Indeed, rain descended on Zilker Park in the days leading up to this year’s Austin City Limits fest, and it didn’t stop Friday. And yet the Chronicle team lived to tell the tale. Locals Elijah Delgado and Grocery Bag repped Austin to out-of-towners, Turnstile invited punks to the mud pit, and “a woman known as Charlotte,” as Irish pop-country diva CMAT called her earlier in the day, welcomed a surprise guest to her day one finale.
Read all that and more below, and keep an eye on ACL’s website for an updated schedule before you head down to Zilker for day two – Saturday’s doors have been delayed until 2pm to allow for mud cleanup.
Editor’s Note: Friday headliners Skrillex and Charli xcx did not allow photographers at their sets. This post will be updated with ACL-provided photographs of both artists’ performances as they become available.
Elijah Delgado Plays Charmed, Charming Afternoon Set
If everything was right in the world, every soft-spoken, sincerely stated singer-songwriter would have a goofily energetic, head-thrashing bandmate. All, certainly, is not right in the world, but things are looking pretty great for Elijah Delgado – because he has Elik Jazdzewski. From the opening moments of the early afternoon performance, Jazdzewski’s pink bass was enthusiastically bobbing, quickly warming the stage and easing any potential first-Austin City Limits jitters in his bandmates. Before long, Delgado’s pop-rock interludes found the songwriter and guitarist Ibra Martinez bouncing off each other with eager rock showmanship. The still-drying crowd was charmed too, swaying to psychedelically fuzzy melodies and singing along to the plaintive chorus of “Moonboy.”
As he crooned through early releases – like 2021’s “Cloud 9,” which the songwriter penned while still in high school – and recent tracks from his June EP Wherever You Go, There You Are, the weather, too, smiled on Delgado. The sky above the Snapchat stage stayed dry for the entirety of his set. “I’ve dreamt literal dreams about being here, in this moment,” the born-and-raised Austinite earnestly told the crowd, grinning behind oval sunglasses. “I grew up attending this festival, so this is unreal. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with us.” – Caroline Drew
Solomon Hicks Plays the Mudstock Blues
When grading vinyl formally, “good” means the opposite for some reason. Zilker Park felt like that Friday after a hard noontime shower. Mudstock – and it wouldn’t be the first either. Across 25 years now, ACL’s experienced every extreme weather except snow.
Happily for Harlem-born bluesman Solomon Hicks, the Tito’s Tent stayed cool and dry – excluding Rebecca Black, who pulled a Lizzo-sized stage-too-small crowd there. In the case of Hicks, charismatic and chic as Donald Glover but needing a bit more raw Benjamin Booker (who’s electrified that Tent), a smaller stage might have suited the guitarist better – say Antone’s. Having cut this year’s sophomore album How Did I Get So Blue at Arlyn Studios, that makes sense. Though not quite ready for Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival, Hicks made a game effort, original “Everyday I Have the Blues” from 2020 bow Harlem lifting the “Crossroads” riff. Genre standard “Further on Up the Road” followed. By the moodier “Driftin’ and Driftin’,” his sound finally gained mass, while his fills and solos began liquefying. Tone stayed the same throughout, however, with no apparent guitar pedals or even another axe to modulate overall shred. Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie” scored nonetheless.
“Austin’s pretty cool,” Hicks grinned toward the end of his 45-minute set. “I went to the White Horse last night.” That left all-too apropos highlight “It Feels Like Rain” and closing Chuck Berry cover “Memphis, Tennessee.” More of that and he’ll take ACL Fest by storm. – Raoul Hernandez
CMAT’s Campy EURO-COUNTRY Kills
Dolly, Shania, Elvis, and a lot of Dublin course through Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, who performs as CMAT with the theatrical flair of a pop star and a drag queen’s gay love child. Tooth gems and “JESUS ROCKS”-declaring belt gleaming, the Irish musician and her sixpiece “Sexy CMAT Band” brought choreo and last year’s acclaimed EURO-COUNTRY to “Austin Titty Limits.”
