2014 Austin City Limits Music Festival Line-up
Hip-hop tops the two weekends with ladies close behind
By Chase Hoffberger, 6:01AM, Tue. Apr. 22, 2014
Tickets hit the streets at 10am, and the curtain’s now up. Festival czars C3 Presents revealed the line-up for the 2014 Austin City Limits Music Festival this morning, Oct. 3-5 and 10-12. Grab your nearest fine tooth comb.
Unprecedented for the 13-year-old festival are a pair of hip-hop acts at the topmost type of this year’s 130-act bill. It was a forgone conclusion given their 40-festival assault on U.S. soil this summer that reunited Atlanta kingpins Outkast would be here, but Eminem – headlining C3’s sister festival Lollapalooza in August – constitutes a genuine coup. Double platinum sales for September’s Marshall Mathers LP 2 proves he’s still got the public eyes and ears, and now he joins Kanye West in 2011 as ACL’s biggest rapper.
Also high up on C3’s press release today, and rightfully so, are women: Lorde, the Kiwi teen whose “Royals” spent the past eight months as the most omnipresent song on the planet. She’s coming for week two only, but Lana Del Rey shares the same altitudes on the marquee and plays both weekends. Female-fronted populists Cults, Phantogram, KUTX-anointed “SXSW winners” Lucius, and Lake Street Dive, just in town for Old Settler’s Music Festival, join SXSWers St. Vincent, and Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux. And the chorus: Iggy Azalea, Nikki Lane, Jenny Lewis, and Tune-Yards, who drops third LP Nikki Nack on May 6.
Count Tijoux in with a hip-hop gathering that, along with the inclusion of Eminem and Outkast, might have a chance at outdrawing Kendrick Lamar last year. Note Childish Gambino, who made his ACL debut in 2012, as well as Riders Against the Storm, last month’s Austin Music Awards winner for Band of the Year. Riders post amongst another key subgenre of the festival, locals.
This year, they scale down slightly in sheer mass, but the grouping casts an even wider net. Whereas last year’s lineup included local scenesters Not in the Face, Whiskey Shivers, Sons of Fathers, and Dana Falconberry, this year’s cull ventures deeper into the Austin music scene. Nightowls, Penny & Sparrow, Dawn & Hawkes, and Sphynx split time with Mike & the Moonpies, Hard Proof, ex-pat Arum Rae, and Wood & Wire.
Spoon, also due a new album before the festival, crowns the ATX acts, but Spanish Gold, Grupo Fantasma founder Adrian Quesada’s new joint with former Hacienda guitarist Dante Schwebel and My Morning Jacket Drummer Patrick Hallahan, will be worth a looksee. Elizabeth McQueen, who left ACL mainstays Asleep at the Wheel over the winter, returns for both weeks, while her old boss trots side project Ray Benson & MilkDrive out in the Wheel’s place for week two.
Need more? More: Austin favorite Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, reggae legend and SXSW 2012 highlight Jimmy Cliff, and EDM gawd Skrillex, whose 2011 set proved so loud that nearby folky Gillian Welch had to stop hers short. The Replacements’ inclusion leaked a few months ago, but less well known is the fact that Paul Westerberg and the boys were high on Fun Fun Fun Fest’s wish list last year, and had an invitation from Austin City Limits around the same time. Might they step over to ACL Live at the Moody Theater for a taping in October? “Can’t Hardly Wait.”
The only thing missing is a veteran hit-maker for the grey hairs, a la past ACL Fest headliners Lionel Richie or Stevie Wonder. No – not Pearl Jam. These days that slot might go to Beck. You hear that one about the two turntables and a microphone?
FULL DISCLOSURE:
A Thousand Horses
AFI Ana Tijoux ArumRae Ashley Cleveland Asleep at the Wheel (week one) Avett Brothers Bad Rabbits Barton Hills Choir Beat Connection Beats Antique Beck Belle & Sebastian Benjamin Booker Bernhoft Black Pistol Fire Blackberry Smoke Blank Range Bleachers Blue Bear Broken Bells Bully Calvin Harris Capital Cities Catfish & the Bottlemen Chain Gang of 1974 Childish Gambino Chromeo Chvrches Colony House Cults Dawn & Hawkes The Districts Elizabeth McQueen Emily Wolfe Eminem Empires Falls Fitz & the Tantrums Foster the People Future Unlimited Gaslight Anthem Glitch Mob Gospel Silvertones Gramatik Hard Proof The Head & the Heart Hozier The Hunts Icona Pop Iggy Azalea Interpol J. Roddy Walston & the Business Jagwar Ma Jenny Lewis Jimmy Cliff Johnnyswim Jon Batiste & Stay Human Jones Family Singers Jon Pardi Juanes Kodaline Kongos Lake Streek Dive Lana Del Rey Last Internationale Legendary Soul Stirrers Lettuce The Levites Lonely Biscuits Lorde (week two) Los Colognes Lucius Mac DeMarco Major Lazer MarcScibila Melanie Martinez Mike & the Moonpies Miniature Tigers MØ Moats Modoc My Brightest Diamond The Nightowls Night Terrors of 1927 Nikki Lane Outkast Ozomatli Paolo Nutini Parker Millsap (week two) Pearl Jam Penny & Sparrow Peter DiStefano & Tor Phantogram Poliça Preatures Q Brothers Ralph’s World Ray Benson & MilkDrive (week two) Rebolution Reuben & the Dark The Replacements Riders Against the Storm River City Christianettes Robert Ellis The Rosebuds Sam Smith School of Rock Shields of Faith Skrillex Snowmine Spanish Gold Sphynx Spoon The Stapletons St. Vincent Steve Songs Sugar Free Allstars Temples Tor Miller Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue Tune-Yards Turnpike Troubadours Von Grey The Wans Wesley Bray & the Disciples of Joy Wood & Wire Young & Sick Zedd ZoéA note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.
Nov. 16, 2018
Austin City Limits Music Festival 2014, ACL Fest, Outkast, Eminem, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Cults, Lake Street Dive, Lucius, St. Vincent, Tune-Yards, Iggy Azalea, Nikki Lane, Jenny Lewis, Ana Tijoux, Childish Gambino, Riders Against the Storm, Nightowls, Penny & Sparrow, Dawn & Hawkes
