ACL Music Fest 2013 Friday Listings

Brooke Waggoner

12:45pm, BMI stage

Audiences might be quick to turn away from a classically trained singer-songwriter-pianist at a music festival, but set aside any Tori Amos prejudices for Nashville's Waggoner, who blends storytelling with jazzy avant-pop on third LP, Originator, which she wrote, arranged, and orchestrated independently. – Melanie Haupt

Widowspeak

12:45pm, Samsung Galaxy stage

With a slipper in Mazzy Star's waifish fairy folk and a boot in Royal Trux's gutter balladry, Molly Hamilton's detached soprano marinates in enough reverb to leave a tart aftertaste. The Brooklyn duo's The Swamp EP balances folk pop with a smoky strain of bad-trip psychedelia for a perfect pre-hangover wake-up call. – Michael Toland

Court Yard Hounds

2pm, AMD stage

There'll be no howling from these Hounds. Dixie Chicks siblings Emily Robison and Martie Maguire continue to thrive outside of Natalie Maines' creative control with their San Antonio-based Court Yard Hounds. Sophomore effort Amelita offers buoyant songs worthy of a Sheryl Crow-style barefoot romp. – Abby Johnston

Shovels & Rope

2:30pm, Austin Ventures stage

This South Carolina duo's fireball folk & roll blazed across the Americana scene on the comet O' Be Joyful. Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent's exuberant performances upstaged tourmates the Lumineers and earned them an upcoming episode of Austin City Limits. – Michael Toland

Pinback

3:30pm, Bud Light stage

For 15 years, Zach Smith and Rob Snow – along with a rotating cast of supporting players – have produced subtle, bleak, nuanced indie rock under the umbrella of Pinback, bearing witness to our evolving culture. The pair's fifth disc, Information Retrieved (Temporary Residence), is informed by our increased reliance on technology and skitters obliquely through a dystopian landscape. – Melanie Haupt

Electric Six

3:45pm, Austin Ventures stage

Does it make you feel old that "Danger! High Voltage!" celebrated its 10-year anniversary in May? These Detroit dance-rockers never replicated that amazing, brain-blowing, Jack White-featuring first single, but they've cobbled together a warm, Ween-like legacy since. The sextet releases its 10th album Mustang next month. – Luke Winkie

Fun

4pm, AMD stage

There's no denying Fun. In fact, it wouldn't be shocking to see the NYC trio headline a festival like this one in the near future. Spearheaded by Nate Reuss' operatic vocals, and a big, joyful dollop of Seventies arena-rock cheese, these recent Austin City Limits tapees pump the fury of Boston and INXS straight into the iPhone generation. – Luke Winkie

Local Natives

4:30pm, Samsung Galaxy stage

Local Natives are L.A.'s great hope. New York City sports the Strokes, Montreal has Arcade Fire, Chicago keeps Wilco, but the City of Angels has never had a big, galvanizing indie-rock band to itself. Local Natives have the hooks, foamy guitars, and good looks. Sophomore LP Hummingbird hit No. 12 on the charts. – Luke Winkie

Jake Bugg

5pm, Austin Ventures stage

A breakout at March's SXSW, Jake Bugg delivers a world-weary drawl to the manic energy of songs that belie his age. The UK teen's eponymous debut captured a raw restlessness in garage-folk riffs and youthful anthems "Lightning Bolt" and "Two Fingers," kicking against jaded malaise while mining the gritty scenes for gold. – Doug Freeman

Wild Belle

6:15pm, Austin Ventures stage

Chicago siblings Natalie and Elliot Bergman – she's the sultry voice, he's the musical hunter/gatherer behind the band's world-beat ethos – waded into indie rock on this year's debut Isles, smelling of coconut oil and tobacco. The lyrics tackle love, true love, broken love, and maternal love ("June," about their late mother, is both joyful and heartbreaking), while engaging in a vaguely colonial flirtation with all things irie. – Melanie Haupt

Queens of the Stone Age

7:30pm, Bud Light stage

Despite its A-list entourage – Dave Grohl, Mark Lanegan, Alex Turner, Trent Reznor, Sir Elton John – and the slight return of original bassist Nick Oliveri, QOTSA's new album and first in six years, ... Like Clockwork (Matador), is all Josh Homme, unhinged. Complete with slow jams, monstrous epics, and a relentless groove, it's his strongest album since Songs for the Deaf, boasting a cocky grandeur that's more Queen than Queens. – Austin Powell

Purity Ring

7:45pm, Austin Ventures stage

As the sun sets, Megan James and Corin Roddick will have their ideal performing condition: darkness. Roddick's handcrafted instrument, a system of pipes and colored, lighted orbs, is the throbbing force behind Purity Ring's bass-heavy head trip on debut album Ungirthed. The shows are solemn, captivating, and guaranteed to have dramatic flourishes. – Abby Johnston

Muse

8:30pm, Samsung Galaxy stage

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams imagines the loudest band in the universe, one with a live spectacle that could devastate entire planets. That's Muse, the heaviest power trio this side of Rush. Since 2003 stateside breakthrough Absolution, each album's gotten exponentially bigger and more grandiose, the concepts even more far-fetched. Last year's The 2nd Law tackled thermodynamics and the unsustainability of modern consumption. – Austin Powell