Memorable Moments From ACL Fest Weekend One

Some of our favorite performances that you can revisit this weekend


Lil Nas X (Photo by David Brendan Hall)

The Chronicle writers found much to love in last weekend’s ACL Fest lineup – the majority of which returns this Friday through Sunday. Find our highlights for your keeping-up-from-home or preparatory schedule-perfecting below. More differentiated between weeks than ever before, in addition to the following, ACL’s second weekend adds Phoenix, Death Cab for Cutie, Boy George, Princess Nokia, and more. Plus, find full versions of the Chicks, Lil Nas X, and Kacey Musgraves reviews at austinchronicle.com/acl.

The Chicks Take On Their "Bad Reputation"

In case there was any doubt, the Chicks’ politics are still front and center. Maybe it’s an all-too-understandable chip on the trio’s shoulders – as their very public thoughts about a certain former president from their home state got them banned from country radio in 2003. They recovered but never quite mounted the full-throated comeback to their early-career heights.

So for their Friday ACL headline, the Chicks doubled down. Frontwoman Natalie Maines wore a bejeweled RBG shirt. Lyndon B. Johnson’s iconic 1964 “Daisy Girl” ad flashed in a frenetic supercut of ominous imagery, later joined by goofy Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott bobbleheads. Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” welcomed the trio and backing band onstage.

And aside from raucous opener “Sin Wagon,” the early part of the set was packed with cuts from 2020’s Gaslighter, the undertones of the Trump administration echoing through. The only thing missing was a Beto campaign appearance – though a Beto sticker did prominently appear in a jumbotron shot of the grand piano. But the brightest parts of the two-hour closing set were when they loosened their grip on the shtick and embraced their identity outside of the comments heard ’round the world.

Lloyd Maines, Natalie’s dad, played pedal steel throughout, and her 21-year-old son, Jackson Slade, played guitar. With the ever-talented duo of sisters Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire – whose daughter Eva featured on second fiddle – it was a family affair. A rendition of Bruce Robison’s “Travelin’ Soldier” was the clear turning point in an evening that, until that point, focused on the 2020 record.

The first acoustic chords of “Wide Open Spaces” prompted a roar, with similar enthusiasm carrying through classic cuts “Cowboy Take Me Away” and “Long Time Gone.” The Chicks were at their best when they embraced their legacy in a focus beyond the political realm. Particularly in the song that kept the crowd until the end – the murder romp of “Goodbye Earl” – they felt like women unfettered by any kind of reputation, other than doing things differently.  – Abby Johnston

Lil Nas X Perfects Storybook Whimsy

Montero Lamar Hill took us on the journey of how he became Lil Nas X Saturday evening, and straight into the future. Born in 1999 at the cusp of the millennium, the outspoken gay pop star’s set was an ode to progress. Possessing a flair for drama since blowing the country and hip-hop scenes apart with colossal 2019 hit “Old Town Road,” the artist didn’t surprise any of his fervent fans with the opening announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’re ready to get cunt ...”

Only the first in a series of dramatic introductory sequences set like a Shakespearean play, a futuristic voiceover set the tone: “The greatest thing a human can be is to create themselves, to be themselves.” Lil Nas X promptly came onstage in a gold metallic outfit early Madonna would’ve worn as a gladiator, grabbing his crotch Michael Jackson-style to “Panini,” off his 2019 debut EP. Despite the artist’s onstage remembrance that he hadn’t “been here since like 2019,” ACL marked his first-ever Austin show, as a planned post-blowup 2019 JMBLYA performance was canceled for weather damage.

The genre-crossing Gen Zer emphatically swagged onstage, and Disney-winking storybook whimsy continued from there. Two dancers acted as the legs propping up a huge gold Trojan horse, emblazoned with the Coach logo. Naturally, Lil Nas X then emerged wearing a matching gold crop top and cowboy chaps. None of his sparkly crop top-and-pant ensembles had fabric covering his midsection, and rightly so, because why would you hide those abs?

