What do you get when you combine 130 incredible musical
acts, 3 days of phenomenal Central Texas Fall weather, 75,000 enthusiastic
music fans per day, and a picturesque 351 acre park located in the heart of the
“Live Music Capital of the World?” The only possible answer to this question: The
12th annual Austin City Limits Music Festival.
Once again, the highly acclaimed Austin City Limits
television show – created and produced by KLRU-TV, Austin PBS – joined forces with
C3 Presents to put together a diverse showcase of talented artists for this
year’s mega-festival. And what could possibly be better than experiencing 3
fun-filled days of extraordinary music performed on the Great Lawn of Austin’s
crown jewel, Zilker Park
The festival occupied 8 stages spread across Zilker Park and
included an Art Market selling fine art and iconic souvenirs, a Farmers Market
with homegrown treats including vegetarian and gluten-free items, a 20,000 square
foot Beer Hall equipped with big screen televisions broadcasting sporting
events, and a food court featuring popular choices from many local food trucks
and eateries. Children attending the festival with their parents were welcomed
to enjoy age appropriate music and fun activities at the Austin Kiddie Limits
stage sponsored by Rosetta Stone. Following the ACL
tradition of working to impact Austin
in a positive way, ACL Cares also showed
those attending the festival ways to support the local musical community, how
to register to save lives, and how to preserve Texas ’
natural resources.
The festival kicked off at 11:15
AM on Friday, October 4,
2013 with The Orwells on the Honda stage and Wild Nothing taking to
the Samsung Galaxy stage. At noon , Austin
based and multiple Grammy Award winners, Ray Benson and Asleep At The Wheel
brought their Texas Swing sounds to the AMD
stage. From then on there was no turning back. As the Austin
temperature rose to near 90 degrees, band after band found fans anxiously
awaiting their appearances on stage. Groups as diverse as Country Music’s Court
Yard Hounds, Gospel’s Blind Boys Of Alabama, Indie Pop’s fun., Rock’s Queens
of the Stone Age, and Electronica’s Depeche Mode all found enthusiastic crowds
at their performances. And they weren't
the only ones. Others performing on Friday included: Savages, Shovels and Rope,
Smith Westerns, Local Natives, Vampire Weekend, Jake Bugg, Artic Monkeys,
Kaskade, and the closer for the night, Muse.
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| Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel perform for day one of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Martie Maguire and Emily Erwin of the Court Yard Hounds perform for day one of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Nate Ruess of the band fun. performs for day one of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend performs for day one of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Matthew Bellamy of Muse performs for day one of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
Weather reports were calling for the afternoon passing of a
cold front and possible rain as the gates opened on Saturday morning, but the
sometimes hard to forecast Central Texas weather behaved itself this time, and
the crowds were treated to an amazing day of mild temperatures and hot music
for day two of ACL Fest 2013. As in years
past, the musical acts were made up of well known local group as well as world
renowned acts. Some of the groups appearing on Saturday, October 5, 2013 included: Parquet Courts, Dan
Croll, Mona, Reignwolf, Haim , Portugal Leon .
Rock fans of all ages were thrilled to experience The Cure closing out the
night on the AMD stage. In all, 43 acts
appeared throughout the park before the day was over.
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| Este Haim of the band Haim performs for day two of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Valerie June performs for day two of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Jeff Tweedy of Wilco performs for day two of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Robert Smith of The Cure performs for day two of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
After the overnight passing of thunderstorms, festival
attendees were met by clear skies and cool (for Austin )
temperatures on Sunday morning, October 6, as day three of week one of the ACL
Fest got underway. Once again a great variety of musical genres were represented
in Zilker Park Bear
Mountain , Kodaline, The Mowgli’s, Ms Mr, and Noah and The Whale.
They were later joined by Grouplove, Paper Diamond, Divine Fits, White Denim,
The National, Franz Ferdinand, and Toro Y Moi. Early evening performances
included Tame Impala, Neko Case, Phoenix
and country music star Eric Church. Closing out the night on the AMD
stage on the west side of the park was Atoms for Peace with front man, Thom
York of Radiohead and Bassist, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. On the east
side of the park, and closing out an incredible weekend of music, fans were
treated to the sounds of Motown as Lionel Richie graced the Samsung Galaxy
stage.
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| Matt Berninger of The National performs for day three of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Eric Church performs for day three of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Flea of Atoms for Peace performs for day three of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
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| Lionel Richie performs for day three of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
Once again the Austin City Limits Music Festival brought
together an amazing array of gifted individuals to produce an incredible
weekend of music in Austin , Texas Austin the weekend of October 3,
4, and 5 or October 10, 11, and 12, 2014, so you too can experience why Austin
is called the “Live Music Capital of the World.”
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| Lionel Richie performs for day three of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas |
Review by Margy Moore
Photographs by Scott Moore / Limelight Imaging
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