Austin City Limits, or just "ACL," is one of the more famous festivals in the United States. Not quite as big a deal as, say, Coachella, but it's up there. I'm sure it's the biggest one in Texas, and it features artists from all over the genre spectrum from rock to rap to electronic to country, and every level of popularity from the biggest names to flavors-of-the-month with one big radio hit to unknowns just beginning their careers. It happens over the first two weekends of every October (except 2020, of course) in Zilker Park in Austin, Texas.

I've experienced ACL no less than five times.

2013

This was my first ever ACL and I only experienced one day of it. I had known the festival existed but knew little else about it, until a few friends wanted to go to weekend two that year. At some point in the summer I bought wristbands for Saturday and Sunday.

I wasn't quite a festival virgin anymore at that point, but looking back, it still seemed like I was since the only thing resembling a festival I had previously been to was Meltdown, a one-night EDM fest in Grand Prairie (a Dallas suburb) in June 2012.

I think I arrived at ACL in the early afternoon, but probably not too early because I know how empty and deserted the park looks in the first two or three hours and I don't remember it being that spacious that day. Also, I never thought to pick up a brochure with a schedule, as I always did in later years, so I can't look at it now and see who played when and at what stage.

At one point I saw the Silversun Pickups at what I think was called the Samsung stage. It's probably the biggest stage in the park. I've only known them for two songs, "Panic Switch" and "The Royal We." and didn't know any of their other stuff but enjoyed their set nonetheless.

Here's Passion Pit, who I wasn't too familiar with yet. What stage is this, Homeaway?

For me, the most memorable moment was my first discovering Grimes. I just happened to stumble onto this one stage where this otherworldly music just pulled me in. I couldn't define it at all, it didn't fit any label like "pop" or "rock" at all; it certainly was electronic but you couldn't dance to it. And it was being performed by this artist wearing this shiny metallic outfit while moving around the stage like a baton-twirling rhythmic gymnast. I didn't know who this was but I really wanted to, so I asked someone next to me who happened to have a schedule on him. We were watching someone only named "Grimes." I expected to have a hard time remembering this, since it was such a random-seeming ordinary surname, but thankfully I did remember. She was touring in support of her then-new Visions album, so the songs we were hearing included "Genesis" and "Oblivion." I've been a fan ever since. Her subsequent Art Angels (2014) album has been the soundtrack for many a road trip for me.

These days (2020, when I'm writing this) she seems to be additionally famous for being in a relationship with Elon Musk and bearing his sixth and her first child, a son who they have named X Æ A-12...sometimes I think she has gone off the eccentric-artist deep end.

There's a long-held belief about Texas weather, that it can change wildly and unpredictably at any moment. It had been hot and sunny all day, but as the sun set that night, it was hard to notice the rain clouds moving in. As I watched a bit of the Kings of Leon's set from a distance, back at the Barton Springs Beer Hall, the rain started to fall. Before I knew it, the rain was coming down in buckets and everyone was clamoring to get out. I don't know how long it took for me to exit the festival with the crowd and get to my car, but I got absolutely soaked.

Outside the gates, I briefly passed by a church group who apparently thought festival goers were all hell-bound and that they could win our souls with their signs with Bible verses...more on them later.

So I did the hour-plus drive back to my apartment in San Antonio expecting to be burning more gas doing the same trip the next day. But the weather never improved, and when I checked my email the next morning I discovered that Sunday's festival was canceled because of the rain. All of us who were going to go were refunded our money.

2015

While this wasn't technically my first ACL, it felt like it, since I'd only been through one day in 2013 and I was doing a whole weekend of this one. I missed almost all of Friday, though. I still had to go to work that day, so in the afternoon had to suffer through one of Austin's infamous rush hour traffic jams on I-35. My hotel, unlike in subsequent years, was downtown; I think it was La Quinta.

By the time I finally got into the fest it was pretty late but I was fortunately able to see most of the Foo Fighters' headlining set. They had a couple decades' worth of material to go through but the thing I remember the most was Dave Grohl having to spend the whole time sitting because one of his legs was injured.

Saturday afternoon I didn't see a whole lot; I spent most of the time with the extended "fam" at our "base camp." I did catch parts of sets by Echosmith and Walk The Moon, two bands who were enjoying their 15 minutes of fame at that time.

Way up there is Walk the Moon, who had been a bar band from Columbus, Ohio, not too far from where I grew up. They broke out of the bar circuit with a huge hit called "Shut Up and Dance." You know, looking at this photo now after seven months of the Coronavirus pandemic, I can't see this without thinking about how not-socially-distanced this crowd is.

The last set at Homeaway on Saturday was Bassnectar. This was my first time experiencing a Bassnectar set. Now, other than "someone who turns up on the bill at every festival every year," how do I describe Bassnectar to the uninitiated? Well...his real name's Lorin Ashton, he has waist-length hair, he makes slow bass-heavy electronic music that I can only describe as hypnotic, and he is strangely divisive, having as many rabid fans ("bassheads") as haters. I don't think I qualify as either a fan or a hater; while I don't tend to listen to his kind of music very often, I still enjoyed his sets here and at Middle Lands (2017) and Float Fest (2018).

Finally, deadmau5 headlining the Honda stage.

So up above I mentioned that on the way out two years earlier I walked past the church people picketing one of the gates with their signs. This time I took a picture.

I wonder, does anyone ever get "saved" here? No one I could see took them seriously at all, and the most attention they got was from people taking goofy selfies next to them. I also overheard someone in front of me say "If Jesus were here, he'd rock out at ACL, not hang around those guys."

Higlights from Sunday...


Years & Years had a few tunes that I liked, like "Shine," though I haven't kept up with them much since then.

