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ACL Fest: Ought hates waking up early too
You ought to have seen Ought. The brainy retro art-rockers have a sound that seems clearly (and wonderfully) shaped by post-punk heroes of ole, ranging from The Fall to Television to Talking Heads....
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Austin’s Capyac serves up pancakes, the most fun to be had at ACL Fest
Austin’s bizarro disco dance duo and co. Capyac are a flesh-and-funk-powered party machine. With infectious house beats, porno guitar, a pair of rappers, backup dancers, a pancake maker (yes, you read...
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Angel Olsen’s chill set is an ideal calm on a hot ACL Fest afternoon
“Is there a pool at this festival that we can jump into?” Angel Olsen was ready to beat the heat at ACL Fest, and perhaps she was rethinking her band’s well-dressed look. Decked out in a bright beige...
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R&B up-and-comer R.LUM.R realizes ACL Fest destiny
Nashville’s R.LUM.R (pronounced “R. Lamar,” as in the pairing of his first initial and middle name: Reginald Lamar Williams, Jr) turned his small stretch of grass into a hopping dance floor during his...
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Ice Cube ensures ‘It was a good day’ at exhilarating ACL Fest set
Don’t try to clown on Ice Cube. He’ll beat you to the punchline. “A lot of y’all thinking, ‘That’s Ice Cube up there!'” the rapper born O’Shea Jackson said from American Express Stage during his...
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Spoon steals the show after a spectacular skydive at ACL Fest
You don’t know how it feels to have a hard act to follow until you’ve taken the stage at the Austin City Limits Music Festival right after three skydivers parachuted onto the grounds while the fest’s...
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She said/he said: For Chance the Rapper, all of ACL Fest is a gospel choir
Chance the Rapper, the Chicago hip-hop prodigy, hit the stage for his Austin City Limits Music Festival headliner slot on a motorcycle … with pyrotechnics at his back. Austin360’s Deborah Sengupta...
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3 reasons Tove Lo’s R-rated ACL Fest set was not for the faint of heart
Dark-pop singer-songwriter Tove Lo ain’t your parents’ pop star. The NSFW Swedish songstress sings about sex, drugs, hard drinking, and other late-night exploits and has more in common with Peaches...
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Rainbow Kitten Surprise sweats it out on the big stage at ACL Fest
“OK, who drew the short straw? Rainbow Kitten Surprise? Congratulations, you get to play straight into the sun at the peak of the afternoon on the hottest day of ACL Fest.” Stage placements don’t go...
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The Head and the Heart synchronize with the sunset at ACL Fest
Sunset and the Head and the Heart are a good match. When the Seattle indie-folk band played the Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2014, their set was slightly earlier in the afternoon, but this...
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The Killers close ACL Fest with Petty tunes, ‘Brightside’ and a lot more
The end of the Austin City Limits Music Festival’s first weekend seemed scripted from the moment the Killers were announced as the Sunday headliner on the American Express Stage: The Las Vegas rock...
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Herbie Hancock brings ageless classics to ‘ACL’ taping
By Wes Eichenwald Special to the American-Statesman When two venerable artistic institutions join forces for the first time, most would agree that it qualifies as a capital-E Event of some note....
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Revivalists aren’t ready for prime time on one of ACL Fest’s biggest stages
Last Friday at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, a familiar tune wafted across the grounds around sundown, and it sounded great. It was Tom Petty’s beautiful ballad “Wildflowers,” being played by...
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Barton Hills Choir shines again at Austin Kiddie Limits, this time with David...
“Can I just say this is the coolest gig ever?” David Grissom was right. The renowned Austin guitarist, who’s played with everyone from Joe Ely and John Mellencamp to the Allman Brothers and the Dixie...
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She’s 13. And she may be the breakout star of this year’s ACL Fest.
Just as the local elementary-school Barton Hills Choir finished their half-hour performance on the Austin Kiddie Limits Stage at ACL Fest, 13-year-old Grace VanderWaal began an hourlong show on the...
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Midland turns the Tito’s tent into an early-afternoon honky-tonk at ACL Fest
“I wasn’t expecting this many people to get up this early,” Midland frontman Mark Wystrach marveled to a sizable crowd that mostly filled the Tito’s tent at 12:30 p.m. for the country band’s debut at...
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White Reaper is ACL Fest’s hardest-rocking band
White Reaper named its 2017 sophomore album “The World’s Best American Band,” and the boast is less absurd than you think. The Louisville, Kentucky, quintet knows that the best rock has fuzz in the...
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Portugal. The Man on Shazam ‘fame’ for ‘Feel It Still’
There is something of a mixed blessing to repeatedly claiming the title as the most-Shazamed band in America. On the up side, it means listeners are curious about a given band’s music. On the down...
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In ACL Fest adieu, Gorillaz throw in the kitchen sink
“How you doing mate? Catch a late flight?” Damon Albarn asked De La Soul’s DJ Maseo Sunday night, just before dazzling mass single “Feel Good Inc.” The long-tenured rap crew was home to turn out the...
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Justin Timberlake sends love to Houston (just not the Astros) in epic F1...
At 8:12 p.m. Saturday night, the lights went dark on the Super Stage built onto the side of the racetrack at the Circuit of the Americas. A scream went through the crowd and the air was filled with...
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