Opener “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station” set a steady, sashaying groove, Daniel Vildósola’s atmospheric pedal steel and Colm Conlan’s tasteful, wood-paneled keyboard adding light twangy flourishes to Morgan Karabel and William Bishop’s grounding rhythms. Thompson herself, while stalking the catwalk and hamming up operatic vocal runs throughout 2023 Crazymad, for Me cut “Have Fun!” and EURO-COUNTRY single “When a Good Man Cries,” shared the spotlight with her band with a collectivist attitude found in few solo performers. Twisting and two-stepping, she welcomed bassist Bishop and aptly named dress-donning guitarist Jack “Skirt Cobain” Wolter to “make it sexy” with her near the front of the catwalk, duetted with fiddle player Holly Carpenter during “Take a Sexy Picture of Me,” and slapped the ass of cartwheeling, twerking keyboardist Conlan in between group line dances and King-inspired windmill arms.
Scattered showers cut the sun, but 91% humidity prompted the singer to take her shirt off anyway. “That barely helped!” she cheered, Sixties-styled bra pointing straight ahead. Steering the crowd through the cathartic chanted chorus of “Stay for Something,” CMAT let loose one last banshee wail before disco dancing off the scorched AmEx stage. – Carys Anderson
Bo Staloch Makes a Heartfelt Homecoming
Bo Staloch didn’t take the home field advantage for granted in making his ACL Fest debut Friday afternoon. Though currently making his mark in Nashville, the Austin native wasn’t shy about the emotion of the moment in coming back to play his hometown festival.
“This is a lifelong dream of mine. Y’all are about to see me cry like nine times,” he offered early into his 45-minute set. “I grew up going to this festival. You guys have no idea what it means to me to be on this stage.”
With a shaggy country heartthrob look and voice so tender that it falls off the bone, Staloch flashed the potential shown on his two released EPs, letting his high floating tenor trill through the Tito’s Tent. The young songwriter proved to have still plenty of room to grow, though, with most of the songs following the formula of soft intros into crescendos of either cathartic rock riffs or hey-ho Lumineers-ish folk pop. He dug deep for the local crowd with early tune “Your Eyes Tell Stories” and the gritty “Fault Line” unleashed the full quintet, while closer “I Won’t Be There Waiting for You” spurred a rousing sing-along. Staloch is still figuring out his sound, but he’s got plenty of talent to work with. – Doug Freeman
Jesse Welles Rallies a Truth-to-Power Resistance
Jesse Welles’ online notoriety for his quirky, quick-witted ditties railing against the hypocrisies of our time don’t quite do justice to the Arkansas songwriter’s jam-fueled power with a full band. Although he sauntered onto the T-Mobile stage solo with the familiar backdrop screen “under the powerlines” to rip through a skewering rendition of “The Nerd Reich,” when the full quintet emerged for “Join Ice,” a full chugging breakdown commenced. The mud-caked crowd roared in appreciation for the biting satires and truth-to-power takedowns, with one flag declaring “FUCK ICE” and another mocking the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag with Beavis’ Cornholio. In other words, Welles was in his element.
“It’s good to be in the walled garden. It’s good to be in Talarico country,” he smiled between “The Ballad of Big Balls” and “Red.” The two rippingly executed covers of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” and Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” hit perfectly in the 15-song, hourlong set, as well as the impromptu turn into CCR’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” as the clouds opened up in the late Friday afternoon. Welles wasn’t all bite and rage though, as the penultimate “Good Morning America” offered a solo benediction of hope for the country, even as he closed with the sharp dagger of “War Isn’t Murder.” Welles may not necessarily be the voice of a generation, but he’s certainly harnessing its frustrations to full effect. – Doug Freeman
Brandon Flowers Expands His Western Canon
“When I was growing up, I felt like I was always at this crossroads. I had to choose between my brother’s New Wave records and my dad’s country records,” the Killers frontman told the evening Austin City Limits crowd mid-set. His discography, with the alt-rock quartet and on his own, shows these dueling influences in practically equal parts, but on THRASHER, Brandon Flowers is leaning old-school country. Onstage, the record’s tracklist felt already familiar, imbued with an instant nostalgia via Flowers’ signature American imagery, a welling sense of emotion, and earnestly composed flourishes of lap steel, harmonica, and fiddle.
