Update (12:35): When Drake closed out Day Two, he made sure audience members knew that Texas is his second home. The Canadian-born rapper continuously told the audience it was the best he’d ever seen. He started the performance with “Legend,” playing popular tracks such as “Hotline Bling” and “Back to Back” throughout the set.
Drake put quite a bit of effort into engaging with the audience. At one point, he told the right half of the crowd to yell and curse at the left side and vice versa. Although the goal might have been to hype up the audience, the experience ended up feeling like two schools cheering against one another at a high school basketball game.
When he started playing “Know Yourself,” fans danced and cheered along as Drake rapped the lyrics that often caption Sixth Street frequenters’ Instagram posts, “I was running through the six with my woes.”
Explosive sound effects accompanied nearly every song. For some of the performance, the rapper Future joined Drake on stage, and the two rapped back and forth for several songs. Drake rounded out the night by saying his time was up and walking off stage, only to return moments later to perform the end of “Legend.” Fireworks exploded from behind the stage as festivalgoers exited the park to rest up for another day of music.
— Marisa Charpentier
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Update (10:12 p.m.): When Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard nailed the first note of “Future People,” she let the crowd know they were about to be taken on a journey.
The rock band’s set was full of peaks and valleys, transitioning seamlessly from soulful blues to energetic rock ballads.
Howard left audience member’s in awe as she controlled the band's set from start to finish. Audience members hung on Howard’s every note as she screeched and bellowed, then brought her voice down to a near whisper during “Gimme All Your Love.”
The band closed with “Over My Head,” which Howard said was their favorite song on their most recent release, Sound & Color.
— Cat Cardenas
Update (10:05 p.m.): Walk the Moon took the stage late in the afternoon Saturday in front of an energetic crowd, but the group failed to captivate the attention of anyone but dedicated fans.
Lead singer and keyboardist Nicholas Petricca and company danced around stage throughout their entire performance, but their pop-infused set felt structured and lackluster.
It wasn’t until the end of Walk the Moon’s set when dedicated fans got what they wanted — a back-to-back performance of the group's two mega-hits “Shut Up and Dance,” and “Anna Sun”. But by that point, most listeners had moved on to wait for other performances from Alabama Shakes and A$AP Rocky.
Overall, Walk the Moon’s performance lacked the oomph many other artists brought to the stage, making a decent performance feel shallow compared to others throughout the day.
—Chris Duncan
Stephanie Tacy | Daily Texan Staff
Update (9:40): Although they sing of stagecoaches, gypsy trains and black gold, the folk-rock group Houndmouth is far from outdated. The young foursome started off its performance at Austin Ventures stage with "Black Gold," filling the set with popular tracks such as "My Cousin Greg," "Comin' Round Again" and "Honey Slider."
Pairing long-lasting guitar riffs with old-timey lyrics, Houndmouth's performance was both upbeat and endearing. When the group played" Sedona, " its most popular hit, audience members sang along to the anthem, yelling out, "Saturday night kind of pink," as stage lights flashed.
This isn't the group's first Austin City Limits, but Houndmouth still expressed some shock when looking at the crowd that spread past the Beer Hall.
When they announced they only had time for one and a half more songs, the crowd groaned and held up two fingers, encouraging them to play on. One of their song's choruses, "If you want to live the good life, you better stay away from the limelight" didn't seem to apply here. It's clear audience members didn't want Houndmouth to step away from the spotlight just yet.
— Marisa Charpentier
Update (9:20 p.m.): In this special edition of our series Tat-Tuesday, which features people and the stories behind their ink, we documented random ACL festivalgoers’ tattoos. Check in periodically throughout the day for more vignettes.
Photos by Thalia Juarez | Daily Texan Staff
Aaron Adkins
Texas RRC survey technician Aaron Adkins, who has lived in Austin for 10 years, has sleeves on both his arms. On his left arm, he has an octopus, eel, pirate skull and a shark.
“My best friend josh did [it],” Adkins said. “This took me like seven years to finish, but they
don’t mean anything. I just thought an octopus tattoo would look cool and I kept adding on.”
On his right arm, he has the beginnings of a snake tattoo and the date “10-13-57.”
“It’s my grandparents wedding anniversary — kind of,” Adkins said. “My grandma’s old and she told me the wrong date. They actually got married on the sixteenth, so it’s kind of funny that I have the wrong date. But, it’s close enough.”
Payton Keller & Genevieve Watson
Payton Keller, who works at the Austin School of Music, got a tattoo that runs down her spine in August. It reads “I found my life when I laid it down.”
“It’s a Christian tatoo,” Keller said. “They’re lyrics from Hillsong’s new song ‘Touch the Sky.’ It just means I found my life when I gave it to Christ.”
Keller’s friend, Genevieve Watson, has a Tibetan mandala tattoo on the top of her back that she got two years ago.
“It’s a spiritual mandala where you put your heart,” Watson said. “It’s just a creation of your heart and putting it all out there.”
— Danielle Lopez
Update (9:00 p.m.): Dressed in all black, Josh Tillman — known better by his stage name Father John Misty — took on the ACL crowd with his trademark sarcastic attitude.
As he pranced around the stage, Tillman kept it cool during his first performance, until he decided to jump on his drummer’s kit for a quick dance session. The singer hardly kept still after that, throwing his guitar, arching his back and exclaiming his lyrics.
Tillman’s performance of “The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apt,” had attendees laughing at his theatrics and deadpan humor. Even from behind the folk singer’s sunglasses, audience members could almost feel his eye rolling as he sang “She says like literally, music is the air she breathes.”
