ACL 2008 Schedule Released This Morning

This morning, Austin City Limits Festival organizers released the schedule for 2008. The lineup, featuring acts like Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Spiritualized, Foo Fighters, Beck and Manu Chao, is notable this year thanks to its extremely strong middle section (the "heat of the day" section, as we like to call it) and offers acts like MGMT, Patty Griffin, Hot Chip and Duffy, as well as several quite worthy local acts, including Okkervil River and White Denim.

The evening headliners work like this: Mars Volta and Manu Chao play (essentially) opposite at the end of Friday, while Alejandro Escovedo, Swell Season (Oscar winners) and G Love play elsewhere about an hour earlier. On the same day, David Byrne and N.E.R.D. play simultaneously at 6:30 p.m. On Saturday evening, headliners Plant and Krauss (AMD Stage) will begin at 8:15 p.m., while Beck begins at 8:30 p.m. on the AT&T stage. An hour earlier, Roky Erickson, the Black Keys and Iron & Wine will all fight for a crowd together. Spiritualized will only have to pull from Duffy's crowd (or vice-versa) earlier in the day. On Sunday night, the Foo Fighters will perform unchallenged at 8:30 on the AT&T stage, and preceding that performance will be Band of Horses and Tegan & Sara both beginning at around 7:30 p.m. Gnarls Barkley and the Raconteurs will play opposite at 6:30 p.m.

The middle sections of the festival are a bit harder to plan for those of us interested in catching some local acts as well as out-of-town, independent "must-sees". On Friday afternoon, Yeasayer's set (1:30-2:30 p.m. on the Dell stage) is scheduled to end the minute Vampire Weekend's begins (2:30 p.m. on the AMD stage), so if you're trying to catch both buzz-worthy acts, you gotta hustle. Locals What Made Milwaukee Famous and the Strange Boys play (essentially) opposite each other as well, one beginning at 1:30, the other at 1:50 p.m. Seeing both solid Austin bands will be difficult, which is a shame (of course, it's not hard to see them other times around town if you're local, but if the bands were hoping to expose their act to some ACL attendees that don't typically see shows in bars, it'll be rough).

Keep reading and view the grid schedule after the jump.

Saturday's middle section features an unfortunately early set for Jamie Lidell, whose characteristically dance-fused, hip-hop influenced set might suffer from Friday's hangover-nursing late-comers, scheduled at 1:30 p.m. on the AT&T Blue Room stage. Also scheduled around that time is one other act that might (duh) want to lure some hip-hop and electro dance fans: Bavu Blakes (1:50 p.m., Austin Ventures). Later in the afternoon, Sharon Jones will perform opposite Band of Heathens and the Drive By Truckers. MGMT performs early in the day (12:30 p.m., AMD) with little competition from the indie rock genre on other stages. On Sunday, the Silversun Pickups will play opposite Neko Case (both begin at 4:30 p.m.), while White Denim kicks off their set at 5:15 p.m., making it hard to see all of the former (either Case or the Pickups) without missing some of the latter. Shooter Jennings fans will (maybe?) be upset that Blues Traveler is playing simultaneously, and Octopus Project battles the Kills and Adele in their 1:30 p.m. slot on Sunday.

Now, every year we get opinionated about the scheduling, even if we don't plan to attend, and this year is no different. Though crowd-splitting is certainly a concern for festival planners, a couple of the at-odds scheduling tactics are particularly unfortunate. As usual, even the most finely tuned itineraries and maps will be challenged by crowds and the distance between stages, which at times can seem more daunting than deciding which band you need to see and which you'd just like to see.

View the schedule here, and grab a PDF here. Still thinking about tickets? You can get a three-day pass for $170, and day passes are once again available, going for $80 each. There are some variations of those prices on Craigslist, but most offers are so close to the actual ticket price, they don't make driving to someone's house to pick them up worth the gas money.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Paige Maguire in Arts & Entertainment on June 3, 2008 10:10 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

zdouglas

Crap.

LoudMouth

SPECIAL GUEST.

JohnM

DAVID BYRNE

LoudMouth

The only problem is that the lineup is really crappy. Like really, really crappy.

Grape Ape

Every year, bitching and moaning. C'mon people, it works out to less than $60 a day in which you should be able to see at least 10 bands, that's $6 each (less if you see more), not too bad if you ask me. I'll watch almost anyone play for $6. On top of that, sun, beer, people to get together with and new people to meet. As for waiting for and prefering aftershows, if that's your gig that's cool, but I just can't justify a single $20-30 entry fee to see someone play an extra 15 minutes to call it a "full set" when I could have seen them play all of their same good songs for $6. Let's try and have one positive year discussing ACL shall we (sw).

zdouglas

We need a new group to come in and run ACL. The current group needs to focus on kids parties.

davetx

I'm hoping for some good post-ACL shows in town. I'd rather see a full set in a club than an hour-long set in the 100 degree sun.

nolalola

I am really stoked to see some excellent middle of the road artists I have yet to see. Mates of state, hot chip, yeasayer, stars, the kills, adele, sharon jones, the black keys, spiritualized. I'm familiar with there shit and at least know the kick ass in the studio. I do not have tickets. I plan on buying then=m at the door or craigslist for about 40 a day.

stickybump

So LoudMouth, are you saying you don't like the lineup? I'm kinda confused ...

LoudMouth

Yep. I must say that is a crappy lineup.

cram

It's a good thing no one is forced to attend ACL Fest.

LoudMouth

All those bands suck enormous ass except for two of them.

adi

Friday -- Yeasayer or WMMF at 1:30; The Strange Boys at 1:50; Vampire Weekend at 2:30; Louis XIV at 2:50; CSS at 3:30; M. Ward or Gogol Bordello at 4:30; Hot Chip at 5:30; Jenny Lewis at 5:45; N.E.R.D. or David Byrne at 6:30; Antibalas at 7:15; Alejandro Escovedo at 7:45; and Manu Chao at 8:30! Sounds like a killer day of music to me :)

Saturday and Sunday are worthwhile too I say! But again, my glass at music festivals is always half full, not necessarily with beer though.

LoudMouth

Yep. It's a crappy crappy terrible lineup.

Grape Ape

The truth is that buzz bands just aren't that good, hence why they are buzz bands. They're too cool to play first, but not yet cool enough to play after the sun goes down. It's really mediocrity at its best, middle of the road bands in middle of the road time slots.

zdouglas

Quit kidding yourself, it is the worst line-up.

Don't worry though, I will not go so you can have more room to dance.

toddal

Its not a crappy lineup but Sunday is pretty lame, especially with how stacked it is towards funneling everyone to see the Foo Fighters. Also, why are all of the hot buzz bands at 1:30 and 2:30 all the time?? I mean I know its because they are trying to get us out there drinking their $7 beers a little earlier but c'mon guys.