ACL Fest 2017 Lineup: Chance, Chilis, Gorillaz

Wake up, wipe the crust from your eyes, and pour a cup of coffee. After a week of fake poster leaks and real performer clues dropped via song lyrics on their phone app, ACL Fest breaks the dawn with its annual lineup reveal. Headlining Austin’s largest outdoor music festival in October are Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chance the Rapper, Gorillaz, and the Killers.

The top section of the poster yields no real surprises as ACL Fest’s formula has become evident over the last three years: a radio favorite from the Nineties, a top rapper, a rock outfit from the Aughts, and EDM’s reigning hotness – which this year comes represented by young Dutch EDM/pop producer Martin Garrix. Festival organizers seemed to have killed the once trustworthy heritage act slot a la Lionel Richie, Neil Young, and the Eagles.

The friendly funk-rock of RHCP still echoes in recent memory from their 2012 Zilker Park engagement and the Killers check off their third ACL enlistment after appearances in 2004 and 2007. Meanwhile, the Gorillaz have been a shoo-in since their U.S. tour dates were announced last month, but Damon Albarn’s cartoon clan yields a timely and overall laudable “get” considering they’ve hit Austin just once – at the Frank Erwin Center for 2010’s Plastic Beach Tour.

Other notables on the docket for the fall fest, running Oct. 6-8 and Oct. 13-15 on Zilker Park’s Great Lawn include Texas-born pop/R&B royal Solange, British pop atmospherics and next week’s two-night Moody Theater sell-out, the XX, indie songsmith Angel Olsen, downtempo electronic artiste Bonobo, song fountain Ryan Adams, Canadian jazz/experimental group Badbadnotgood, Austin’s primo rock exports Spoon and the Black Angels, the poppy folk pair First Aid Kit and the Head & the Heart, and – way down the lineup – Bob Marley’s 20-year-old grandson, Skip Marley.

Veteran hard rhymer Ice Cube furthers ACL’s increasingly deep hip-hop contingent along with Run the Jewels, D.R.A.M., Danny Brown, A$AP Ferg, and UK grime favorite Skepta. Note also that Chance the Rapper headlines this weekend’s JMBLYA extravaganza at Circuit of the Americas.

Forcing a hard decision on which weekend to lay down $255 are first-week exclusives Cut Copy, Superduperkyle, Royal Blood, Alison Wonderland, Mutemath, Joseph, and Thundercat, and second week-only acts Glass Animals, O.A.R., Getter, Eagles of Death Metal, Broods, Jacob Banks.

You have until 10am to decide – tickets typically sell out quickly.

Sadly, ACL Fest fake poster headliner Frank Ocean plays neither weekend. The idiosyncratic R&B artisan is way overdue for an Austin performance, having last appeared locally at La Zona Rosa in 2012.