Category: Taping Recap

A few months ago, Future Islands was a cult band with a strong critical following. Now, thanks to the songwriting talents of musicians Gerrit Welmers, Mike Lowry and William Cashion and the indisputable charisma of frontman Samuel Herring, the band is on everyone’s lips. Herring, who mentioned that he grew up watching the show in North Carolina, called Future Islands’ livestreamed ACL debut a “ten-fold honor – I can’t even make sense of it.”

“Back in the Tall Grass” served as a low-key opener, a midtempo pop tune that allowed the singer to build up to his signature stage moves. The band hit its stride immediately with the classicist British synth pop of “A Dream of You and Me,” which found the restless Herring beginning his sweep across the stage. The band stayed out of the singer’s way literally and figuratively, the stripped-down music giving Herring plenty of room to move. From the high kicks in “Balance” to the stripper hips of “Doves” and the reach for the stars in “The Great Fire,” Herring was in near constant motion, augmenting his croon-to-growl vocal gymnastics with completely unselfconscious movement. “His dance moves ARE the best,” enthused livestream viewer Monique Jewett-Brewster. The disco rhythms of “Walking Through That Door” and “Long Flight” seemed particularly conducive to Herring’s flamboyance, as he pulled out all the vocals stops.

Future Islands ended the main set with the uplifting “Spirit,” which Herring revealed is about the “inner flame that keeps us going.” But it was the final song of the encore that really underscored what this band is all about – “Little Dreamer,” from the group’s first album Wave Like Home, featured music even more austere and minimalist than the rest and plenty of room for Herring to emote. “One of the best performers of our time,” commented Chad Parker. You can see for yourselves when Future Islands hit the PBS airwaves in early 2015.

The word “limits” may be in our name, but we at Austin City Limits pride ourselves on not having any, at least when it comes to the styles of music we feature on the show. That said, our roots are in country music, so we’re always happy to welcome one of the genre’s shining stars. Eric Church certainly fits that bill, and so we were thrilled to host his first ACL taping.  “I’ve been watching this show for, like, 30 years,” remarked a visibly excited Church, who noted that seeing Iris DeMent on ACL was a lifechanger. “And I’m a little nervous.” You’d never know from this confident, powerful performance.

The appropriately stalking rhythm and National Steel guitar of “Creepin’” opened the set, the hard rock riffs contrasting nicely with Church’s North Carolina drawl. The louder, heavier “Guys Like Me” followed, the first in a series of anthems that established Church’s songwriting tradition of both paying tribute to and subtly critiquing his characters. With twin lead guitars at his side, Church energetically blasted out paeans to overindulgence (“Jack Daniels,” “Smoke a Little Smoke”), small town values (the CMA-nominated “Give Me Back My Hometown,” “Pledge Allegiance to the Hag”) and good old-fashioned rebellion (“That’s Damn Rock & Roll,” “The Outsiders”). It wasn’t all just fist-pumpers, however – Church also delved into the more traditional country that inspired him with “Talladega,” “Sinners Like Me” and the inspirational “These Boots,” for which the audience saluted by pulling their own boots off and waving them toward the stage. (One young lady was rewarded by Church taking hers and signing it.)

Of course, Church also performed his anthem to end all anthems – “Springsteen” is the song he’ll be playing until the end of his career, and starting it by singing a few lines from the titular artist’s “Thunder Road” and engaging the crowd to sing the “whoa-ohs” only enhanced this readymade classic. But after all the lighter-waving songs, Church brought it all home solo with “A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young,” an ode to maturity that sent the audience away satisfied. We can’t wait for you to see Eric Church when his show airs as a full-hour episode November 15th on your PBS station during ACL’s 40th Anniversary Season.

The amazing evolution of popular music over the last few decades has been a fascinating and necessary process – where would we be without constant change? That said, sometimes you just gotta rock. That’s a situation which J. Roddy Walston and the Business are more than familiar with, as evidenced by their latest LP Essential Tremors, and it was in that spirit that the quartet turned our theater into that hip bar downtown that always features the sweatiest, ballsiest rock & roll. The band’s debut ACL taping was also livestreamed on the Austin City Limits YouTube channel.

The longhaired, leather-jacketed Walston looks like he should be rocking a Les Paul/Marshall combination, but instead he sits at the piano. Though “sits” isn’t quite accurate – instead he bounces, slides and jumps off and on the bench as the music moves him. And no wonder – as he and his homeboys roared into “Sweat Shock,” guitar chugging and piano banging, the energy level shot through the roof. Imagine Jerry Lee Lewis fronting Black Oak Arkansas and you’re in the ballpark.

