Rocktographers is going to Austin, Texas to cover the first weekend of Austin City Limits Music Festival 2019. Festival season isn’t over!
Now in its 18th year, Austin City Limits Music Festival is one of the largest music festivals in the United States with about 450,000 people attending over its two weekends in October.
The festival is held in a section of the 350 acre Zilker Park that sits along the Colorado River and Baron Creek just south of Austin’s downtown core. There’s eight music stages and this year they’ve added a 9th stage called the Bonus Tracks stage that will have interviews, live podcast recordings and interactive wellness events. One stage is even dedicated for entertainment for kids in the afternoons.
Marquee names for weekend one include Guns N’ Roses, Mumford & Sons, Childish Gambino, The Cure, Cardi B, Billie Eilish, Tame Impala, Kacey Musgraves, Lizzo, The Raconteurs, Lil Uzi Vert, and Thom Yorke. With that many top artists in three days, conflicts in the schedule of who to see will be inevitable. On Friday, Guns N’ Roses conflict with both Tame Impala and Thom Yorke, Saturday you’ll have to pick either The Cure or Childish Gambino, and Sunday Cardi B and Mumford & Sons will be on at opposite sides of the park. As a photographer covering the festival, the decisions on who to cover will be extremely difficult.
Some artists on the lineup are also exclusive to each weekend. Want to see Cardi B, FIDLAR, Oliver Tree or Men I Trust? You need to go to weekend one. Don’t want to miss Robyn, The Aces, Madison Beer or The Beaches? You’re going to weekend two.
There are a handful of Canadian bands in the ACL lineup. Metric is probably the best known of the bunch having performed festivals for well over a decade and being a Canadian fixture in modern rock radio. Toronto’s Black Pistol Fire will blow some minds when they perform in the early afternoon of the first day in what is basically a home performance since they’re now based in Austin. Montreal DJ Kaytranada performs an hour after Black Pistol Fire on the same stage. On the Saturday, Montreal indie rock band Men I Trust perform the second largest stage, the Honda stage on weekend one. Toronto’s The Beaches are exclusively playing weekend two. Finally on Sunday, Toronto R&B/hip-hop artist TOBi performs in the mid-afternoon.
Coined as the ‘Live Music Capital of The World’, Austin’s numerous live music venues are also showcased during the two weekends with late night shows at bars and theatres featuring festival artists that go from the night before the festival on Thursday all the way to the last day of the second weekend. If you can’t see the likes of Jenny Lewis, Gary Clark Jr., GRiZ, Jai Wolfe, Third Eye Blind or Banks at the festival, they’re all at various venues either the night before the festival begins or after each day of the festival ends at 10pm. The Austin City Limits TV concert series will also be doing television tapings with the likes of The Raconteurs and Billie Eilish. Bruce Hornsby, another artists on the ACL lineup, is performing at Zilker Park on Thursday for a fundraiser for Texas state senator Kirk Watson.
Austin is also known for it’s food and there will be at least 36 mostly local food establishments serving a variety of food and refreshments. We’re looking forward to sampling what Austin has to offer, especially the BBQ joints.
We’re expecting it to be hot in Austin as temperatures have averaged around 36 or 37 degrees Celcius all of September, but weather forecasters said earlier in September that there might be a “cold front” on the way. With days until the festival, the current forecast still shows hot weather. As long as it doesn’t rain, I’ll be fine with whatever temperature it is outside.
General admission passes for weekend one are sold out, but some premium VIP and Platinum passes that give perks like special viewing areas and dedicated entrance lanes are still available. Weekend two still has some single day general admission passes available.
Austin City Limits takes place in Austin, Texas Friday October 4 to Sunday October 6 and Friday October 11 to Sunday October 13, 2019.
For more info go to aclfestival.com
Check back here at Rocktographers.ca for daily recaps and full review of Weekend One and for photo posts on the Rocktographers Instagram.