Summer is creeping in, which means the fall concert calendars are filling up fast, and we should know which Austin City Limits Music Festival artists will book side dates in our area sooner rather than later. The standard disclaimer: Rocks Off is not a promoter, and we have no inside knowledge whatsoever that any of these shows are even close to being a reality. What we do know is that, as of right now, they could happen.
As far as we know, on each given day, all the venues below have an open date while each ACL artist is booked in Zilker on one of the other days of the festival. By the law of averages, some of the artists below will show up in this area around that weekend - based on years past, Houston figures on getting a couple of big shed-filling names, and enough mid-card artists to keep local theaters and clubs full all weekend.
But who? And where? What follows is Rocks Off's absolute best-case scenario, how we'd bring the cream of this year's ACL crop to the Bayou City. As John Nova Lomax alluded to in this week's cover story, Houston is a lot closer to catching up with our neighbors to the northwest than a lot of people realize. True, maybe not quite this close...yet. Some of these are obviously pipe dreams, others maybe not so much. Get cracking, promoters.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
Continental Club: Charles Bradley, Gary Clark Jr.
Fitzgerald's (upstairs): The Walkmen, Smith Westerns, The Antlers
Reliant Arena: Manu Chao La Ventura, Cee-Lo Green, Nas & Damien "Jr. Gong" Marley
Warehouse Live (Ballroom): Gomez, J. Roddy Walston & the Business
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
Blanco's: Nick 13
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion: Allison Krauss & Union Station, Gillian Welch, Court Yard Hounds
House of Blues (Main Room): Social Distortion, Wanda Jackson
Jones Hall: Randy Newman, Iron & Wine
Numbers: My Morning Jacket, The Head & the Heart
Rich's Houston: Skrillex
Warehouse Live (Ballroom): Cut Copy, Chromeo
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
Continental Club: Old Crow Medicine Show, Mariachi El Bronx
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion: Coldplay, Elbow
Fitzgerald's (upstairs): Death From Above 1979, Cold War Kids
Fitzgerald's (downstairs): The Delta Spirit, The Vaccines
House of Blues (Bronze Peacock Room): Sara Bareilles, Brandi Carlisle
House of Blues (Main Room): Ray LaMontagne, James Blake
Stereo Live: Empire of the Sun, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
Rudyard's: Kurt Vile & the Violators, Reptar
Verizon Wireless Theater: Bright Eyes, Fleet Foxes
Warehouse Live (Ballroom): Broken Social Scene, Pretty Lights, The Airborne Toxic Event
Warehouse Live (Studio): Joseph Arthur, Phosphorescent
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
Toyota Center: Kanye West, Stevie Wonder
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House of Blues (Main Room): TV on the Radio, Santigold
Miller Outdoor Theatre: Preservation Hall Jazz Band & Del McCoury Band, Mavis Staples
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