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Featured Live Stream News

ACL livestreams Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires on 8/21, Father John Misty on 8/22

Austin City Limits is happy to announce a trio of upcoming livestreams featuring some of this season’s most highly-anticipated performers: Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Amanda Shires and Father John Misty. ACL will host back-to-back live streams from a rare double shoot with acclaimed singer-songwriters Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit and Amanda Shires. The creative collaborators (and husband and wife team) will each perform separate sets, with Shires up first in her solo ACL debut streaming live starting at 8pm CT/9pm ET on ACLTV’s YouTube Channel; Isbell takes the stage after a 20-minute intermission and his return ACL appearance will stream live at approximately 9:20pm CT/10:20pm ET.  The next day on August 22 join us to witness the captivating Father John Misty in his solo ACL debut, which will stream in its entirety live from the Austin City Limits stage at 8pm CT/9 pm ET on ACLTV’s YouTube Channel.

One of the finest songwriters working today, Alabama native Jason Isbell first-appeared on ACL back in Season 39 and returns August 21 with his band the 400 Unit to perform gems from the acclaimed new album, The Nashville Sound, a beautiful piece of American music-making. Isbell has earned numerous accolades since his ACL debut on the heels of 2013’s career breakthrough Southeastern, including a pair of GRAMMY Awards for 2015’s Something More Than Free, and we’re thrilled to have the American original back on our stage.  

A fixture on the Texas circuit since she began her career as a 15-year old fiddle player touring with Western swing institution the Texas Playboys, Amanda Shires has toured and recorded with John Prine, Billy Joe Shaver, Todd Snider, Justin Townes Earle, Shovels & Rope, and most recently her husband and creative partner Jason Isbell, with whom she first-appeared on ACL in 2013. The Texas native makes her solo debut on the ACL stage with songs from her acclaimed release My Piece Of Land.  Produced by Dave Cobb, the very personal record deals with family, anxiety, and the phases of a young woman’s life, but the primary focus is the concept of home. Shires addresses the similarities and differences between the home she was born into, the two homes she was eventually split between, and the home she has finally made for herself as a wife and new mother.  We’re delighted to have her back home in Texas and on the ACL stage.

Now known as Father John Misty, the erstwhile Josh Tillman (under which name he first appeared on ACL in 2012 as the drummer for Fleet Foxes) makes his long-awaited solo debut on our stage in support of his third solo release, the madly ambitious new album Pure Comedy.  Inspired by the chaos and uncertainty of modern life, the charismatic indie-rock provocateur writes about the dubious privilege of being here, the elusiveness of meaning, true love and its habitual absence, random euphoria and the inexplicable misery of others, truth and its more alluring counterfeits, the sophistication of answers that don’t make any sense, the barbarism of our appetites, lucky breaks and injustice, faith and ignorance, crippling, mind-numbing boredom, and the terror of it all ending too soon.  Variety recently hailed him “the greatest rock star of his generation” and we’re thrilled to bear witness when he takes the ACL stage on August 22, streaming live for fans across the globe.

Please join us both August 21 and 22 for these full-set livestreams on our ACLTV YouTube Channel. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit and Amanda Shires will stream here and Father John Misty here. The broadcast versions will air on PBS as part of our upcoming Season 43 which premieres this fall.

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Featured Live Stream News

ACL to livestream Angel Olsen’s July 25th taping

Austin City Limits is proud to announce that we will be streaming the upcoming taping of Angel Olsen on July 25, live and in its entirety, directly from the Austin City Limits stage at 8pm CT/9 pm ET on ACLTV’s YouTube channel.  

An artist who reigns over the land between being an elliptical outsider and a pop personality with a haunting obliqueness and sophisticated grace, Angel Olsen hits our stage in celebration of her third LP My Woman, which Uncut calls “another giant progression in an already distinguished career.” The St. Louis native began her journey in Chicago as a backing vocalist for Bonnie Prince Billy, but her talent soon manifested in her first EP Strange Cacti and album Half Way Home in 2012. Signing to respected indie Jagjaguwar, Olsen released 2014’s Burn Your Fire For No Witness to great fanfare, setting the stage for My Woman. Recorded with producer Justin Raisen (Charlie XCX, Santigold) after her relocation to Asheville, NC, the record expands on the reverb-shrouded poetic swoons, shadowy folk and grunge-pop workouts of her previous work via 70s country rock, vintage electronic pop and languid psychedelic soul. “These are controlled, tempered, well-steered songs, capable of navigating genres,” notes Q. An intuitively smart, warmly communicative and fearlessly generous record, My Woman speaks to everyone. “Contradictory, complex, and worthy of endless re-listens,” says DIY, “Angel Olsen has crafted her most compelling record to date.”