This is Halsey. I had never heard of her before this point, but I liked what I was hearing from this stage enough to stick around for the rest of the set. I think she'd just released her debut album Badlands and was singing the songs off of that.

Nero had a pretty good set. This is when they were riding high in the electronic world with then-recent tracks like "Two Minds," "Into the Night," and "Promises."

The Weeknd closing down the Honda stage as I made my way to the exit.

Looking back at the program now, I can hardly believe I missed a whole bunch of artists who I didn't know or care about back then but grew to like later. Misterwives was there? and Alt-J? and Griz? and Alabama Shakes?

That weekend was only the beginning to a great vacation; the very next day I'd be on a cruise ship bound for Progreso, Mexico.

2016

This one is probably tied with 2018 as my favorite ACL that I've been to. After driving into Austin and checking into my hotel, I made it into the festival in time to see Major Lazer, who were OK...I really like their song "Lean On" but everything else they've done never really did it for me, because it sounded too much like frat party music to me.

After the festival night was over, I met up with some friends at a nearby bar, who happened to have a schedule with them. I eagerly looked this over...and soon felt crushed when I saw that on Sunday night Porter Robinson and Madeon were on at the same time as Haim! I was really looking forward to both sets, but now I realized the best I could do would be to catch half of one and half of the other.

2016 was the 15th iteration of ACL. Here at this display they had the posters from all of them, all the way back to the first ACL in 2002.

Aside from catching a little bit of Gallant's and City and Colour's sets, I don't remember a whole lot about Saturday afternoon. Later though, there were two artists on at the same time who I wanted to see, and thus had to do the same half-hour-of-one-half-hour-of-the-other trick I was planning to do tomorrow.

First, the Naked and Famous at the Cirrus Logic stage. This is a synth-based band originally from New Zealand but currently based in Los Angeles. "Young Blood," "Hearts Like Ours," and "Punching In A Dream" are all great songs.

Last, Melanie Martinez, who had just released her debut album Cry Baby, at the Miller Lite stage.  Her whole image, and the titles of all the songs on her album, had this early-childhood theme, but the actual lyrics to her songs were quite dark and disturbing. There was "Dollhouse" about a horribly dysfunctional family, and "Tag, You're It" which seems to be about being stalked...it all felt like the soundtrack to a horror movie and I have to admire the originality.

Norwegian electronic producer Kygo, who had just released his Cloud Nine album, headlined the night at the Honda stage, and he had Australian singer Conrad Sewell there to sing "Firestone."

I entered the festival on Sunday right as it was starting up. At that point the unknown, no-name opening acts were playing while there weren't very big crowds around. At the Honda stage was such an unknown named Lizzo. I wish I'd had the foresight to take a picture because I heard she's blown up since then.

Here's Break Science at the Tito's Handmade Vodka stage. This was probably the third time I saw them live, the first and second being at Euphoria 2015 and 2016. Trouble is, I didn't consciously remember either of those sets. After listening to their songs all summer in preparation for this, after seeing them here for what I thought was the first time, I just happened to look back through my Instagram posts and discovered I had already watched and took pics of them closing down Euphoria. Just how tattered and fragmented is my memory?

There's a famous and, in certain circles, iconic music store in Austin known as Waterloo Records. Every year they set up a temporary building at ACL where they sell CDs and vinyl records. Now I rarely ever buy music on physical media anymore; these days if I buy an album it's downloaded from iTunes or Amazon. But, if they've got a captive audience here willing to blow money on souvenirs...I walked out of that metal tent with Haim Days Are Gone and Kygo Cloud Nine on CD, as well as Porter Robinson Worlds and LCD Soundsystem Sound of Silver on vinyl.

After stepping out of Waterloo I found a band playing at the Homeaway stage, St. Paul and the Broken Bones. I hadn't heard of them before but I liked their sound that recalled the '60s soul era. I stayed there for a little bit, but had to grab dinner from one of the food stands and then go catch Miike Snow at the Honda stage.

I caught the first half hour of Porter Robinson and Madeon's set at the Cirrus Logic stage. They kicked it off with "Shelter," the then-new track they had just collaborated on and released together, followed by Porter's "Sad Machine." I couldn't enjoy the whole set, though, as much as I wanted to, becuase behind them was the Homeaway stage on which Haim, who I also really wanted to see, were playing. So halfway through the set I cut through the crowds to get to the other stage.

Danielle, Alana, and Este Haim on the Homeaway stage. Great half-set, but I was slightly disappointed because most of what I heard was not what I was familiar with, but from their forthcoming then-unreleased Something to Tell You album. Now, I did buy that album the following year and listen to it incessantly, because it's that good, but at that time when they were playing ACL I didn't know any of it yet and it was still a bunch of unfamiliar songs to me.

The Sunday night Honda stage headliners were LCD Soundsystem, who I'd heard of but didn't know much about before that year, so, as with so many other festival artists, I had to put myself through a crash course in familiarization with their music during the summer before the fest. Or maybe I shoud say "his" instead of "their" because LCD Soundsystem is really just one musician, James Murphy, who has been augmented by varying studio and touring musicians. As LCD Soundsystem he released three albums in the 2000s which were well received by fans but completely escaped my attention back then, which is why I had to quickly catch up during the summer of 2016. The song "Losing My Edge" is what first put the name LCD Soundsystem on the map back in 2002 and I thought it was funny as hell, and not only did Murphy save it for last during this set, he stretched it out over more than 10 minutes with lyrics I suspect he was improvising on the spot.

So that was ACL 2016, my favorite iteration thus far which set the standard for future ACL's to live up to. Thus far I've only been to two more since then, 2017 and 2018, and of those only 2018 I enjoyed as much as this one.

To be continued...