When he invited crowd members to twerk onstage, an elementary-school-aged boy bounced around to an enraptured audience. The entire performance set up like a stage play, with voiceover interludes defining each act, one segment spoofing the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, and a total of six – count them, six – outfit changes. The myth of self-creation is all a creative truly has, and Lil Nas X buys into the whole shebang – from a horde of backup dancers, introduced by name, to hot-pink varsity football outfits for 2021 hit “INDUSTRY BABY.” – Clara Wang


Buffalo Nichols (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Buffalo Nichols Nicely Delivers No-Nonsense Grit

Buffalo Nichols leaves silver and gold wherever he plays. One-man summit inside the Sunday Tito’s tent, returning this Saturday to Continental Club, the Austin transplant’s Honeydripper resolve joins the ranks of clutch local bluesmen: Gary Clark Jr., Zach Person, the Peterson Brothers. Steel guitar and slide in hand, the nice but no-nonsense practitioner phrased swampy Southern grit through heavy reverb to elicit ghostly roots music. Heat and dust cycled through a canonical delivery, all throat and rasp – except when he said, “Thank you all for standing there looking at me. This has been a dream of mine,” wherein he sounded like a law clerk. “How to Love” from last year’s eponymous debut, not so much – tender, but hard, realistic. “I want you all to be nice to each other,” he said in parting. “Just for one day? Can you do that?” No, but we’ll be nice to you, Nichols.  – Raoul Hernandez


P!nk (Photo by Gary Miller)

P!nk Flies Over ACL

When P!nk is wire-flying over you – flipping upside down, and singing all along – it feels like seeing a superhero in real life, and those are just the final three exhilarating minutes. Opening her Saturday headline, it barely even mattered that she totally blanked out halfway through the third verse of 2001 hit “Get the Party Started.” The blip only clarified that the legacy pop artist wasn’t using backing tracks – all of the ensuing 90 minutes bursting through her and an extraordinary backing vocal trio. Fundamentally, P!nk’s set breaks down into three sections: a run of hits (including the best early 2000s radio song with a weirdly in-the-know opiate reference, “Just Like a Pill”); an extensive helping of covers, including “Bohemian Rhapsody” alongside an acoustic “Me and Bobby McGee”; and a highly choreographed pop finale. Throughout, her ace fivepiece backing band impressed as P!nk maintained lovey mom vibes – twice threatening to “tackle and cuddle” adoring fans. Her banter also kept an air of spontaneity, as she shared real-time findings of a lost earring and a huge cockroach onstage. Without the hype of a contemporary pop star, or the golden catalog of a heritage act, P!nk transcended as an all-around festival crowd-pleaser.  – Kevin Curtin


Kacey Musgraves (Photo by Lauren Johnson)

Kacey Musgraves Leads Cosmic Kiss-Off

A brief apology to Rounder Records recording artist and generally well-respected singer-songwriter dude Ruston Kelly, whose misbegotten civil union played front and center on Sunday night’s Honda stage. Kacey Musgraves, his much more famous ex, emerged to join her vast band from a giant metal heart sculpture – one that soon burst into flames around the time she sang about getting papers signed.

“It’s a beautiful night for depressing songs,” Musgraves remarked, half joking, half apologizing, midway through an opening run of five tunes from 2021 star-crossed – a somewhat heavy-handed framing that inadvertently encapsulated their missing lightness of touch. This is a songwriter who achieves the most when she’s straining the least, her best work arriving at universal truths when she simply follows her arrow and lets her gloriously earnest idioms speak for everyone.

Thankfully Musgraves’ personality is too massive for her lesser material to stifle it from the stage. Starting her signature off-brand/on-brand vulgar banter, she spelled out an audience member’s “C-U-N-T” sign. Even an afternoon trip to BookPeople was not safe from her admission that “apparently, I’m a slut for reading now.” In case anyone was left doubting her East Texas, salt-of-the-earth bona fides, a nail clipper was brought out so Musgraves could slice down her extensions for ease of guitar playing.

“Are these HD cameras?” she asked, pretending to be embarrassed.

But all that paled in excitement to the moment when Musgraves asked if she could play some Golden Hour songs, sneaking a “fuck Ted Cruz” into the verses of “High Horse.” Be it the spectral, cosmic kiss-off of “Space Cowboy” or the mellow melancholy of “Lonely Weekend,” Musgraves’ spotless renditions held an absolutely hypnotic, sing-along sway over the ACL crowd. Nobody coming out of contemporary country has tunes to unite a field like these. And that was before the night’s clear highlight, a solo “Merry Go ’Round” – an actually depressing song whose stark elegance made the full-moon night all the more beautiful.  – Julian Towers


Japanese Breakfast (Photo by Lauren Johnson)