Please join us July 25 for this full-set livestream on our ACLTV YouTube channel. The broadcast version will air on PBS later this year as part of Season 43.

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Featured Live Stream

ACL to livestream tapings from The Head and the Heart and The Black Angels

Austin City Limits is proud to announce a pair of back-to-back livestreams with two of today’s most thrilling live acts. We will be streaming the upcoming tapings of Seattle’s The Head and the Heart on May 22 and Austin’s own The Black Angels on May 23, live and in their entirety, directly from the Austin City Limits stage at 8pm CT/9 pm ET on ACLTV’s YouTube channel.  Both acts are making return appearances to the ACL stage armed with acclaimed new albums.

When Seattle band, The Head and the Heart, who first appeared on ACL in Season 37, regrouped in 2016 to start writing together again after a sabbatical, “it almost felt like we were a new band, trying things we hadn’t tried,” bassist  Chris Zasche recalls. “We stayed at a bungalow on the beach. We’d wake up, have coffee and go boogie boarding. We were ready and excited to be back together.” That renewed sense of purpose can be felt throughout their major label debut, Signs of Light, the group’s third album and first release for Warner Bros. Records. “This album isn’t about us now having achieved our dreams,” says vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Charity Rose Thielen. “The day we started being able to live off our art was the day we achieved our dreams, in my mind. This is the album where we really fell into our true voices as those artists.” Recorded in Nashville with producer Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Cage The Elephant), Signs of Light crackles with the upbeat, singalong energy of the band’s finest work. Throughout, the colors are brighter, the electric guitars are louder and the musical touchstones more universal. Lead single “All We Ever Knew,” written during the Let’s Be Still era but never captured to the band’s satisfaction until now, is sure to be a crowd-pleaser, while “Turn It Around” seems primed to be a future concert staple, matching its inspirational message with a lush and multi-layered soundscape. Blurt say the album “fulfills the aim the band’s handle appears to indicate. This is after all, music that connects with the head and the heart, and imparts a dual sense of resilience and delight in its wake.” Join us on May 22nd for The Head and the Heart’s highly-anticipated second ACL taping.

BlackAngels_Livestream_43_squareAustin psych rock masters The Black Angels appear with charged new songs from Death Song, their first full-length release in four years, and their debut for Partisan Records. NPR raves, “The Black Angels have delivered an enormous and frighteningly timely fifth album full of uniquely trippy anthems to oblivion.”  Written and recorded in large part during the recent election cycle, the music serves as part protest, part emotional catharsis in a climate dominated by division, anxiety and unease. Recorded between Seattle and Austin, the eleven-track collection offers a sharply honed elaboration on their signature sound – menacing fuzz guitar and cutting wordplay, steeped in a murky hallucinatory dream. Since forming in Austin in 2004, The Black Angels have become standard-bearers for modern psych-rock, and the New York Times has said they “play psychedelic rock as if the 1960s never ended, and they are absolute masters of it.” The Black Angels made a stellar ACL debut in 2013 and we look forward to their return.

Please join us May 22 and May 23 for these full-set livestreams on our ACLTV YouTube channel. The broadcast versions will air on PBS later this year as part of Season 43.

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ACL to stream Benjamin Booker taping live

Austin City Limits is proud to announce a livestream featuring red-hot rocker Benjamin Booker, taping April 27 as part of our 43rd season. The taping will be streamed live in its entirety directly from the Austin City Limits stage, and fans worldwide can watch the concert Thursday, April 27 at 8pm CT/9 pm ET on ACLTV’s YouTube channel as it happens.

Singer, songwriter, guitarist and rocker Benjamin Booker comes to ACL in advance of his greatly anticipated sophomore platter Witness, out in June. With Witness, the New Orleans-based Booker has created his most ambitious work yet by digging deep into his passion for eccentric soul, R&B, and blues – drawing on everything from William Onyeabor’s 70s African psych-rock to Freddie Gibbs and Pusha T, while never straying too far from the garage-punk intensity that made his self-titled 2014 debut such a creative breakthrough. Born in Virginia Beach and raised in Tampa, Booker attended a magnet school for the arts before matriculating at the University of Florida, studying music journalism. After self-releasing his 2012 EP Waiting Ones, he signed to ATO, who released his eponymous debut in 2014. “Singing with a maturity beyond his years,” said The Guardian about the critically-adored LP, “he crafts hooks that pay homage to Robert Johnson, Sam Cooke and the shambolic punk he grew up listening to.” Following the album’s release, Booker hit the road and the festival circuit, touring with Jack White and Courtney Barnett and playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival and Lollapalooza. Now Booker is ready to unleash Witness on the world, preceded by the title track, released as a single and featuring gospel legend and ACL alum Mavis Staples.

