Austin City Limits

Arctic Monkeys Live at City Limits 2013

Spoon emerged in the early aughts and Austin City Limits is proud to present highlights from the band’s multiple appearances on the program over two decades. Pitchfork hails them as “one of the most stand-up bands of their generation” and as Rolling Stone raves of their twenty-five-year streak: “It’s just been one long stretch of slow-build greatness.” The 14-song, the career-wide hour is a master-class from a band that has inspired legions of diehard fans and made it strictly on its own terms: jagged guitar, tight melodies, and killer hooks, as frontman Britt Daniels’ indelible vocals, fuse with drummer Jim Eno’s impeccable beats to create a sound all their own.

Cheap Trick headlines the Auditorium Shores stage at South by Southwest 2010 in Austin, Texas.

This man from Sherman, Texas probably best-known as the wide-grinning rube on Hee Haw for so many years started a country music revolution. Or more accurately, a counter-revolution. It was called the Bakersfield Sound, He and fellow revolutionary Merle Haggard were cranking out raw, hard-driving honky-tonk music that stood the country-pop coming out of Nashville on its head. When Buck Owens and the Buckaroos would launch into "I've got a tiger by the tail, it s plain to see...!" the packed crowds would be on their feet and headed for the dance floor. Performed at Austin City Limits on October 23, 1988.

Joined by his long-running five-piece band The Dukes, Earle hit the stage kicking off his Guy Clark tribute with the classic “Dublin Blues,” receiving exuberant cheers at the opening line “Wish I was in Austin.” Earle immediately went into “Texas 1947,” featuring the expert pedal steel work of Ricky Ray Jackson. After sharing a short story about how he met Guy Clark while hitchhiking around Texas, the band performed the ode to the Hill Country honky-tonkin’ queen “Rita Ballou,” featuring Eleanor Whitmore on violin. Following a tale about Clark’s loyalty to Texas BBQ over Tennessee style BBQ, Joe Ely joined Earle on stage to perform “Desperadoes Waiting For a Train” – two Texas music legends trading verses on one of the state’s most influential songs.

Country chanteuse Neko Case shows off her powerful pipes and topnotch songwriting skills in this intimate concert recorded in August 2003 for the PBS staple "Austin City Limits." The first-rate show features her distinctive fusion of country, gospel and punk sounds. In addition to her original tunes, Case performs several covers, including Bob Dylan's "Buckets of Rain" and Hank Williams' "Alone and Forsaken."

Eight albums in, Simpson’s dabbled in bluegrass and outlaw country and prog rock. It all coalesced into distinctly American, drawl-rich, ballooning music.

Billy Joe Shaver is the quintessential country songwriter, but that s just a big word that doesn't do justice to the honest, raw intensity and outpouring of heart and soul in his lyrics. Over 50 artists have recorded his songs, but nobody does it better than Billy Joe, and that s why this show is so important. Recorded on August 14, 1984, Billy Joe holds back nothing. There s the grit, there s the attitude, there s the defiance. But there s also the intimacy, the poetry, the stories.

For over thirty years, Lynyrd Skynyrd have carried the torch for southern rock with a fever pitch, all-out guitar assault. Great songs. Fearless attitude. Even after all these years, Free Bird remains one of rock and roll's most enduring anthems. This film, recorded live on December 15 1999, captures all the hits and more, and includes songs that were never aired on the original TV broadcast.