We are so excited about our upcoming broadcast season on PBS that we want to preview it for our Austin fans first! Join us on September 6 at 8:30 pm at Republic Square Park when we join forces with the Alamo Drafthouse and Austin Parks Foundation and go behind the scenes of some of our most exciting tapings to date – Bon Iver, Bonnie Raitt, the Shins and more. Plus we will screen the season premiere featuring Radiohead. And if this sneak peek isn’t enough – it’s free! Grab your friends and a blanket and join us at Republic Square Park to experience ACL on the grass and under the stars!
Tag: Season 38
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Ticket Giveaway: Tim McGraw 8/6
Austin City Limits will be taping a performance by Tim McGraw on Monday, August 6th, 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 9 am Thursday, August 2. Passes are not transferable and cannot be sold. Standing may be required.
“You’ll have to forgive me, I’m finding myself a little bit speechless tonight,” commented Kat Edmonson. She may have been at a loss for words when it came to talking, but when it came to singing, she had no hesitation. Owner of both a soulful tone — somewhere between Billie Holiday and Blossom Dearie — and a sterling set of songs, Edmonson lit up the stage for her Austin City Limits debut.
The singer/songwriter has the amazing ability to produce fresh material that sounds, shall we say, experienced – the jaunty jazz tune “Long Way Home,” for example, or the lullaby-like waltz “I’m Not In Love,” which could have come from a 60-year old Disney film. “What else can I do,” she crooned over a samba rhythm, “I’m still in love with you” from “What Can I Do?” sounded like an old standard, but is, in fact, an Edmonson original. Even the blues-tinged ballad “Hopelessly Blue,” written by Miles Zuniga of the Austin rock band Fastball, came across as a great tune rediscovered.
Edmonson sang several of her tried and true songs including the sly “Champagne,” the slinky cha-cha “This Was the One” and the string-driven “Lucky.” Her lauded skills as an interpreter were also on display as she mesmerized the crowd with a pair of gorgeous, melancholy ballads drawn from different decades: the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds classic “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” and the 1940-vintage Ink Spots slow dancer “Whispering Grass.” She closed the set with the straightforward folk/pop of “I Don’t Know,” a Willie Bobo-associated song written by Sonny Henry, the author of Santana’s “Evil Ways.”
By the end of the show, Edmonson had led the audience back to the start, opening and closing the evening with the same song. She gave her tune “Nobody Knows That” a frothy jazz/pop reading at the beginning, then stripped it down to piano and voice for the encore. It was a perfect way to bookend a stellar evening that celebrated song and voice in equal measure. We can’t wait for you to see and hear the remarkable Kat Edmonson – this fall on PBS.
Southwest Airlines, the official airline of Austin City Limits, has set up a drawing for our upcoming Tim McGraw taping on August 6. Winners receive not only a pair of passes to the show, but also roundtrip airfare and two nights at the W Hotel (conveniently located adjacent to ACL Live at the Moody Theater). Go here for more details and the entry form. Don’t wait too long – the contest ends on July 20. And fear not, we’ll also be doing a regular lottery for passes as we get closer to the show.
With over a decade of acclaimed albums and a rapidly growing following for their live show, Dr. Dog has been bubbling under the radar long enough that they are ready to blow up. Given the Philadelphia band’s continued upward momentum, it was inevitable the band would grace the ACL stage. When it finally happened last night, it wasn’t just for the hundreds of lucky fans who joined us in the studio. For only the second time in the show’s history, we streamed an ACL taping, bringing an unvarnished view of Dr. Dog’s unique psychedelic indie rock to the masses.
Dr. Dog launched into the catchy pop song “Shadow People” from the ACL stage that had been enhanced with lamps, desks and antique ephemera (“Dr. Dog ‘s stage decor gives me the urge to go antique shopping down on SoCo,” quipped star512 ).