From then on, rocking out was the priority. That’s not to say the band is a one-note proposition – far from it. They pull from several different strains, from punk to hard rock to classic pop. “Take It As It Comes,” “Midnight Cry” (with its audience singalong “Eye-yi-yi” chorus) and “Full Growing Man” drew from melodic piano pop, with the latter in particular sounding like an Elton John tune taken behind the barn and roughed up. “Marigold” and “Don’t Break the Needle” worked a loud, Stonesy groove, while “Heavy Bells” updated the bluesy hard rock of Led Zeppelin. “Boys Can Never Tell” eschewed drums and bass for acoustic guitar and a surprisingly pretty ballad. It was all a warm-up, though, for the colossal closer “Used to Did,” on which the band pulled out all the stops for a piano-pounding, guitar-wailing, hair-whipping finish. It was a climax that encouraged online viewer joel brown to enthusiastically comment that the band is “The best thing to happen to rock n roll in a long time!”

Viewer johnnYYac said “Hard to believe it was less than a year ago these guys were playing to me and fewer than 20 people in a little club in Iowa, on the Miss. River. They deserve this, but I’ll miss those intimate shows.” For our money, Walston and the Business brought that rock club intimacy in the most widescreen way. We can’t wait for you to see it this fall on PBS.

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We always love seeing old friends and so it is we welcomed back Nickel Creek to our stage for their third taping, which we also livestreamed on our ACLTV YouTube channel. The California combo last visited us in 2003 – recording their debut in 2001, while mandolin master Chris Thile performed with Punch Brothers in 2012 and fiddler Sara Watkins supported the Decemberists in 2011. But now the trio is back in toto, virtuoso instrumentation and tight harmonies intact, celebrating not only our 40th anniversary but also their own musical return after a nine-year absence with the reunion record A Dotted Line.

Defying the stereotype, the band opened with a ballad, “Rest of My Life,” featuring harmony arco lines from Sara and bassist Mark Schatz. The tempo picked up with “Scotch and Chocolate,” an instrumental that combined fluctuating bridges with Sara’s Celtic-flavored lines. The rest of the set alternated between pieces from the new record and well-known tunes from their popular repertoire. “Destination” and “When in Rome” were perfect examples of the band’s ability to create indie pop songs using bluegrass instrumentation. “Reasons Why” and “Where is Love Now” essayed the beauty of the band’s way with ballads. Fan-favorite instrumentals like “Smoothie Song,” “Ode to a Butterfly” and the new “Elephant in the Corn” raised the roof. The group’s wry sense of humor bubbled up throughout, especially in the twisted gospelgrass of “21st of May,” the stalker folk of “Anthony” and the aggressive bitterness of “You Don’t Know What’s Going On,” for which Thile teased the crowd to unleash their buried anger. The band ended with its popular adaptation of the children’s tune “The Fox,” which drove the audience wild.

A well-deserved encore brought redos of “Where is Love Now” and “You Don’t Know What’s Going On,” before the Creek flowed through the driving ballad “Helena” and into the traditional fiddle tune “Cuckoo’s Nest,” which featured not only expert musicianship (“They make it look soooooo easy,” noted stream viewer Take a Hike) but also Schatz tapdancing. It was an undeniably fun show – noted by viewer Mathew Cussen as “one of the best shows I’ve ever seen” – and we can’t wait for you to see it when it airs in early 2015. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified of future livestreams of ACL tapings!

When ACL is in an anniversary season, it’s tempting for us to concentrate on booking the biggest artists we can find. That would deny, however, one of our core missions: to expose our audience to new artists. Of course, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down aren’t exactly new – the San Francisco-based act has been working for a decade. But Thao Nguyen and her intrepid band have begun to explode far past their underground origins, making it the perfect time to for us to invite them on the show for their debut taping.

After the brief, gospel-style open of “The Clap,” Thao and the band launched into “City,” a patented example of their patented funky folk rock. The group’s blend of groovy rhythms and Thao’s folk-influenced fingerpicking give the band a distinctive sound that truly makes it stand out from the pack, as “Cool Yourself,” “Beat” and “Every Body” easily proved. But she and her quintet hardly stick to one groove. The band also hopped jauntily through the jazzy piano pop of “The Feeling Kind,” complete with Dixieland trumpet solo, skipped energetically through the ska/soul hybrid “Swimming Pools,” moved through the crescendoing dynamics of the waltz “Age of Ice” and pounded through the percussion-heavy “Squareneck,” with Thao getting down and dirty on her lap steel guitar. Thao also demonstrated imaginative versatility with her instruments, playing her banjo like a guitar on the reggae-tinged rocker “Holy Roller” and her archtop guitar like a clawhammer banjo on the bluegrassy “Kindness Be Conceived.” The band ended the main set with the singalong folk pop of “We the Common,” a tribute to Thao’s volunteer work with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners.

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down encored with “Body,” another fine example of their patented unpredictable pop that included an audience participation section of handclapping, and “Bag of Hammers,” more of the same, enhanced with Thao’s tropical guitar lick. Thao’s natural exuberance and wide-ranging songwriting acumen made the show a joy to see and hear. We can’t wait for you to see it when it airs on PBS this fall.