What is said to be one of the greatest lineups ACL has put out, which contained many award-winning artists performing on multiple stages across two weekends. The festival was headlined by Paul McCartney, Metallica, Travis Scott, and Arctic Monkeys. An injury to Childish Gambino days before his ACL headlining performance caused him to cancel both weekends of the festival.
Other notable acts included Odesza, Justice, The National, Camila Cabello, Shawn Mendes, Khalid, Hozier, Lil Wayne, Father John Misty and many more.
Paul McCartney headlined Friday night and played for nearly 2 hours consisting of his solo music as well as a few of The Beatles songs. Booking Paul McCartney has been one of ACL’s biggest acts ever to play the festival. Of course most of the crowd consisted of people over the age of 30+ who have been fans of McCartney since his Beatles days. Earlier in the day fans got to see an upcoming artist, Bishop Briggs, who always has a very high energetic set to get the crowd moving. A boy rap group from down south on I-35 saw a primetime performance slot at the festival for the first time ever. Brockhampton brought a huge crowd after rising to success in such a short time since forming in 2015 in San Marcos, Texas. Another Texas artist drew a huge crowd, Khalid from El Paso was a fan favorite during day one of ACL.
Saturday brought a different crowd with more heavy rockers with Metallica headlining and Disturbed opening right before them and a few other rock n roll bands. Metallica brought their snake pit to the festival which they have used for every show on their recent tour around the world. They played all of the hits throughout the night and gave the excitement they gave in every show for the past 30 years.
Rap Legend, Lil Wayne, was added to the festival on his birthday and one day before his highly awaited album ‘Tha Carter V’ was released on September 28th. He attracted a really large crowd which caused a lot of security to be on deck during his set. His first ever ACL performance was one for the books.
With Childish Gambino dropping out due to injury, Travis Scott headlined the night with Arctic Monkeys for day three of weekend two. Crowds split between thousands of indie rockers on one end of the festival and hip hop ragers on the other. Both artists did not disappoint for the last day of the festival. Travis Scott, who is also a Texas native from Houston, brought out NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal to join him on stage during his set. During the day fans enjoyed sets by Shawn Mendes, Sylvan Esso, X Ambassadors and a very theatric performance by Janelle Monae who had one of the best performances of the festival.
With the festival coming to the end, there was truly iconic moments with so many artists performing at ACLand Austin for the first time ever. With one of the best lineups this festival has seen, it will be tough to top this years lineup, but we will see what C3 can put up to compete with an insane lineup that was headed by Paul McCartney and Metallica.
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Coverage by Taylor Tattom, Maria Limon and Joshua Guerra | Exclusively for @Music, Why Not!