Austin City Limits

Austin City Limits is proud to announce a new Season 41 taping – TV on the Radio on March 16th, making their ACL debut. The Brooklyn-based quartet has been called  “one of the most compelling American rock and roll stories of the modern age” by the BBC, “the most innovative band on the planet” by AV Club and “the most vital, current band in America” by the Associated Press.  Their critically-acclaimed latest release Seeds topped 2014 Year-End Best lists including capturing the top spot on respected critic Jon Pareles’ New York Times’ Best Albums of 2014 list.  The influential band stole the hearts of fans and critics with its 2004 LP Desperate Hearts, Blood Thirsty Babes. By the time 2006’s Return to Cookie Mountain took Spin’s album of the year honors, the band’s eclectic musical spirit – encompassing rock, soul, psychedelia and electronica –  had made it one of the most esteemed acts in the world, with collaborations featuring David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on its resumé. With a live show described as  “sexy nerdiness letting go in a controlled blast of unleashed energy” (The Boston Globe), TV on the Radio will give Austin City Limits a stunning show.

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.

We’re proud to announce the final taping of Season 41, the Austin City Limits debut of the Tedeschi Trucks Band on December 14th.

Formed in 2010 by guitarist Derek Trucks and singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi, who appeared twice on ACL under her own name, the 12-piece Tedeschi Trucks Band has quickly become the vanguard of modern roots music. Hailed as “a deeply skilled groove machine (Los Angeles Times) that “booms like a soul thunderclap” (Boston Herald), the band has cemented their reputation for thrilling audiences worldwide with its legendary live performances and award-winning albums. In just five years, Tedeschi Trucks Band has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia, Europe, and Japan, with headline performances at both The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the venerable Newport Jazz Festival, co-headlining tours with B.B. King and The Black Crowes, and packed houses from Red Rocks Amphitheatre and NYC’s Beacon Theatre to the Hollywood Bowl and London’s Royal Albert Hall.

TTB’s debut release Revelator earned both a Grammy Award and multiple Blues Music Awards. 2011’s dynamic live follow-up, Everybody’s Talkin’, delivered a double-disc classic reminiscent of legendary concert recordings like The Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East. Its sophomore studio effort, 2013’s Made Up Mind, bolstered the Jacksonville, Florida-based group’s growing reputation as the preeminent soul, rock and blues leader. The band’s highly anticipated third studio album Let Me Get By will be released in early 2016.

Sharing a level of respect and camaraderie rarely found in rock and roll, TTB has found a magical combination that delivers nightly an unforgettable, can’t-miss concert experience.

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

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Austin City Limits is pleased to announce our first taping of Season 43—with the legendary rock & roll band The Pretenders on March 13, 2017.   

Led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Chrissie Hynde, The Pretenders 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,” including most of Auerbach’s side band the Arcs, Akron natives Hynde and Auerbach made for ideal foils, two idiosyncratic songwriter/musicians possessing a deep knowledge and even deeper love of rock & 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 is perhaps more emotional and aggressive than at any other time in her nearly 40-year 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 inimitable contribution from legendary twang bar 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.

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.

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.

Austin City Limits is thrilled to welcome back hometown heroes The Black Angels on May 23rd for their second ACL taping, armed with a powerful new record Death Song.

Death Song is the Austin psych rock masters’ 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. “Currency,” a strong contender for the heaviest song the band has ever put to wax, meditates on the governing role the monetary system plays in our lives.  Album highlight “Half Believing,” the track Texas Monthly calls “a turning point for the band,” is a slow-building stunner that questions the nature and confusing realities of devotion. Recorded between Seattle and Austin, ‘Death Song’ features production from Phil Ek (Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, The Shins). 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.  Classic Rock says Death Song “is their heaviest to date, a toxic draught of garage-rock and booming psychedelia that buzzes with echo and reverb,” while A.V. Club claims “confirms there’s no end to the kinds of hurt and frustration that can be channeled into its cathartic music.”

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 band’s 2010 breakthrough Phosphene Dream launched the Austin collective onto the world stage, drawing massive audiences for their scorched earth live shows and touring with Queens of the Stone Age, Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Black Keys and more, and landing on festival stages including Glastonbury, Fuji Rock, Primavera, Harvest Fest, Coachella, Bonnaroo, Fun Fun Fun Fest and, of course, Austin City Limits Music Festival. Two of the band members co-founded Levitation Festival (formerly Austin Psych Fest) in 2008, which has since grown into one of the best-reviewed and expertly-curated festivals in the country. The Black Angels made a stellar ACL debut in 2013 and we look forward to their return.

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