Please join us April 27 for this full-set livestream on our ACLTV YouTube channel. The broadcast version will air on PBS later this year as part of Season 43.

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Featured Live Stream News

ACL to livestream Pretenders taping on March 13

Austin City Limits kicks off Season 43 with what’s sure to be the talk of the town: a livestream of rock legends The Pretenders’ ACL debut, taping March 13. The taping will be streamed live in its entirety directly from the Austin City Limits stage, and fans worldwide can watch the concert Monday, March 13 at 8pm CT/9 pm ET on ACLTV’s YouTube channel as it happens.

Led by iconic singer/songwriter/guitarist Chrissie Hynde, The Pretenders have blazed a trail in rock ‘n’ roll for four decades and come to ACL in support of latest album Alone. Recorded with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach at his Easy Eye Studio in Nashville, the album was initially conceived as the follow-up to Hynde’s acclaimed 2014 solo debut Stockholm. But as its songs and sonics took shape, the collection soon revealed itself as the first all-new Pretenders LP since 2008′s Break Up The Concrete. Backed by a team of what Hynde proudly calls “real people playing real instruments,” Akron natives Hynde and Auerbach made for ideal foils, two idiosyncratic songwriter/musicians possessing a deep knowledge and even deeper love of rock ‘n’ roll.

Alone bears all the trademarks of The Pretenders’ legendary canon: raw and rollicking riffs, poignant balladry, taut hooks and indelible melodies – all in service of Hynde’s heartworn, ever-unsentimental songcraft. Nearly four decades on from the band’s epochal 1980 debut album, Hynde’s instantly identifiable voice, called “one of rock’s finest,” by The Guardian, is perhaps more emotional and aggressive than at any other time in her career.  That extra bit of edge only serves to add fire to new Pretenders classics like the brutally candid “I Hate Myself” and the defiant title track, a spiky rocker that sees Hynde extolling the joys and virtues of solitude. “At 65, she’s still mouthing off over brass-knuckled rock & roll,” notes Rolling Stone, “flexing command and carnality with no apology.”

Other highlights include “Roadie Man,” a softly sung paean to the hard working touring crew that has been kicking around Hynde’s unrecorded songbook for more than 25 years, the seductive “Let’s Get Lost,” and “Never Be Together,” featuring an appropriately twangy contribution from pioneering guitar hero Duane Eddy. The UK’s The Independent asserts that Alone is “a fine album, subtly varied in both musical style and lyrical slant,” while Magnet declares it’s “as good a Pretenders record as has been made.” Armed with original drummer Martin Chambers, a new landmark and their catalog of undeniable classics, The Pretenders finally make their long-awaited ACL debut.

Please join us March 13 for this full-set livestream on our ACLTV YouTube channel. The broadcast version will air on PBS later this year as part of our Season 43.

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Featured Live Stream News

ACL to livestream Alejandro Escovedo taping

Austin City Limits closes out a banner Season 42 with something beautiful: a livestream of Austin legend and four-time ACL veteran Alejandro Escovedo on November 30. The taping will be streamed live in its entirety directly from the Austin City Limits stage.  Fans everywhere can watch the concert November 30 at 8pm CT/9 pm ET on ACLTV’s YouTube channel as it happens.  

Acclaimed singer/songwriter Escovedo returns to our stage in support of Burn Something Beautiful, his twelfth solo album. Recorded in Portland, OR with R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and the Minus 5’s Scott McCaughey as co-writers and producers, Burn Something Beautiful is at once a celebration of the rock & roll life, a contemplation of mortality and a tribute to the healing power of love. The project coalesced beautifully with the help of an esteemed group of musicians who give the album a band feel, including ACL vets Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Kelly Hogan (Neko Case), John Moen (the Decemberists) and Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney). Connecting repeatedly with his soulful heart and voice at its core, Burn Something Beautiful is Alejandro Escovedo at his very best. The San Antonio native is, of course, no stranger to ACL – he has been on the show four times previously, starting as a member of Austin cowpunk legends Rank and File when they debuted on the show in 1983. For this appearance he’ll be joined by Buck, McCaughey, the Fastbacks’ Kurt Bloch, the Decemberists’ John Moen and Neko Case backup singer Kelly Hogan. We’re thrilled to welcome him back.

Please join us November 30 for this full-set livestream on our ACLTV YouTube channel. The broadcast version will air early next year as part of our current Season 42 on PBS.