Though he never cracked a smile throughout his performance, Tillman didn’t hesitate to make jokes between songs, comparing the festival to an orgy and poking fun at the number of iPhones in the crowd.
By the end of the show Father John Misty had serenaded audience members with his “sarcastic mega-ballad of despair,” “Bored in the USA,” and taken a fans cell-phone in order to film himself singing.
— Cat Cardenas
Thalia Juarez | Daily Texan Staff
Update (8:10): Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, the two member of Twenty One Pilots, walked onto stage with their signature masks and dark clothes on but quickly shed their garb to reveal a personal side, resulting in an amazing concert experience.
Performing some of their hits, including "Stressed Out," "Lane Boy" and "Holding on to You," both band members stood on platforms held by crowd members and drummed in sync to end their set.
The highlight was easily "Car Radio," the band's most emotional song. During the performance, Tyler Joseph climbed onto the top the stage's scaffolding almost 30 feet into the air.
Ignoring some minor speaker issues, Twenty One Pilots may have just put on the performance of the day, and possibly the festival.
— Chris Duncan
Update (6:35): Twenty-two years ago, when Austin City Limits vendor and book-crafter Mychal Mitchell was travelling through Europe, she met an old man who bound handmade journals for a living.
After spending just three days with him, she learned to make books that rivaled those of ancient Venetian monks.
“It’s a style of binding that the monks used to do in Venice,” Mitchell said. “They could copy scriptures into the books and carry them with them everyday. Books were way too fragile to take out of libraries so they wanted something they could use on the daily.”
Thalia Juarez | Daily Texan Staff
Now, Mitchell is the owner and founder of Austin-based Iona Handcrafted Books, located in East Austin. This is her second year selling the journals as one of the vendors for ACL’s art area.
From large leather photo albums decorated with 120-year-old hinges to small, colorful pocketbooks secured with padlocks from the early 1900s, Mitchell and her team make each book from scratch.
“I make them the traditional way with leather stitched right in with hemp twine,” Mitchell said. “They’re books that are meant to be heirlooms. You’re supposed to put your most precious things in there — photographs, memorabilia, secrets — then pass them down to your great-grandchildren someday.”
Although she often gets requests from customers who want iPhone or iPod covers, Mitchell said that’s not the point of her journals. She said she wants to talk to people about their real experiences.
“I want to talk to people about their anniversary they have coming up that they’re buying a sign in book for,” Mitchell said. “Or their new grandchild is being born, or they’re going to join the peace corps in Asia. I want to talk to people that want to write about really beautiful things.”
She said she loves working at ACL because of the people from all over the world at the festival. She said it’s fun to hear peoples experiences in Austin.
“I love ACL. I love Austin,” Mitchell said. “Viva la rock and roll!”
— Danielle Lopez
Thalia Juarez | Daily Texan Staff
Update (6:10 p.m.): Shakey Graves started out his set as a one man band, but the singer-songwriter's charisma and guitar riffs quickly brought life to the quiet crowd.
After he was joined by his guitarist and drummer, Shakey Graves danced around stage while performing a relaxed, yet invigorating set.
The simplicity of the performance stood out like a sore thumb among other acts at ACL. The band members gave it their all to make the performance one of the best mid-day shows of the entire weekend.
— Chris Duncan
Update (3:15 p.m.): In this special edition of our series Tat-Tuesday, which features people and the stories behind their ink, we documented random ACL festivalgoers’ tattoos. Check in periodically throughout the day for more vignettes.
Photos by Thalia Juarez | Daily Texan Staff
Jesus Limas
Austin-based firefighter Jesus Limas has a tattoo of a puzzle piece inside the middle of a Maltese Cross on his right forearm.
“I work for the fire department and the cross is just the symbol for [it],” Limas said. “And my son, he’s autistic — the puzzle piece is the symbol for autism.”
Jessica Hawkins
On her left forearm, Austin-resident Jessica Hawkins got a tattoo of a heart with flowers sprouting from its arteries about four months ago. She also has a tattoo of a peacock that travels from her right back shoulder down to her right ankle. Although the peacock took 30 hours, she said the heart is her favorite.
“It’s literally like having your heart on your sleeve,” Hawkins said. “I think when we’re really authentic and show ourselves that’s when beautiful things come to life.”
Update (11:00 a.m.): We’ve got a dynamic day of festival coverage planned for today. To compliment our performance recaps, we’ll be chatting with vendors, showrunners and attendees. If you’ve got someone in mind we should feature, let us know on Twitter at @thedailytexan.
Here’s our lineup for the day:
Update (10:00 a.m.): Happy morning to all of you! We hope all of your ACL festivities lived up to your expectations yesterday. Looks like it’s going to be another comfortable day outside with a high of 85 degrees and zero percent chance of rain.
- 1 p.m. — Echosmith at Samsung
- 2:20 p.m. — Father John Misty at Honda
- 3:30 p.m. — Shakey Graves at Miller Lite, Mister Wives at Home Away and Houndmouth at Austin Ventures
- 4:30 p.m. — Twenty One Pilots at Samsung
- 5:30 p.m. — Walk the Moon at Miller Lite
- 6:30 p.m. — Alabama Shakes at Honda and A$AP Rocky at Samsung
- 8:30 p.m. — Drake at Samsung
Over the course of this weekend, we'll be live-blogging Austin City Limits and all its hippie-filled glory. Follow Daily Texan reporters, photographers and editors as we post the highlights of our work here. For minute-to-minute coverage of the best and the worst that ACL has to offer, follow us on Twitter at @thedailytexan.
