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Austin City Limits featured on Sonic Highways!

The Foo Fighters’ critically-acclaimed HBO series Sonic Highways documents the band’s process of recording its new album in different cities across the country, with a focus on each city’s music scene. We hope you’ll tune in this Friday for the fourth installment, which features not only Austin but our own Austin City Limits – the band recorded a track in the historic Studio 6A and Dave Grohl sat down with ACL executive producer Terry Lickona for an extensive interview. The hourlong episode also features Austin favorites and ACL veterans including Willie Nelson, Jimmie Vaughan and Gary Clark Jr.  Grohl describes the series as a “Love Letter to American Music” and this episode is clearly a love letter to our beloved Austin—we’re thrilled to offer this exclusive clip from the upcoming program:

Tune-in Friday, November 8th at 11pm for this must-see broadcast!

 

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Foo Fighters 11/20

Austin City Limits is thrilled to announce a new taping for Season 40, featuring the return of the Foo Fighters on Thursday, November 20th.

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News

Ticket Giveaway: Foo Fighters 11/7

UPDATE: The giveaway is now over

Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Foo Fighters on Friday, November 7th, at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). This event will also feature a preview screening of the Austin episode of the HBO show Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways.

We will be giving away a limited number of space available passes to this taping. Enter your name and email address on the below form by 9 am on Thursday, November 6th. Winners will be chosen at random and a photo ID will be required to pickup tickets. Winners will be notified by email. Passes are not transferable and cannot be sold. Standing may be required.

No photography, recording or cell phone use in the studio.

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Featured News Taping Announcement

New taping: Foo Fighters 11/20

UPDATED POST:
Due to a family matter, Foo Fighters regrettably must postpone Friday’s appearance in Austin for their Sonic Highways screening and Austin City Limits taping.

The band sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience and promises to make it up when they return to Austin on Thursday, November 20th, 2014.  All passes for the original engagement will be honored.

Tonight’s Sonic Highways preview screening will go on as scheduled. 

Note: post is updated with new date

Austin City Limits is thrilled to announce a new taping for Season 40, featuring the return of the Foo Fighters on Thursday, November 20th.

Foo Fighters have been busy since they last appeared on ACL in Season 34. Releasing the still-charting Greatest Hits in 2009, the band recorded and released the international #1 album Wasting Light in 2011, featuring the hits “Rope,” “Walk” and “These Days” and earning five Grammy Awards, including their fourth for Best Rock Album. FF founder Dave Grohl followed up that triumph by directing the acclaimed documentary Sound City. For the band’s eighth album, Sonic Highways, the band’s music and Grohl’s directorial skills resulted in both an amazing new album and the acclaimed HBO series, Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways, each episode featuring Grohl and bandmates Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear recording a song in one of eight U.S. music capitals and featuring luminaries from each city’s music scene. Austin was one of the cities, of course, with the Foos recording a track in ACL’s original Studio 6A (also the source of “Two Headed Dog [Red Temple Prayer],” the Roky Erickson cover the band contributed to our 40th anniversary special). We’re sure to hear new highlights from Sonic Highways and more when the Foo Fighters return to ACL once again.

As a special treat, we’ll present a preview screening of the Austin episode of Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways, which premiers this week on HBO, before the taping begins.

Want to be part of our audience? Sign up in our upcoming tapings section

 

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Episode Recap Featured News

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds adds dark power to Season 40

Austin City Limits presents an electrifying hour with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, one of the most exhilarating live acts in music. The noir-rock outfit make their ACL debut in an hourlong performance offering a memorable career-wide set powered by dark songs of love, death, God and fate.

Nick Cave is one of contemporary music’s most powerful personalities, and the Australian-born iconoclast takes the ACL stage with his longtime band for a mesmerizing appearance. The masterful nine-song set features highlights from their 30-year career, spanning the 1984 debut to 2013’s universally-acclaimed Push the Sky Away, their fifteenth studio album.

The black-clad Cave stalks the ACL stage with primal energy and explores the thin line between light and darkness with selections from his fire-and-brimstone universe, spouting scripture-scaled narratives and anti-anthems from his rogue’s gallery of characters. “Tupelo,” a twisted take on the mythos surrounding Elvis Presley, has the singer-songwriter ranting like an evangelist fallen from grace and intent on clawing his way back. Cave looks directly into the heart of darkness with a piano-based rendition of the “The Mercy Seat,” a murderously powerful first-person account of execution by electric chair that progresses from the sinister to the sublime. The episode comes to a show-stopping end with the title track from their recent worldwide chart-topping release; as Cave sings the lyric “Some people say it’s just rock ‘n roll, ah, but it gets you right down to your soul,” the Austin crowd is rapt under his spell and ready to preach the gospel of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

“One of the most famous Austin City Limits episodes of all time was the Tom Waits show in 1978—people still talk about it,” says ACL executive producer Terry Lickona. “Nick Cave is the Tom Waits show of the 21st century! You will absolutely tell your friends about this one. You’ve got to see it to believe it!”

photo by Scott Newton

Tune in this weekend for this episode, and, as always, check your local PBS listings for the broadcast time in your area. Go to the episode page for more info, and don’t forget to click over to our Facebook, Twitter and newsletter pages for more ACL info. Next week: Los Lobos and Thao & the Get Down Stay Down.

 

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Featured News Taping Announcement

New taping: The Black Keys

Austin City Limits is proud to welcome back The Black Keys for our 40th anniversary season. The powerhouse rock duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney make their second appearance on the ACL stage on the heels of their recent release Turn Blue, which debuted at #1 on Billboard‘s album chart. The acclaimed rockers made an epic ACL debut in Season 36 around the release of their 2010 breakout album Brothers. The six-time Grammy winners have since gone on to achieve worldwide critical and commercial success with the landmark 2011 release El Camino and have been unstoppable ever since.

Currently in the midst of a North American tour, including an ATX date on December 19 at Frank Erwin Center, we’re thrilled to have The Black Keys join us on November 17 for the final taping of our milestone season.

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes about a week before the taping. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings.