10. Flight Facilities

Many people’s first attended performance for the 15th Anniversary of Austin City Limits Music Festival started at the HomeAway Stage to see the Aussie electro duo Flight Facilities. Also known as Hugo and Jimmy, the two proved their musical prowess for keeping a crowd dancing in the hot Texas sun as they carefully beat down on their electronic drum kits laying smooth house tracks for an hour. This performance also featured the group’s familiar friend Giselle Rosselli who sings over multiple tracks for the boys including their smash hit “Crave You,” and many others. This set was a great way to begin the weekend at Zilker Park and really set the right mood for the rest of the festival to come. The duo remained posted behind their airplane-inspired DJ platform for the show while raining down different percussion and synth melodies onto their modern electronic instruments. A soaring journey ensued on the screen behind them displaying flight simulations, tropical destinations, and other classic geometric rave animations. This left fans delighted as they began to let loose and dance around to the smooth electro house while the festival began to really get going.

9. Catfish and the Bottlemen

This British rock group tore up the Honda Stage both weekends of ACL providing attendees with a enthusiastic, strong performance. These four boys took control as they moved about the stage in their tight pants and designer jackets giving fans a lusty, exuberant display of their popular indie-rock songs from their two records. Frontman Ryan McCann leads the band perfectly through their set dancing along with the crowd and providing fans with nothing short of his all as his sang out a wide variety of music from “The Ride” and “The Balcony.” Recent found popularity proved rightfully so as the rockers put on a fiery show that kept the excited audience distracted from the humid, burning Austin air during this late afternoon set. The Catfish boys left the crowd begging for more as the set came to a close where the group let out one final roaring chord on lead guitar, and disappeared offstage on to their next stop.

8. Die Antwoord

With recent rumors of a potential breakup being dismissed, Die Antwoord took on ACL with a wild, unpredictable one hour performance at the family-friendly festival. Accompanied by their white sculpted penises on both ends of the stage and an inevitably violent yet spunky crowd of crazy fans, this South African “rap-rave” duo went insane on the Honda stage as the night slowly approached. Mixing between their own songs and popular EDM bangers, Die Antwoord gave the festival crowd an ever-so interesting experience full of strange and creepy visuals. This show will raise the hairs on the back of your neck and most likely also raise your bro-fist as you jump and dance to the rap rave legends Ninja and Yo-Landi rap and sing. As the two run around on stage taking off their clothes, being vulgar, and yelling out their popular song lyrics in a nothing close to methodical performance, Die Antwoord’s unique sound and trippy morphing animations gave fans the perfect environment to rage to hits like “Ugly Boy” and “Cookie Thumper.” The duo recently put out their fourth official studio album “Mount Ninji and da Nice Time Kid” in mid-September, and were sure to give the audience one of the first live renditions of it.

7. Kygo

This star-studded headlining show was an incredible way to end the second night of Austin City Limits. Alongside a few of his featured singers, Kygo serves a quick-changing, whimsical set full of tropical house hits blended smoothly with all time favorites like Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” and La Roux’s “Bulletproof.” Besides providing a huge variety of beachy’ graphics full of fireworks and partying, Kygo displayed his innovative, now trending style of lush electronic music. The pyrotechnics were amazing and surprised fans with a variety of different explosions sporadically throughout the show at the drop of many popular EDM songs. Kygo also proved his musical talents by taking on a classical piano rendition of his hit single “Firestone”, and then running back up to his DJ platform to drop the highly-streamed techno version. Featured guest Conrad Sewell sang the words moving about through the crowd as thousands of shiny golden sparks rained onto the stage emiting in the darkness. This show was smile-inducing and really provided its attendees with an all-around appealing, exciting performance.

