Photo by Marco Torres

ACL at sunset, 2010

UPDATED (Thursday, 2:50 p.m.) to reflect the Houston-area roots of a few ACL performers this year, as pointed out by reader comments. We stand by our original point, though.

As most of our readers no doubt know by now, the Austin City Limits Music Festival announced its 2013 lineup at the stroke of midnight Tuesday. This fall will mark ACL's twelfth edition in Zilker Park on the shores of Town Lake, and its first expanding to two identical weekends: October 4-6 and 11-13.

Rewind:

Depeche Mode, The Cure, Kings of Leon, Phoenix, Lionel Richie Head 2013 ACL Fest Lineup

Looking over this year's lineup, what leaps out first about the headliners is that, perhaps for the first time, the festival seems to consider thirty- and fortysomethings as the absolute upper range of its audience. This year's "heritage acts," what few there really are, all arrived on the scene in the late '70s or early '80s -- Depeche Mode, The Cure, Lionel Richie -- compared to the baby-boomer icons of ACLs past: Al Green, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan.

The other thing that stood out is that, once again, the lineup is utterly lacking in any representation by artists from a most active if not outright thriving music scene barely 150 miles to ACL's east, aka us.

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Moments ago, Depeche Mode, The Cure, MUSE, Kings of Leon, Atoms For Peace (featuring Thom Yorke and Flea), Lionel Richie, Phoenix, Wilco, Vampire Weekend, The National, and Eric Church were announced as the headliners of the 2013 Austin City Limits Music Festival, which plans to expand to identical weekends in Zilker Park on October 4-6 and 11-13.

A little further down the bill come Passion Pit, Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Kendrick Lamar, Franz Ferdinand, Kaskade, Tame Impala, Local Natives, and The Shouting Matches, a side project of Bon Iver's Justin Vernon.

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Photo By Jim Bricker

Fun. in February at Bayou Music Center

2013 marks the first year that the Austin City Limits Music Festival -- Texas' other large outdoor music festival, never to be confused with Houston's own Free Press Summer Fest -- expands to two consecutive weekends with identical lineups. At this point the lineup for the festival, scheduled for October 4-6 and October 11-13, is weeks away from being announced.

Rewind:

ACL 2013: What's Next For Texas' Other Big Music Festival?

The annual ACL announcement is always a big deal for Texas festival-heads. Granted, it's not as rich in flavorful band reunions and bearded, tattooed folk like Fun Fun Fun Fest, or weirdo corporate gigs like SXSW, but what it does offer is mainstream spectacle.

Last year's Iggy & the Stooges set was probably as "dangerous" as ACL has ever ventured, beyond that one time when it scheduled Wilco up against My Morning Jacket in 2007.

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Photo by Marco Torres

As we close the books on ACL's 2012 festivities, full of mud -- but not too much mud, Iggy Pop's elastic skin, Neil Young's reverb, and light shows aplenty, we look forward to the 2013 edition of the Austin megafest.

Rewind:

ACL Festival Expanding to 2 Weekends in 2013

Rocks Off's Complete ACL 2012 Coverage

The '13 affair will be scattered over two weekends, with identical lineups like California's Coachella. Jazz Fest in New Orleans already has two weekends of music, but the lineups are different save some of the locals.

Fan chatter at Zilker Park this weekend was heavy on talk of next year, and whether or not it would change the dynamic of the event.

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Photos by Marco Torres

Gary Clark Jr.

The rains came early on Sunday morning, but by the time the ACL opened up for business before noon, there was hardly a cloud in the sky, making for an extremely warm and muddy day. The biggest acts of the day -- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Iggy & the Stooges, Crystal Castles, and the Avett Brothers -- helped attract a sizable crowd to the last day of the last single-weekend ACL. We're going double-barrels next year, folks.

