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Austin City Limits

ACL: Batman's Bale At Bingham, Nick 13 is a 10 On Sunday Afternoon

Check out all of our coverage from ACL 2011, including our hottest crowd shots and our slideshow from Sunday featuring Randy Newman, Arcade Fire and The Walkmen.

The widget on our phone says it's only 91 degrees here at Zilker Park but we don't believe that voodoo. The humidity and heat pounding the park reminds us of Houston. We smell Pasadena and our fair city's taco trucks all the way from Austin.

Our day started by walking up on The Head & The Heart on the Google+ stage, and their dear melodies and twee presentation lulled most of the crowd to the ground early Sunday afternoon. Kinda wondering if some of the bands on this stage this year will be remembered next year, or like its namesake, fall victim to public boredom.

We walked up on some friends who were sitting next to a girl who was buried under an umbrella and sipping water. She had just had a delicate female chest-related surgery just a few days back and still elected to take in all three days of ACL, bandages and swelling and all.

On the Honda stage on the western side of the festival, indie-darlings Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. were covering the Beach Boys and Steve Winwood's "Higher Love," injecting some popcraft into their set at one of the hottest locales out here.

As we are typing this, the bros in Mariachi El Bronx are doing interviews around the media tent, baking in their ornate stage costumes. People are clamoring for frozen fruit bars like kids on summer break.

Nick 13's overcast set at half past three tempered our moods with some Dwight Yoakam sheen, and the moonlighting psychobilly hero was drawing fans that made it out for Social Distortion coming up this evening. Looking a tattooed Westworld robot, the Californian was a worthy appetizer for Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses on the large AMD stage right after.

Bingham and band beat their instruments in the waning heat, opening up strong with "Depression" from last year's Junky Star. Christian Bale, on leave from filming The Dark Knight Rises, was seen on the side of the stage, clean-shaven and sturdy-looking like Bruce Wayne.


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Craig Hlavaty
Contact: Craig Hlavaty