In a stylishly minimal, Western-tinged black suit, the longtime rocker greeted a smaller audience than the lawn-spanning masses that gathered for the Killers’ set last year, but he was no less a showman. He indulged a few Killers hits that tilt toward the country side of the fence – “When You Were Young,” “Read My Mind,” and “All These Things That I’ve Done” – but otherwise stayed true to his August record, adding a few earlier solo tracks like Flamingo hit “Crossfire.” A glint of charismatic humility rounded his movie star smile when the audience finished his verse.
Flowers delivered the set’s finale, “An American Dream,” an intensely personal ode to the West and reckoning with mortality, with the trembling, barely contained passion of a revivalist preacher. These tracks might not yet provoke the crowd’s insatiable outpouring like Killers classics, but they have the feeling of songs that will. – Caroline Drew
Grocery Bag Makes Heavy History
ACL’s history of heavy remains on par with its interest in jazz. Queens of the Stone Age (2007), The Sword (2010), Metallica and Deftones (2018), GNR (2019), and Miley Cyrus (2021) sum up most of the former. And yet, from no less than the tiny BMI stage, Austin alt-punks Grocery Bag helped triangulate what felt like an ACL Fest moment.
Starting just as Aussie DIY hammer Amyl & the Sniffers finished on the headlining Amex stage, the homegrown quartet yanked hard on its chainsaw and let loose for the better part of an hour late Friday afternoon. Sunbaked or sodden, sunscreen or soaked socks – choose your festival fate. Mud and slop suited Grocery Bag’s dirty, gritty recoil. Guitarist Dillon Aitala did most of the talking (“What the fuck is up, ACL?”) and even a half leap in front of the drum riser, but singer/guitarist Isabella Martinez yelped and snarled a hard focus despite the drums of friend Jimmy Mercado nearly drowning her out.
White Reaper once scythed the same stage, but Grocery Bag’s barrage – let’s not forget bassist Logan Kerman – set some sort of decibel high water mark. And like an Oh Sees marathon, they never let up. “I’m excited for Turnstile over there,” nodded Martinez to her left at other header stage T-Mobile, on which the Baltimore hardcore punks demolished a historic set in service of a mud mosh. Since rap and country are off the table (this ACL, anyway), more hardcore, please – more punk, more metal. More Grocery Bag. – Raoul Hernandez
Turnstile Turns Mud into a Mosh Pit
By the time Turnstile took the T-Mobile stage, the rain had turned the festival ground into a thick mud pit. The crowd took that as less of a deterrent and more of an invitation.
Kicking off with NEVER ENOUGH highlight “BIRDS,” vocalist Brandon Yates, guitarists Pat McCrory and Meg Mills, bassist Franz Lyons, and drummer Daniel Fang danced and pounded through 13 tracks of full-throttle hardcore as fans emerged from the muck with sludge caked across their faces. “LOOK OUT FOR ME,” from the same Grammy-winning 2025 album, found Yates alone under a spotlight as its reverberating outro carried on, creating an almost devotional stillness from otherwise relentless festivalgoers.
After a short mid-set interlude, the energy returned with “BLACKOUT,” from 2021’s GLOW ON, when Yates asked the crowd to lift their friends onto their shoulders, sending fans skyward. In between tracks, footage celebrating the Baltimore quintet’s fans played onscreen; again and again, listeners reflected on the connection Turnstile’s cultivated across 15 years and four albums. Yates brought that connection to the barricade during closer “T.L.C. (TURNSTILE LOVE CONNECTION)” for a group sing-along. By the end, the crowd was filthy, exhausted, and grinning. – Miranda Garza
Gen Z Rap Fans Flock to Molly Santana
“Molly Santana/ New Hannah Montana,” proclaims the young rapper’s breakout feature on Drake’s “Ran to Atlanta,” which Santana performed a clipped version of for her Austin City Limits debut. The statement has an obvious rhyming ring to it, but the artists share little besides a penchant for wigs and a young fanbase.
Santana’s was hot pink for her Friday night set – topped, when she walked out, by an army helmet festooned with various firearm barrels for a fauxhawk effect. Clutching an AutoTune-armed microphone made to look like a gun with wings, the 21-year-old met a modest-yet-dedicated crowd of Gen Z fans. A loose circle of pseudo-slam dancers kept energy up at the back of the group and, near the front, fans cheered while Santana alternatively sang and rapped over a backing track. A hype man/DJ, tucked ominously off stage, worked the crowd and engaged the artist over the speakers, leading a phone flashlight-lit performance of “Nothing Like This” and prompting the musician to close with her yet-unreleased next single.
