AUSTIN — The 10th annual Austin City Limits Music Festival unofficially kicked off Thursday night with three large-scale after-shows (technically pre-shows) taking place in various venues throughout downtown Austin, Tex.
Blues-rock giants the North Mississippi Allstars played Antone’s, Americana rockers Delta Spirit packed Emo’s on 6th and Colorado wunderkind, Pretty Lights, lit up Austin Music Hall with his array of fixtures and beats.
New York rapper Nas warmed the crowd for Derek Vincent Smith of Pretty Lights with an energetic yet minimalist performance, bringing with him just one DJ — a stark contrast to the set that would follow.
Pretty Lights came out swinging with his full, sprawling, borderline epileptic light display that illuminated the sizable Austin Music Hall from first note, giving the traditionally rock ‘n’ roll obsessed Austin music scene a dose of Colorado’s ever-expanding DJ culture.
Across town at Emo’s, a much different scene, as folk-rock, twangy guitars, mouth harps and pounding piano keys filled the ramshackle garage venue until the early hours of Friday morning. Futurebirds, part of the exciting new crop of acts rising from the storied music town of Athens, Ga., opened the bill with a set of traditional alt.-country.
Headliners Delta Spirit tore out of the gate with a trio of fan favorites — “Parade,” “Bushwick Blues” and “Strange Vine” — taking barely a breath between. Lead singer Matt Vasquez was in fine, eccentric form swaying about the stage, brushing up against band members and locking his gaze on the sold-out crowd before him. “Trashcan” and “Children” elicited the best responses and sing-alongs of the night, and a rousing, drunken encore of “People Turn Around” closed out Thursday eve just before last call.
Check back Friday-Monday for more coverage and photo galleries of all things ACL 2011.
Follow our news and updates on , our whereabouts on and our relationship status on . Or send us a telegram.
John Hendrickson is the managing editor of Reverb and a multimedia journalist for The Denver Post. Follow his rants on music and more on .
Andy Beam is a New York photogrpaher and a new contributor to Reverb.
