View a slideshow from the third day of Austin City Limits

On the final day of a music festival, crowds are often be pretty difficult to motivate. For many, it’s their third consecutive day of braving constant heat, dust and body odor, of having to pay $2 for 16 ounces of water and $6 for a hot dog. It wears down on people, and a very special act is necessary to maintain a crowd’s collective attention.

Enter Wayne Coyne.

Few in the world of popular music exhibit such an incredible joie de vivre as this dude. During the two decades and change that the Flaming Lips have been active, he’s risen from a very dark, bizarre place to much happier times headlining music festivals and doing whatever the hell he can think of to entertain people who come to his band’s shows.

He does everything within his power to infect others with the realization that life is beautiful, fun and most of all, that it’s worth engaging to the fullest extent of one’s creativity.

Without this belief, I imagine few would ever venture out to attend a music festival, let alone build one from the ground up like Austin City Limits. So kudos to Wayne Coyne for not only embodying the spirit of a music festival, but doing your part to excite its patrons.

That all said, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (who stopped by Norman’s Opolis last week on their way south to Austin) took to the Budweiser Stage at 12:30 p.m., playing a cover song by The Eagles, who would appear there nearly eight hours later. Leo contorted his face, pummeling the microphone while his super-simple stage setup looked comically minimal on the enormous stage, which he and his bandmates filled with their swelling punk rock.

While it hadn’t been hot enough outside to cause serious medical issues, the weekend had yet to see any shade. Clouds finally came as Blind Pilot played their sweeping, lovely melodies that trailed the early afternoon’s gentle breeze on the Zync Card Stage.

After a miscommunication with a truck driver, Justin Vernon’s 23-member side-project Gayngs had to cancel their 3 p.m. show because all their equipment was halfway across the country. Electro DJ Lance Herbstrong replaced the soft rock goofs, bringing a particularly loud dance set to the early afternoon.

And now back to the Lips. I’ll confess, I skipped Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros to get close and take pictures of Wayne and company, even though they’re from Oklahoma City and I’m sure there will be ample opportunities to see them again. I couldn’t resist. The festival environment was just begging the band’s best and they delivered, rocking the crowd stupid with the sludgy metal MGMT collaboration “Worm Mountain” from “Embryonic." But not before the band took the stage by way of a flashing, onscreen birth canal and Wayne’s famed space bubble.

They played a terrific festival set that showcased their great range, with popular rock anthems (“She Don’t Use Jelly”), evilly-tinged psychedelia (“Silver Trembling Hands”) and the we’re-all-one closer, the official Oklahoma State Rock Song “Do You Realize??” Plenty of other gimmicks filled the stage, but they’re too many to recount.

The National started shortly after the Lips finally wandered offstage (they tend to get really attached to their audiences, so it’s tough for them to leave), starting with “Anyone’s Ghost” from one of this year’s best albums, “High Violet."

The greatest critical rip on The National is that they can be a bit boring. “High Violet” largely dissuaded this notion, as did the Brooklyn quintet’s performance under the bright lights. Singer Matt Berninger often violently screamed during choruses where he’s often more restrained and reasonable-sounding on their records. It lent a thrilling edge to the songs, each about personal regret, loss, paranoia and alienation.

They sure were hilarious between songs, though. After dedicating one of the last in the set to a stagehand, Berninger explained why: “Jim’s going on tour with some guy named, ‘Suf-yan’, “Suf…jan,” I don’t know.”

They sprinkled in popular older tracks (“Mr. November," “Squalor Victoria” and “Fake Empire”) amid new ones, finishing the set with “Afraid of Everyone,” twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner’s guitars chugging along, spewing feedback across the faces of the crowd. They returned after an encore request, which Berninger said they were allowed by a gracious Glenn Frey, who he claimed to have seen in the shower in the artist village earlier that day.

All good things must come to an end however, and after The Eagles played “Hotel California” early in the set, it was time to pack up and hit the road back to Norman. What a wonderful weekend it was, made complete by good weather, exciting concerts and shared memories made.

Related links:
• For more ACL 2010 coverage, click here