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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Tag: Season 40
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
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!”
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.
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 presents a Season 40 highlight—the return of ACL veteran Jeff Tweedy for a very special hour of music. The Wilco leader showcases his new solo project Tweedy, joined by son Spencer and their special guests, as they perform a mix of new songs and Wilco classics.
As a longtime favorite son of ACL, it’s only fitting that Jeff Tweedy returns to the ACL stage with his own son for the show’s milestone 40th anniversary season. The esteemed singer-songwriter has appeared on ACL four times previously with his main outfit Wilco, starting back in Season 25. This new installment marks his first-ever solo outing for ACL, accompanied by his 18-year-old son Spencer Tweedy on drums, with lush harmonies from Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe of the band Lucius.
“It took me 18 years to have a solo record because I had to grow a drummer,” jokes Tweedy to the ACL audience, as the father-son team begin the strikingly intimate hour with songs from the critically-acclaimed 2014 release Sukierae. In a recent four-star review, Rolling Stone hails the debut as “another tour de force from a guy who’s made a few.” Closing the five-song band set of new material with the new folk-rocker “Nobody Dies Anymore”, the Grammy-winning frontman treats the Austin crowd to a solo acoustic set of fan favorites from Wilco’s vast catalog including “Via Chicago” and “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”. Tweedy also performs a spirited version of Austin songwriter Doug Sahm’s classic “Give Back the Key to My Heart”, a song he recorded more than twenty years ago as a member of the legendary Uncle Tupelo. The episode comes to a captivating close with Jeff Tweedy taking the stage solo for a powerful rendition of Wilco’s “Misunderstood.”
“This show has special meaning for all of us at ACL,” says ACL executive producer Terry Lickona. “A few years ago I introduced Wilco from the stage as the band that best sums up everything that Austin City Limits is all about. Jeff Tweedy continues to be one of the most creative voices in modern music, and together with his son they continue to build on two incredible legacies – his and ours!”
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: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
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Ryan Adams’ triumphant return to ACL
Ryan Adams made a triumphant return to the Austin City Limits stage last night playing a quiet, soulful acoustic set followed by a rocking electric set keeping fans on their feet for over two hours. Tonight’s taping was two shows for the price of one.
In perfect contrast to the nature of the first set, Adams hit the stage in a Dag Nasty T-shirt and a blue jean jacket adorned by punk rock patches before essaying a series of his patented melancholy ballads. He opened with “Oh My Sweet Carolina” from his debut solo album Heartbreaker; while it was originally a duet with Emmylou Harris, it worked just fine solo. Adams alternated between older tunes (“Desire,” “Please Do Not Let Me Go,” “My Winding Wheel”) and songs from his new self-titled LP (“My Wrecking Ball,” “Am I Safe,” “Gimme Something Good”), peppering his tales of disappointment and heartbreak with enough snappy patter to make Spider-Man proud. He ended the solo set with a particularly affecting “If I Was a Stranger” and a ramshackle romp through Bryan Adams’ “Run To You,” leaving the audience in both tears and stitches.
With a stage festooned with a fake giant amp, a golden skull, an American flag with a peace symbol, a stuffed tiger and a video game console loaded with 80s classics, Adams and his new band the Shining arrived and launched into a fully-amplified version of “Gimme Something Good,” making the title a demand instead of a plea. Expertly backed by his quartet (which included Mike Viola, the voice of “That Thing You Do”), Adams followed the same pattern as the acoustic set, moving back and forth between new tunes and old favorites. Recent songs like the Stonesy rocker “Stay With Me,” the dramatic rock ballads “Do I Wait” and “Dirty Rain” and the atmospheric noisemaker “Shadows” were greeted with the same enthusiasm as older set pieces like the pretty folk popper “La Cienega Just Smiled,” the sad country lament “Dear Chicago” and the rousing anthem “New York New York.”
The show came to a head near the end, with a medley of “Rats in the Walls” and “When the Summer Ends,” a pair of brief tunes from his recent 1984 EP, and the mood-swinging dynamics of the charged “I See Monsters” from Love is Hell. Adams ended the show where he began, revisiting his solo debut Heartbreaker for the profane country kiss off “Come Pick Me Up,” at which the audience cheered as soon as he played its opening harmonica lick. It was a sprawling, wide-ranging trip through Adams’ musical mind, and we can’t wait for you to see it when it broadcasts on PBS early next year. Stay tuned.