Morning Misses: The Top 5 Acts We Think you Shouldn’t Have Missed on Weekend 2 of ACL

Weekend two of Austin City Limits music festival had a packed early afternoon schedule. Featuring those from Austin, the U.K., and more, these are the top acts we hope you didn’t miss.

Written by Adam Cherian

There were huge headliners this past weekend at ACL, but some of the best music that festival attendees heard was at the top of the schedule. If you were too hungover to make it in the morning, or maybe just did not find it worth your time, here are the top five acts Afterglow had the pleasure of attending and reviewing.

Font

Photo courtesy of Ismael Quintanilla III

Newcomers to the Austin scene — rock quintet Font — gave festivalgoers a glimpse into what a 2023 Radiohead set would look like. The band, who started performing in early 2022, has amassed enough clout in the “Live Music Capital of the World” to have their own time slot at the 2023 American Express stage. Despite only having one song out on Spotify (“Sentence I,” which was performed with the same Jerry Harrison-style guitars heard in the studio recording), the Austin music up-and-comers gave a performance that can best be described as beautifully derivative yet wholly original. Frontman Thom Wadill performed with Thom Yorke-esque vocals and erratic jerking dance moves à la David Byrne in “Stop Making Sense.” With scowling, vulnerable belts and riffs from Wadill backed by post-punk drumming and art-rock strumming from bandmates Jack Owens, Anthony Lawrence, Roman Parnell, and Logan Wagner, their first ACL set garnered new droves of eyes and ears on them.

Nemegata

Bringing Latin-futurism to ACL, the Austin fixture and cumbia band Nemegata brought ancestral energy to the IHG stage Saturday afternoon. Consisting of Víctor-Andrés "El Guámbito" Cruz, César Valencia, and Fabián “Don Fabo" Rincón, the super-trio has recently been making waves in the Austin music scene. With a set one could only describe as magical, the small but loyal audience on this blissfully cool afternoon was there for authentic cumbia music, with a dash of Afro-futurism and psychedelic influences. There to promote their new album Voces, the South American triad brought avant-garde sounds of tamboras and drums from the studio to the stage, with ear-melting melodies. Check out Afterglow’s interview with them, where we talk more about their first ACL set.

Sincere Engineer

Blowing in from the Windy City, Deanna Belos’s brain child Sincere Engineer gave 2000s emo pop-ish punk straight out of “Freaky Friday” to Honda stage attendees. Belos’s gruff, growling voice encapsulated energy akin to the iconic garage band from “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”’s fictional band, Löded Diper, in the best way possible. Playing with the annular eclipse beaming on the stage, they performed songs like heavy pop-rock banger “Anemia” to casual Austin fans. Their musical strengths lie not only in Belos’s incredibly croaked vocals and guitar playing but also in the cuttingly poetic lyrics. A favorite was the line from “Bottle Lightning Twice,” where she sang with hoarse chords, “I was only wondering / What it'd be like, be like / To see the thunder, hear the strike.” Similar songwriting can be heard on their recently released album cheekily titled Cheap Grills.

Eloise

Photo courtesy of Sara Diggins/American-Statesman

Eloise is an artist who embodies the soul of Amy Winehouse, except Eloise has a Tiktok page. With a viral moment from her cover of Bruno Major’s “Second Time” and the release of her debut album Drunk On A Flight, the London-based singer-songwriter gave the Miller Lite stage a sad yet groovy break from the tirelessness of ACL with soft-spoken poetic breakup prose. Singing tracks like “Subside,” and “You Dear,” Eloise proved that she specializes in heartbreak — not only from experience but in her songwriting. With dragonflies filling up every aerial space while performing, the British pop/R&B singer put on a gorgeous sounding show on an equally pulchritudinous sunny Saturday.

SISI

Another Austin pick for this list, SISI, is the pop-rock and country act that you’ve been looking for. The Venezuelan-American musician brought the Tito’s tent down with powerful vocals comparable to Jennifer Hudson and other soul acts. Wearing a country-style tassel jacket and donning purple hair, the vocalist ripped into her electric guitar with a mix of Western rock riffs and pop melodies. With the perfect ensemble behind her, the singer poured her heart and soul into every track. Aside from the stellar and booming instrumentation, SISI’s voice definitely stole the show. Singing raspy belts, the gravelly vocals running bluesy lyrics like “who’s gonna worry about me?” made the audience erupt in applause. Thunderously booming was her voice after each ardent performance. Debuting new song “I am too young,” this firecracker act is one to watch for in Austin.

Wrapping up a unique year for ACL, these smaller artists deserve the same attention that headliners like Hozier and Niall Horan get. Now that the wristbands are cut off and our feet can take a break, it's time to rest up and do it all again next year. This time, we hope you prepare yourself for the sets at noon!

Concert Coverage, REVIEWSAfterglow ATXOctober 20, 2023adam cherian, indie, austin, acl 2023, austin city limits