6. Willie Nelson

……. okay maybe Willie doesn’t have it like he used to, but c’mon its Willie Nelson I shouldn’t have to say more. This performance was highly anticipated by the festival as a whole and most certainly had one of the biggest crowds if not the biggest of the weekend. Willie was introduced by a video featuring many of this year’s artists from the lineup thanking him for all that he has done for music. Then Matthew McConaughey came out of nowhere and did what he does best, give a cliche motivational speech that got the crowd roaring as Willie slowly took the stage to begin. Over the hour many stars from the weekend came out and joined Willie in playing his greatest songs. Those featured include the headliners for that night right after Willie, Mumford and Sons. This made for a rare, and rememberable show that will be engraved into ACL history forever. Everyone sang out loud reminiscing on the past as the wise, charasmatic Texan proudly performed his never-ending list of crowd pleasers setting the peaceful mood for the final hours of the Samsung stage on the East end of Zilker Metropolitan Park.

5. Cage the Elephant

Matt Schultz, lead singer of Cage the Elephant, controlled the stage better than almost any rock legend I can think of. His enthusiasm in the way that he performs is what crowds can only hope for in an artist, and this translated well in the amount of people the American band drew despite not quite being at the level of a headliner yet. Their set included songs from all their albums and the latter half of it featured most of the band’s very popular songs such as “Trouble” and “Shake Me Down.” This created an amazing atmosphere for the audience due to the large amounts of crowd interaction. Not only that, but Cage and Shultz really know how to rock out and bring back the old school feel of classic rock performers such as Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger. Frontman Matt also ran through the crowd many times during the show and stage dived once, maybe twice even (it was so crazy I cannot remember). Cage the Elephant were amazing live performers in every single aspect of their show, and fans cannot wait for the future of their productions and performances as the band’s reign over alternative rock continues to grow closer and closer to legendary status.

4. Radiohead

It’s not easy to put the name Radiohead by the ranking 4, and this honestly has nothing to do with the band or you Thom Yorke, but because of the audience. Radiohead put on a phenomenal show beginning with newer songs from “A Moon Shaped Pool”, and slowly unveiled classic tracks from “The Bends”, “OK Computer”, and “Kid A” along with others as the show went on. The production featured eery-vibed, radiating edits of the ongoing camera shots. This provided the audience with fascinating, awe-inducing moments as the band strung out their many strange, thought provoking songs. The only downside to this show was that the fans were not there. The audience just simply was not involved in the show. I understand Thom is not going to interact with the crowd like normal performers, and he may just speak tongues in weird voices for most of the show when they are not playing, but that doesn’t mean that the attendees should not have been more interactive. Sing on the classic choruses, headbang the solos, and obviously shed a tear or something when they finish with “Fake Plastic Trees,” but by this point the crowd had probably lost almost half of those there at the start. This is not okay Austin. Radiohead though, pretty tight.

3. Two Door Cinema Club

This show took me by surprise. Being billed as a 7:30 set on the most populated day of the festival gave recently back on the map Irish trio big shoes to fill having to compete with EDM-pop superstars The Chainsmokers just across the park. They put on a fast-paced, precise, and extremely entertaining show that featured beautiful lights and visually appealing, bold animations to the beat of their many indie hits such as “I Can Talk” and “Undercover Martyn” as well as many new songs from their soon to be released third studio album. The sun went down during the show giving the audience a wonderful atmosphere to dance in unison to the catchy melodies that headman Alex Trimble sang to the fullest. Keeping the crowd moving for the whole show, and even managing to catch many fans who left The Chainsmokers due to the lack of space made for a great hour of Dance-Punk music with a huge audience.

2. LCD Soundsystem

This revival may have come a little earlier than expected after the groups “goodbye” a few years ago at Madison Square Garden, but this U.S. reunion tour that started at Coachella and ended at ACL was better than any reunion I have personally ever seen and is a very close second as the best performance of Austin City Limits 2016. Featuring the extensive amount of synth sounds along with multiple forms of percussion, keys, guitars, and so many other instruments, LCD Soundsystem is like watching an orchestra that got slipped drugs in the 90’s and have been embracing the disco culture through their music ever since. This set was everything fans could ask for on a revival tour and did not disappoint as the last act for the 15th annual festival. Bringing on a modern-rave touch to the score of fundamental electronic classics, this show provided its guests with marvelous, vintage-style, pixellated, neon moving animations under the revolving light of their enormous, dazzling disco ball. The fans: some older who grew up partying to these electro-jams, others young and recently introduced to the group, and even some who had never even heard of LCD Soundsystem made for a strange concert environment that ended up proving age’s irrelevancy in music taste. This was justified by not a single person standing still in the crowd for the entire show! James Murphy was on fire for both weekends of ACL ending their U.S. tour with a bang and announcing their upcoming return with a new album and another tour to follow in 2017. The last song they play, “All My Friends,” is debatably the single best live-performed song of the last decade leaving fans jumping and shouting “We’re all friends tonight!” over and over again as the song comes to a close.