Wielding a setlist made of an even mix of their last three LPs (Be the Void, Shame, Shame and Fate), the sextet worked its magic on an eager crowd of diehard fans who appreciated the depth of the catalog. Balancing instrumental skill with a relaxed looseness, the band combined influences from across the spectrum of rock history with stunning clarity – “Kudos to whomever is mixing,” commented @johnlmyers. “Sounds fantastic.” “Lonesome” boasted a band vibe, while “Do the Trick” subtly incorporated a Philly soul groove. “Vampire” mixed late-period Beatles with noisy rock, while “That Old Black Hole” added a Johnny Cash backbeat to the psychedelic stew. The spaghetti western dub psych of “Fate” sounded as at home in the band’s hands as the gypsy melody and reggae rhythms peeking out of “The Ark.”
A Dr. Dog show isn’t all musical eclecticism, however – “I Only Wear Blue,” “Heavy Light” and “Where’d All the Time Go?” offered plenty of singalong moments and catchy melodies. “Dr. Dog have become a fierce distillation of American rock ‘n’ roll music,” notes AustinBloggyLimits. “These guys are so versatile,” enthused Aunt Betty Reden on Facebook. “Awesome! Refreshing!”
The main set ended with the propulsive epic “The Rabbit, the Bat, and the Reindeer,” but Dr. Dog wasn’t through with us yet. The band pulled the tongue-in-cheek gospel suicide note “Die, Die, Die” from the LP We All Belong (surprising director and crew, as it wasn’t on the setlist) before ending with a rare treat: its cover of Architecture in Helsinki’s “Heart It Races,” a tune the Dog doesn’t perform live often. It was a rapturous end to a show Frank Cunningham from the band’s Philly stomping ground declared on Facebook, “Freakin’ magnificent!”
Derek Neasham of Georgia asserts, “Feed’s been great! I hope they start making this a common practice. “ So do we, Derek. Thanks to everyone who joined in studio and online, and we hope to hear from you and all the folks at home come October when the ACL episode featuring Dr. Dog hits your television screens.
June may be vacation time for most folks, but here at Austin City Limits we’re happy to come to work. Why? Because we have not one, not two but three great artists visiting us: Dr. Dog on June 25 and Bonnie Raitt and Mavis Staples on June 27.
Hailing from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dr. Dog has had the virtue of developing far away from the music industry. Grown organically through practice and experimentation, the band’s quirky, catchy pop draws equally from the psychedelic 60s and the indie rock 00s. Dr. Dog earned its national break in 2004 after going on the road with ACL veterans My Morning Jacket. The band has since become a well-traveled touring outfit, releasing half a dozen albums and appearing on the late night TV shows of David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien and Craig Ferguson. Armed with its acclaimed seventh LP Be the Void, Dr. Dog records their first episode of Austin City Limits on June 25.
Bonnie Raitt needs no introduction to ACL fans, having appeared on the show twice before, in Seasons 9 and 28. The veteran musician’s remarkable talents are back in the public eye this year with Slipstream, the first release on her own Redwing Records label and her first since 2005’s Souls Alike. NPR praised Slipstream as “vital and fresh… beautiful,” Rolling Stone gave it a 4-star review, and Entertainment Weekly wrote “Superb… she slips her purring voice into every song like a letter going into an envelope addressed just to you.” The album debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200, marking the nine time Grammy-winner’s highest charting album and best sales week in nearly two decades. We welcome Bonnie Raitt back to the ACL stage on June 27.
But Ms. Raitt is not coming alone. Joining her will be gospel/R&B legend Mavis Staples. The Chicago native began her career in 1950 with the Staple Singers, who became one of the most successful family gospel bands in America with pop hits “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There.” The Staple Singers represented the musical voice of the Civil Rights movement due in part to their friendship with Martin Luther King and also to their willingness to record material as topical as it was inspirational. Mavis first tested the solo waters in the late 60s, recording sporadically for the next 40 years. Currently signed to hip label Anti-, Mavis is still riding high on the success of 2010’s You’re Not Alone, produced by pal Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. Now she’s bringing her venerated pipes, whose “otherworldly power comes…from a masterful command of phrasing and deep-seated sensuality” (All Music), to the Moody Theater for her Austin City Limits debut.
Stay with us on Facebook, Twitter and this very blog for more news about upcoming tapings, and check out our Tumblr page for blasts from the past.