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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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News

Giveaway: Father John Misty 8/22

UPDATE: Giveaway is now over.

Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Father John Misty on Tuesday, August 22nd at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). 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 noon on Friday, Aug. 18th.

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. No cameras computers or recording devices allowed in venue.

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News

Giveaway: Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit and Amanda Shires 8/21

UPDATE: Giveaway is now over.

Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit and Amanda Shires on Monday, August 21st at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). 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 noon on Friday, Aug. 18th.

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. No cameras computers or recording devices allowed in venue.

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News

Giveaway: Ed Sheeran 8/20

UPDATE: GIVEAWAY IS NOW OVER.

Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Ed Sheeran on Sunday, August 20th at 8 pm at ACL Live at The Moody Theater (310 W. 2nd Street, Willie Nelson Blvd). 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 noon on Thursday, Aug. 17th.

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. No cameras computers or recording devices allowed in venue.

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Featured News

R.I.P. Glen Campbell

We at Austin City Limits were saddened to learn of the death of country pop great Glen Campbell at age 81.

The Arkansas native began his career as a first-call session guitarist in Los Angeles, playing as part of the infamous Wrecking Crew and adding licks to a staggering array of hits records: the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas,” Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried,” and singles by everyone from Jan & Dean and the Monkees to Frank Sinatra and Nat “King” Cole. In 1964, he subbed for the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson on tour and in 1967 sang uncredited lead vocals for the cult sunshine pop group Sagittarius.

Campbell scored his first solo hit on the country charts in 1966 with “Burning Bridges,” but it was in 1967 that he became a household name with “Gentle On My Mind.” He followed that with even bigger hits, forging a special bond with songwriter Jimmy Webb via “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston,” “Where’s the Playground Susie” and “Wichita Lineman,” which became his signature song. He parlayed his musical stardom into a major acting gig in the 1969 John Wayne vehicle True Grit, for which he also performed the title tune, and the host job on the popular TV show The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour from 1969-1972.

Refocusing on music, Campbell earned some of his biggest hits in the 1970s, including the #1 pop smashes “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “Southern Nights” and the top 20 hit “Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in L.A.).” While his pop stardom faded, he remained a major force on the country charts for years, also expanding into gospel and Christian music. In 2008, he released Meet Glen Campbell, an album featuring covers of songs by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the Replacements, Green Day and the Foo Fighters. His 2010 follow-up Ghost On the Canvas followed a similar vein, and was intended as a farewell LP. But his 2011 diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease led him to one final album (Adios, recorded in 2012-13 but released in 2017), a farewell tour and a documentary, 2014’s award-winning Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me. His final recording, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You,” was released in 2014, by which time he was living in a Nashville memory care facility. He died in Nashville on August 8, 2017.

Campbell appeared on Austin City Limits during Season 10 in 1985. Here he is on the show performing his signature hit “Wichita Lineman.”

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News Taping Recap

Taping recap: Zac Brown Band

Grammy-award winning, multi-platinum Zac Brown Band has been a consistent presence in the music world since 2008’s major label debut The Foundation, and it was inevitable that they would eventually make their way to our stage. So we were pleased to welcome one of music’s biggest live acts, celebrating the success of their latest record Welcome Home with a career-spanning set in front of a crowd practically vibrating with excitement.

Said crowd cheered wildly as the octet took the stage. ZBB launched into the easygoing country rock of “Home Grown,” both a statement of purpose and a clear fan favorite. Brown kept the theme of home and comfort going with Welcome Home’s poppy “Family Table,” before entering a more philosophical mode with the anthemic “Quiet Your Mind,” which he called “one of my favorite things we’ve ever recorded.” The group brought down the intensity with the rolling country ballad “Sweet Annie,” before starting back up that ramp with the power-of-music testament “Day That I Die.” “I never get tired of playing this song,” Brown declared before easing into “Free,” a flowing anthem that smoothly segued into Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic,” to the crowd’s delight.

The band dipped into its country bag for “Goodbye in Her Eyes” and “2 Place at 1 Time,” an ode to trying to be on the road and with one’s family at once. ZBB then cranked up the congas and the clavinet for the rocking grooves of “Day For the Dead,” a salute to Hallowe’en and the Day of the Dead that allowed the musicians to really stretch out with both their instruments and some impressive counterpoint vocals. The band slowed down the tempo but turned up the heat for the #1 hit “Colder Weather,” a power ballad in the grand tradition. Welcome Home contributed “Roots,” once again affirming the inextricable bond Brown has with music, before ZBB stripped their sound down for the ballad “My Old Man,” a tribute to father figures everywhere. The rock returned for the power waltz “The Muse,” before the band closed the main set in tribute to Gregg Allman, burning through the Allman Brothers Band classic “Whipping Post” with keyboardist/guitarist Clay Cook on soulful lead vocals and Brown taking lead guitar. 

Of course, it wasn’t really over. After the audience showed its loud appreciation, the octet returned for “All the Best,” a heartfelt take on John Prine’s great ballad. After expressing his love for Prine, Brown immediately launched into the fingerpicking pattern of “Chicken Fried,” the band’s biggest smash. The crowd cheered wildly and began singing along immediately, amping up even further when the band brought on a member of the United States Armed Services in appreciation of their service. To close out the night, Brown donned a bass guitar and thanked the band’s crew, before launching into a surprise (well, except to longtime ZBB fans): a pounding cover of Metallica’s greatest hit “Enter Sandman,” sung by guitarist John Driskell Hopkins and highlighted by Jimmy DeMartini’s effects-laden electric violin solo. Brown introduced the band as the finally satiated audience showed its love. It was a great show, and we can’t wait for you to see it when it airs as part of our upcoming Season 43 which premieres this fall on your local PBS station.