1. M83

The French electro-rock group M83 has been climbing the ladder of success and popularity since their mainstream breakthrough album “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” was released in 2011. Even prior to this, the eccentric band lead by Anthony Gonzalez was quickly recognized by critics as amazing live performers and musicians. M83’s moving set featured countless harmonized choruses to the rhythmic, mystical synth patterns Gonzales constantly tweaks and changes through his huge sound-creating synth machine center stage. As the sun slowly drooped beneath the lively Friday night, M83 excitingly took this year’s new stage Cirrus Logic. For both weekends of ACL, M83 gave their sunset performance everything they had and left the crowd awe-struck for too many moments to count. Each individual band member consistently proved their musical expertise throughout the entire show. They each took on multiple instrument roles and sang individual parts of songs, as well as came together for many of the band’s booming choruses that rang out all over the park. The show began with Gonzales leading the vocals of the deep, ambient track “Reunion” while purple and green bright lights that enclosed most of the stage shot all around. There was not a moment that went by that fans were not either cheering, crying, dancing, singing, and or all of the above. A main highlight of the show emerged mid-performance as the band played a fuller rendition of their older song “Sitting” from their debut album in 2001 as a simple electro duo. The French group now play as a five person crew, and notably feature young lead guitar man Jordan Lawlor, who absolutely tore off the roof during this song. Lawlor displayed incredible multi-instrumental abilities and radiated raw, passionate energy through every note he stroke as he shuffled back and forth across the stage beating down on his electronic drum kit to the fast paced melody. Later on, he got on the rail in front of the audience and casually laid upon them while effortlessly shredding a rigorous solo on his long, sun kissed Gibson guitar. As the performance grew closer to an end, the group performed an emotional transition from the magical top hit “Midnight City” into the heartrending musical masterpiece “Outro.” This song ends with all members letting out a compelling, intense unified cheer of glee as the orchestral-sounding synth master Gonzales steadily rounds off the track. The set was closed with a shorter version of the euphoric, heaven-like sound of one of the group’s earliest musical demonstrations for what was to come, 2005 album’s finale “Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun.” This was the greatest way for M83 to proudly display how far they have come along as musicians and developed into one of the world’s most iconic bands of the 21st Century. As the song comes to a wrap the band integrates one final, perfectly blended, passionate exclaim of hums and cheers of joy as the colorful lights slowly begin to dim and the captivating sounds gently fade out. This show was an astounding display of absolute instrumental and musical mastery and as the group of attractive, young French talent continues to perform around the world, one can only wonder what is to come from the incredibly talented M83. With one more successful album release, the electro-rock group could potentially put on one of the highest anticipated headlining acts full of ravishing galactic animations dancing to the mesmerizing, heavenly, colossal cadence of the band’s ample array of sounds as the fluorescent neon lights gleam across the dark night sky full of happiness.

All in all, 2016 was a great year for many styles of music at Austin City Limits Music Festival. Each year, C3 presents Austin with a vast multitude of brilliant musicians that all fall under different genres. ACL has repeatedly catered to fans of all styles of music since the festival began 15 years ago. Such musical variety, the beautifully maintained Zilker Park, and the perfectly visible, growing Austin skyline merge together to create one remarkably enjoyable music festival that will continue for many years to come.

Let me know what I got wrong, or tell me about your ACL experience!

Colt Grice

P.S. heres my favorite flag of this year