Japanese Breakfast Jubilantly Tells Texans to Vote

Michelle Zauner can seem stony, even as she sings ostensibly jubilant work. But on Sunday, the Japanese Breakfast bandleader cracked a smile early, briefly fought it, and lost. Grinning through an hour of gong-spanking, string-stroking, and horn-heralding – trellised by psychodramatic indie rock from three albums melding pop and Eighties synth – Zauner was genial and playful. She sat at a keyboard facing her husband, guitarist Peter Bradley, giggling the words to “Tactics” before explaining, “I was distracted by my husband’s exposed chest.” He buttoned up with a mischievous smirk. The couple’s onstage nonverbal communication sparkled as the singer happily noted recent airing of the band’s April Austin City Limits TV taping, as well as Austin-based band members Deven Craige on bass and Christabel Lin on violin. A strong showing of young woman fans focused on Zauner – two nearby leaping in the air, hand in hand, shouting her lyrics, and hopefully impacted by her urging Texans to vote in upcoming midterm elections: “Fuck Greg Abbott ... To be a Texan voter is not to be a disillusioned one. If you believe abortion is health care, and if you believe in gun control, please turn up.”  – Christina Garcia

Billy Strings Brings Bluegrass Mainstream

Kudos to ACL for having the guts to put a bluegrass act as a big-stage headliner. Billy Strings has the bona fides, from a Grammy to a slew of International Bluegrass Music Awards, but it was far from certain whether he could hold a general festival crowd to close out Friday’s T-Mobile stage. Billy burned it down. As a fivepiece with fiddle, mandolin, banjo, upright bass, and Strings on guitar, the outfit tore through an hour of acid-refluxed jams – “Red Daisy” blistering a 10-minute stomp to start. Strings played to the audience, racing around the stage and shaking his ass and pulling up his T-shirt to slap his tattoo-speckled stomach. At times, the show pumped more toward bro-grass than bluegrass behind the warped effects pedals, but even tender touches like “Love and Regret” held the crowd enthralled. Recalling having played the Tito’s tent in 2019, Strings noted, “We’re always proud to be the ones to bring some bluegrass to you.” The Michigan guitar slinger just might be the one to break the genre into mainstream appeal.  – Doug Freeman

A 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.

Support the Chronicle  

READ MORE
More Music Reviews
Review: The Bearer's <i>Chained to a Tree</i> (Silent Pendulum)
The Bearer's Chained to a Tree (Silent Pendulum)
Chained to a Tree (Record Review)

Raoul Hernandez, Sept. 23, 2022

Review: <i>No One at the Circus – The Story of Ghostwriter Through Place and Song</i>
No One at the Circus – The Story of Ghostwriter Through Place and Song by Steve Schecter
In one-man band's situationally annotated lyric book, the path is the goal

Kevin Curtin, Sept. 23, 2022

More by Abby Johnston
Crucial Concerts for the Coming Week
Crucial Concerts for the Coming Week
This week's recommended shows include mini-fests celebrating rockin' girls, Latinx talent, and Christmas shopping

Dec. 16, 2022

Crucial Concerts for the Coming Week
Crucial Concerts for the Coming Week
Urban Heat, Jonathan Terrell, Dayglow, Marcia Ball, and a smattering of metal headline our recommended shows

Dec. 2, 2022

More by Clara Wang
Hannibal Buress’ Meta Musical Comedy as Eshu Tune
Hannibal Buress’ Meta Musical Comedy as Eshu Tune
Dexterous rap and stand up integration at Creek & the Cave

Jan. 9, 2023

In Austin, Which Peking Duck Reigns Supreme?
In Austin, Which Peking Duck Reigns Supreme?
We list some of the mightiest ducks in town

Jan. 6, 2023

More by Raoul Hernandez
Crucial Concerts for the Coming Week
Crucial Concerts for the Coming Week
The Linda Lindas, Momma, Caramelo Haze, JaRon Marshall, and more highlight our recommended shows for the week

Jan. 13, 2023

Crucial Concerts for the Coming Week
Crucial Concerts for the Coming Week
Timbeko, Shinyribs, TC Superstar, an Exquisite Corpse, and more recommended shows for the week

Dec. 30, 2022

KEYWORDS FOR THIS STORY

ACL Fest 2022, The Chicks, Billy Strings, Lil Nas X, P!nk, Kacey Musgraves, Buffalo Nichols, Japanese Breakfast

MORE IN THE ARCHIVES
NEWSLETTERS
One click gets you all the newsletters listed below

Breaking news, arts coverage, and daily events

Can't keep up with happenings around town? We can help.

Austin's queerest news and events

Eric Goodman's Austin FC column, other soccer news

Behind the scenes at The Austin Chronicle

Information is power. Support the free press, so we can support Austin.   Support the Chronicle