A former ACL performer took to a former ACL stage early Sunday evening, giving some revelers debilitating flashbacks of heat exhaustion and dirty boogers in the midst of celebrating Lance Armstrong’s cancer recovery, Tour de France victories, and taste in women. Kudos to Lance for hooking up with a rock star, because the free concert they put on was way more bitchin’ than another parade or interpretive dance or whatever the City would have cooked up on their own.

The stage and equipment looked like it had taken a short trip east from Zilker, but now adorned with a celebratory yellow banners in place of corporate sponsorship. It took the audience a few minutes to embrace the guilt-free adulation of Lance’s celebration, although some took solace by using Cingular phones, drinking Heineken, or investing millions in Austin Venture’s latest tech darling.

A nice breeze blew across Auditorium Shores, comforting the thousands of revelers who didn’t seem to miss the extra 15 degrees or asthmatic dustclouds from the previous weekend. The skeletal remains of the Palmer Auditorium loomed in the background, caught mid-transformation as it blossoms into the Long Center. Darkened clouds kept their distance to the West, depriving Austin of rain in exchange for the emotionally metaphorical solar rays they allowed to reach the festivities.

And I forgot my camera.