ACL Music Fest Saturday Listings

Quiet Company

11:15am, Austin Ventures stage

Quiet Company scored 10 Austin Music Awards this year, including Band and Album of the Year, behind their third album, 2011's We Are All Where We Belong. The awards testify not only to the local quintet's growing fanbase, but also the anthemic pull of their rousing barrages. Taylor Muse leads with a defiantly upbeat charm that stares hard into the heart-on-sleeve darkness and emerges stronger amid the piano runs and guitar swells. – Doug Freeman

Nikki Lane

11:15am, BMI stage

Greenville, S.C., native Nikki Lane channels the classic queens of Nashville through a cinematic country rock prism. The effortless twang in her vocal phrasing dials pure Loretta, but her full-bore delivery emerges more akin to Maria McKee. 2011's reverberant Walk of Shame pulls back the curtain on everyday desperate lives interrupted by sublime romance. After plying her acoustic wares as Spiritualized's unlikely opening act earlier this year, Lane has earned her Waylon tattoo. – Greg Beets

The Deep Dark Woods

11:45am, Barton Springs stage

These aptly named Canadians push an eerie alt-country drawl, exemplified in the title track to their fourth LP, The Place I Left Behind. The Saskatoon quintet plies North Americana that both haunts and salves, melancholy melodies that linger in the haze of pedal steel and singer/guitarist Ryan Boldt's enveloping yearn. The band excels in slow paces, calling upon barren landscapes and broken hearts in sparse measures. – Doug Freeman

Caveman

11:45am, Honda stage

Brooklyn's Caveman know exactly what to leave out. CoCo Beware, the quintet's 2011 debut, drives sleepy guitar-pop melodies, gently commingled with keyed-in bliss and longing harmonies. Forward marching drums are a subtle grounding factor that keeps Caveman from getting marooned in the ether. Astute arrangements and solid songs don't hurt, either. Choice cuts "A Country's King of Dreams" and "Thankful" sway in the sunset. – Greg Beets

Wild Child

Noon, Austin Ventures stage

Austin's indie-folk scene bursts with new blood, and Wild Child are leading the pack. Both Kelsey Wilson's sweet, sultry vocals and the group's multilayered arrangements (banjo, cello, keys, etc.) please the ears. They've been touring, and this gig confirms what 2011 debut Pillow Talk suggests: These guys and gals won't be confined to Austin much longer. – Zoe Cordes Selbin

Native Run

12:30pm, BMI stage

Starting with just two members (Rachel Beauregard, Bryan Dawley) two years ago, Native Run expanded out of a D.C. bar/coffee shop onto the festival circuit, adding bandmates, gigs, and the requisite Gotye cover to YouTube. While debut Ten Mornings straddles a little pop, country, and rock, they're still folkies at heart, and their latest, Setting the House on Fire, is a compendium of live performances culled from house shows. – Adam Schragin

Wheeler Brothers

1pm, Austin Ventures stage

Only a few months removed from bringing home a boatload of Austin Music Awards, local quintet Wheeler Brothers caps off a fast-paced year at ACL. Debut disc Portraits still sounds as fresh as it did last June, brimming with wide-eyed folk rock as gaping and friendly as a Lone Star sky. – Luke Winkie

Bombay Bicycle Club

1:15pm, Barton Springs stage

This London quartet's third full-length, A Different Kind of Fix, departs from the BBC's Kings of Convenience-style guitar picking to a wavy shoegaze comfortable with the current alt-rock climate. Each LP reveals a band searching for a foothold, but BBC can rest easy in its new niche – sunny and bright, with a knack for guitar hooks. Dreamy, impressive. – Abby Johnston

Sonámbulo Psicotropical

2:20pm, Zilker stage

Remember when Thievery Corporation blipped a DJ project rather than a world music electro juggernaut? Elevenpiece Costa Rican concern Sonámbulo Psicotropical (Psycho Tropical Sleepwalker) – sponsored here by the country's Austin-loved brew, Imperial – whips up a hot Latin-Caribbean pulse equal parts rock en Español, Bob Marley, and Ibiza. 2009 debut A Puro Peluche plugs into your cerebral cortex like a Bill Laswell or Hal Willner remix. – Raoul Hernandez

Oberhofer

3pm, Barton Springs stage

Oberhofer, or rather Brad Oberhofer, is the latest indie dream boy. With good looks and twinkly garage rock, his youthful lo-fi has charmed the Hipster Runoff crowd. Oberhofer's spring debut, Time Capsules II, dwells on young love and sometimes suffers from it, but the emotion is infectious and the melodies just right for a festival set. – Zoe Cordes Selbin

La Vida Boheme

4pm, Zilker stage

Tossing the most danceable and quirky funk attributes of post-punk into a Tropicália stew, La Vida Boheme are Venezuela's answer to the Rapture, marking time with guitar stabs, disco hi-hat, and auxiliary percussion. Last year's full-length, Nuestra, pushed boundaries with an electronic infusion, making for a body-moving world beat that's tailor-made for festivalgoers prone to shaking their hips instead of standing still. – Adam Schragin

Band of Skulls

5pm, Barton Springs stage

Britain's power trio du jour took a hard turn left from the raw power of 2009's Baby Darling Doll Face Honey on sophomore album Sweet Sour, softening the backend with sheen ("Wanderluster"), sorrow ("Navigate"), and morose soul ("Close to Nowhere"), all of which should leave folks wondering what happened to "Bruises." That song rips. – Chase Hoffberger

Punch Brothers

5:45pm, Austin Ventures stage

They may look like a bluegrass band and sound like one too, but the Punch Brothers take acoustic music to another plane. Five virtuosos based in New York City and led by Chris Thile (ex-Nickel Creek), their latest effort Who's Feeling Young Now? riles up string band music for a new century, at times noisy, at others mellifluous, always adventurous and kinetic. Most recently, they were featured on the soundtrack to The Hunger Games. – Jim Caligiuri

The Shins

6pm, AMD stage

After fulfilling its contract at Sub Pop, the Shins announced that the band's next album would appear on James Mercer's label Aural Apothecary. Then we waited. Five years. Spring's fourth LP, Port of Morrow, finds Mercer easing back on digital influences gained through Danger Mouse side project Broken Bells in favor of the whimsical folk pop Natalie Portman jammed to in Garden State. – Abby Johnston

The Roots

6pm, Bud Light stage

Hip-hop's best band has transformed from lockdown musicianship to full-blown theatrics, whiplash transitions, a strutting Tuba Gooding Jr., and Captain Kirk's hard rock intonations ("Sweet Child o' Mine"!) pivot 180 degrees from the slapdash, jazzier days that pervaded even in 2006. Last year's Undun, its 10th, was the Philadelphia crew's most complete thought yet, a diverse collage that examines the life of fictionalized Redford Stephens in reverse. – Chase Hoffberger

Steve Earle

7pm, Austin Ventures stage

Schertz's favorite son has been making his mark as an author, actor, and political activist of late, but Steve Earle hasn't stood still musically. Recently working with Pete Seeger on the 90-year-old folk hero's new disc, Earle spent this summer celebrating Woody Guthrie's centennial. Along with his wife Allison Moorer, Texan label mates the Mastersons (Eleanor Whitmore and Chris Masterson) are part of his band, the Dukes and Duchesses. – Jim Caligiuri