Rewind:

ACL Last Night: Iggy & the Stooges at Zilker Park

1. Gary Fucking Clark Jr.
Wow. I started off my Sunday afternoon with a slab of Texas blues with Gary Clark Jr. on the AMD stage. The hometown Austin hero delivered a riveting set in front of an attentive crowd, reminding us why he is Eric Clapton's favorite guitarist. Friends and family of Clark, plus some very major press outlets, were scattered all over the side stage area too, to see Clark overtake another rung on the ladder of rock stardom. CRAIG HLAVATY

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Photos by Marco Torres

UPDATED (11:40 a.m.) to correct "instrument" with "instrumental"

Iggy & the Stooges
Bud Light Stage
Austin City Limits Music Festival, Zilker Park
October 14, 2012

Rewind:

SLIDESHOWS: The Girls of Austin City Limits

Chili Peppers, Stooges, Die Antwoord: ACL 2012 Sunday

The Fans: ACL 2012 Sunday

Iggy & the Stooges are the hardest, roughest, and most evil band that has and ever will play ACL, that's a fact. The festival delves into hard rock, but it's usually of the cuddlier grunge-y variety, and not that sinewy, nut-busting sort that Iggy Pop and the Stooges make together.

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Photos by Marco Torres

Jack White
AMD Stage
Austin City Limits Festival, Zilker Park
October 13, 2012

Rewind:

SLIDESHOW: Neil Young, Jack White, The Roots: ACL 2012 Saturday Bands

SLIDESHOW: Rainy Saturday at ACL 2012: Crowd Shots

ACL 2012: Saturday's 9 Best & Funniest Moments at Zilker

ACL Last Night: Neil Young & Crazy Horse at Zilker Park

It's kind of complicated, the way I feel about Jack White. The last time I saw him play was probably ten years ago, before the White Stripes even got famous, at a small punk club in Oklahoma. There were maybe 20 people in the crowd, and the decade's garage-rock revival was just barely getting started. People at that show didn't quite know what to think about the band.

Since then White has switched projects and focus almost on a yearly schedule. He's out-famed his onetime partner Meg, dated movie stars, produced albums for country legends and even been in a few films. But I still don't know what to think of Jack White. To be perfectly honest, mostly I think I'm sick of his antics.

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Photos by Marco Torres

Rufus Wainwright

The return of terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad rain made Saturday a muddy but fun mess. Thankfully, the downpours didn't dampen the spirits of the crowd on day two of ACL, but it did seem to thin out the herds. Aside from remembering how to walk in inches-deep goop like we did back at the Dillo-Dirted 2009 edition of the festival, the music and sights were as hilarious and hellacious as expected.

Rewind:

SLIDESHOW: Neil Young, Jack White, The Roots: ACL 2012 Saturday Bands

SLIDESHOW: Rainy Saturday at ACL 2012: Crowd Shots

ACL Last Night: Neil Young & Crazy Horse at Zilker Park

1. Rufus Wainwright's Voice
Whether tackling his own new gospel-tinged work, or a Judy Garland tune, the sounds that comes from Rufus Wainwright's mouth hole are vastly-underrated. The man has haunting, sturdy pipes that should be heard by all. Come on guys, he's been doing this for twenty years now, get into it. CRAIG HLAVATY

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Photos by Marco Torres

Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Bud Light Stage
Austin City Limits Music Festival, Zilker Park
October 13, 2012

Rewind:

SLIDESHOW: Neil Young, Jack White, The Roots: ACL 2012 Saturday Bands

SLIDESHOW: Rainy Saturday at ACL 2012: Crowd Shots

ACL 2012: Friday's 12 Best & Funniest Moments at Zilker

With all the members knocking on the door of 70, it would be easy for the youngsters at ACL to call Neil Young and his band Crazy Horse decrepit and foggy. But their blistering set was a brute-force display of proto-grunge and Bernard Shakey hymns to the hard land and the harder life.

Simply put, the band was louder and tighter than most anything else one would see in Zilker Park thus far. Keep in mind that the Iggy & the Stooges' Sunday-evening set tonight could tie up that score.

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Photos by Marco Torres

Check out our slideshow of the crowds at Day 1 of Austin City Limits.

In the interest of being tidy and not boring you with minute details of the three-day exercise in sweaty and human endurance underway in Zilker Park this weekend, Rocks Off is giving you a break. Our team on the ground at the Austin City Limits Music Festival -- Brittanie Shey, Craig Hlavaty and Marco Torres -- will reel out the three to four coolest/oddest/best/WTF things we saw each day here at the festival. Here goes...

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