Platform boots, a skull-adorned black slip, and a chain reading “Black Punk” – the title of Santana’s upcoming album – kept the artist’s pop-punk influences top of mind, but her songs, each of which run roughly 2 minutes in length, fall squarely into trap and rage rap trends with with glitch-static melodies and repetitive proclamations. Cartoon visuals and cool girl energy kept loyal fans wanting more, but failed to hold the interest of passersby. – Caroline Drew
Skrillex Brings the Bass, Rain, and Fire
Skrillex opened his hour-and-a-half onslaught with a slow-burning rendition of Aphex Twin’s “#19,” with its hazy electronic textures gradually giving way to a burst of pyrotechnics. From there, his headlining set jolted between the abrasive brostep that defined his early career and newer touches of trap, techno, and jungle. His old-school sound still hit with the same industrial force: shuddering percussion and bone-rattling bass that seemed to buckle under its own weight. The Los Angeles DJ revisited fan favorites “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites,” “Cinema,” and “Try It Out,” alongside electric collaborations including Justin Bieber’s “Where Are Ü Now,” while putting his own distortion-drenched spin on Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina’s “Stereo Love” and Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling.” The crowd knew every era.
Fans sang along to both familiar tracks and to the beats themselves, turning drops into chants. Lasers, flashing lights, and bursts of fire kept the stage in constant motion, but the two massive side screens stayed mostly black, save for brief appearances from the headliner and drifting embers. For all its sonic magnitude, the relative emptiness of the LED displays was hard to ignore. Skrillex closed with a rapid-fire medley that pulled across his extensive catalog, including “Bangarang,” “Kyoto,” and “SAN DIEGO VIP,” just as rain began to fall. The festival’s first fireworks erupted overhead, giving the closing moments an appropriately outsized finish. – Miranda Garza
Charli xcx Plays the Pop Star
The BRAT tour didn’t have pyro. A few white lights, a sparse black stage, and those vulnerable hyperpop bangers did the talking for the longtime cult figure-turned-bona fide pop star in 2024. Now, as the British songwriter reckons with celebrity and craft on this summer’s Music, Fashion, Film, Charli xcx veers left with a cinematic live show, one designed for festival magnetism and curated with a sophisticated artist’s eye.
Charli stood with a live drummer, guitarist, and synth/bass player from a towering tiered platform, glowing and industrial, for opener “Rock Music.” Projected at first in black-and-white like Music, Fashion, Film’s austere album art, the cameras flashed to full color as the band crunched and glitched through the track’s pounding chorus. The song, Charli has insisted, claims its titular genre only as a joke, but as the band whirred through that and follow-up “Yeah,” nonsensical lyrics, laser beam synths, and big dumb guitar riffs swirled in an intoxicating mixture of, yes, rock & roll – what is rock music if not a racket that inspires thousands to jump around as one?
“Apple” and other “Club Classics” – including “Girl, So Confusing” and “Guess” without their big-name features – zeroed focus on Charli’s newest material, though she did throw OG fans “pink diamond” and “Track 10.” Costume changes and a lingerie-clad, 20-dancer runway strut during “Card Declined” augmented her dramatic vision.
Though fans spotted Lorde in the audience, the “little surprise” Charli teased online Friday afternoon proved to be her Sweat tourmate Troye Sivan, who gave the artist a breather while he performed “Le Boy” and “Party.” A collaboration – they have many – would’ve enthralled more than a Sivan solo moment, but Charli’s closer did the trick.
“They are dead. They are gone. No one lasts forever,” David Cronenberg’s voice repeated, as the singer wrapped with the melancholy MFF finale. Block letters captioned the director’s monologue on AmEx’s life-sized screens; as Charli’s voice faded and his recording warped, the singer and her crew stood solemn, posed, as his words – “OBLIVION IS FREEDOM” – burned the monitors.
Pensive and commanding: This is pop music, as presented by Charli xcx. – Carys Anderson
This article appears in October 9 • 2026.
