend was a long overdue first trip to Austin, TX for me personally, and I immediately became enamored with the place (a city with great live music and great Mexican food – is this real life?). The familiar ambitions of seeing as many bands as humanly possible and packing a month’s worth of debaucherousness into a less-than-100-hour window were once again prevalent and a good mix of festival favorites like Arcade Fire, Manu Chao, Santigold and My Morning Jacket paired well with a number of acts I’ve just recently got attuned to recently like Charles Bradley, Reptar and Phosphorescent. Free form noodling, shuffling and the new-to-me, slow-mo/glitchified moves of dubstep all ensued, copious amounts of Torchy’s tacos were consumed and one of the best all-around festival experiences of my life was had. ACL 2011 ranks high in many important festival categories so continue on below for some general festival critiques, musical recaps and a few videos to wrap up our coverage. Until next time – Keep Austin Awesome.