ACL ’26 DAY 3
Austin City Limits Closed a Busy First Weekend
Photo: Vinnie Fallico / ACL Fest.
Austin City Limits successfully closed its first weekend despite the difficult weather conditions. Despite all the inconveniences, people were able to embrace them as part of the experience, looking at the venue with curiosity and optimism.
AUSTIN | By Pablo Herrera
Our third day started kind of busy. We met Indiana singer-songwriter Lauren Sanderson for a quick chat under a light rain. I was particularly excited to meet Lauren, especially after the release of her latest album, Lauren, which comes after almost 10 years of releasing music.
For the first time, she released an album that, according to her, is not meant to provoke but to state where she finally is. “I feel I don’t have to prove anything to anyone,” she told me. And she is right. Listening to the album, you can tell that it is built around what she really feels, full of unapologetic lyrics and non-pretentious songs.
After our chat, I went to take a look at her set at the BMI Stage and could see the incredible connection she has with her audience. I have to say, it was one of the performances of the entire festival where I saw people so identified and engaged with an artist. She represents something beyond music for her fans; there is a sort of liberation in having Lauren say everything they want to yell about structures, proud queerness and rebellion, but with a confident rather than defiant voice.
Stay tuned for our interview, coming soon to our platform.
Watch: Lauren Sanderson performs at ACL Fest 2026. Photo & Video: Pablo Herrera / TMN.
We then went to take a look at Solya, who was playing at the T-Mobile Stage right before the interview we had scheduled with her. I was absolutely impressed with her. The 20-year-old “Queen of Texas” is a very talented young woman who started writing songs at the age of 16. Her voice is clean and feels confidently calm, and under a light rain everything appeared to come together at just the right moment for her to shine.
“I thought the rain would ruin my set,” she told me during our interview, but it was perfect.
I asked her how she started writing songs and how she built her confidence. “I watched a lot of interviews with musicians,” she told me. And I said, well, maybe a newcomer musician will watch this interview we are doing now. She laughed. “It is true,” she said.
Stay tuned for the interview, coming soon to our video section.
We did not move from the Press Lounge because we had to meet the five-piece Boston band Fai Laci: Luke Faillaci, Michael Goldblatt, Zack Putnam, Cal Hamandi and Anthony Cervone.
This conversation was a connection at first glance. The Boston band started with Luke releasing music on his own. His EP Conversation included “Five” and “Gypsy Lover,” which went on to accumulate millions of streams. As the music started gaining traction, Luke had to do something about it. He called his friends and started putting the band together.
Then they met a producer who told them, “You are good. You just need to play 1,000 shows to become good musicians.” They told me they have done only about 10% of that so far. However, they have already released their debut LP, Elephant In The Room, produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys at Easy Eye Sound Studios in Nashville.
We had a conversation about human connection, fuck AI, and many other things related to making music and authenticity. The conversation lasted longer than planned. We were just chatting as friends, not as interviewer and interviewees.
Stay tuned for the full conversation.
Watch: Fai Laci interview excerpt.
After the interview with Fai Laci, we ran to the Snapchat Stage to see Sunday (1994), the trio formed by Paige Turner, Lee Newell and Puma, with whom we had an interview scheduled right after their set.
What I was expecting did not disappoint me. Sunday (1994) is exactly what you can see on their Instagram profile and in their music videos. Their presence on stage is just impeccable: the feeling of the music, the simple aesthetic.
During our interview, Lee told me, “Scarcity and limitations are there to open up your creativity, not the other way around,” and I could not agree more.
If you listen to their latest EP, Devotion, you can hear the impeccable connection between simple chords and a complex result. Paige’s voice blends with the guitar chords and the beat, just blending instead of calling for attention. Their performance was sweet and clean, and once again the light rain and that film-like texture did the rest.
We chatted with the band about their creative process, what comes next and why they named the band as they did. Here I felt a particular connection. After working in creative industries for so long, I can understand what it means to use your creativity for others.
“If we wouldn’t have worked as we did for so long for others, and if we would have started this young, we wouldn’t have the confidence and assertiveness to do what we are doing now,” Paige said during our conversation.
Stay tuned for the full conversation, coming soon to our video section.
Watch: Sunday (1994) performs at ACL Fest 2026. Video & Photo: Pablo Herrera / TMN.
After the interviews were all set for the day, we decided to tour the festival and see what we could discover.
And Audrey Hobert was just right there. She has been in the spotlight for a while now but whom I had never experienced live before. What amazed me was the connection with her audience, her contained energy on stage and her sustained voice. It was a set I really enjoyed, with a timid sun finally appearing over Zilker Park. It was that moment of the festival when everything happens just for a minute: music, people embedded in the songs...
Watch: Audrey Hobert performs at ACL Fest 2026. Photo: Pooneh Ghana / ACL Fest. Video: Pablo Herrera / TMN.
At 6:30 PM came the moment I was waiting for all day: Geese.
Curiously, I saw Geese for the first time here at ACL two years ago, in 2024. I cannot believe the difference between that band and the one you see today. At the time, they were playing a much smaller stage, early in the lineup. Just two years later, Cameron and friends are leading one of the biggest stages with the authority of a band that has grown enormously in only two or three years.
I remember Cameron telling stories onstage back then (see the video here). He doesn’t have the time to tell stories onstage anymore. I have to say, I liked Geese when they were younger and silly and innocent. It’s not that I don’t like them now — I do — but I like to remember the good times, when you had them there in NYC playing for some friends and Cameron making jokes.
I do hope fame does not erase what they really are: just the boys from the city I love and live in, the guy from the coffee shop, the small venue in Brooklyn. But I understand that may not be possible anymore.
In any case, I do think the band has grown professionally: more confidence, a great act, an impeccable live set. It was a great thing to experience.
Watch: Geese perform at ACL Fest 2026. Photo & Video: Pablo Herrera / TMN.
The last chunk of the day ended up being a mix of everything.
SOFI TUKKER at the American Express Stage, followed by The War on Drugs at the Snapchat Stage — as usual, incredible. Then Blood Orange at the BeatBox Stage, with an incredible amount of people packed in.
And here another memory came to mind. When I put Stuffing Boulevard in my wedding playlist in 2019, nobody knew the guy. This is another of those examples where I can trust my taste.
Watch: Blood Orange performs at ACL Fest 2026. Photo: Nathan Zucker / ACL Fest. Video: Pablo Herrera / TMN.
Before heading to The xx at the T-Mobile Stage, we did the preview with Parcels at the Miller Lite Stage. They did not disappoint, of course, and it was the perfect introduction to the Brits, who are about to end their tour after almost one year traveling around the world.
I saw The xx last summer at Primavera Sound Festival, and the experience equally paid off. You cannot regret seeing them as many times as you can.
Watch: The xx perform at ACL Fest 2026. Photo & Video: Pablo Herrera / TMN.
Before leaving Zilker for the year, until 2027, we went to take a look at Twenty One Pilots to close this year’s edition for us in the best way possible.
ACL, once again, ended for us — but not yet for everyone. Weekend Two is coming next week, and if I can tell something to those who are still having second thoughts about grabbing their tickets, I would say: just do it!
ACL never disappoints. And I can tell you, if after this muddy year it couldn’t tear my expectations and enthusiasm down, then nothing can.
Stay tuned for all our interviews from this year, subscribe to our YouTube channel and our newsletter to stay up to date, and see you again next year, ACL!
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