The 12 Best Performances at ACL Fest 2025

It’s October, so you know what that means: It’s Austin City Limits Music Festival season down in Austin. It was a definite scorcher all weekend, but live music is as good a reason as any to go bake all day in the Texas sun. 

ACL Fest 2025 – Friday, Oct. 3

Friday at the festival is known for being the day that features a heavy country music lineup, and this year was no different. We started our festival over at the Amex stage to check out Tanner Usrey’s 2:45 p.m. set. The Prosper native hit the stage ripping into “Do It To Myself,” a track dripping in outlaw guitar licks and lyrics about self-inflicted bad habits. Usrey’s soulful vocals were a pleasant surprise as he showed off on his tracks “With You” and “Hold Me Close.” If you dig acts like Chris Stapleton, Eric Church and Sturgil Simpson, check him out. 

Midday, we shifted across Zilker Park to see King Princess’s set on the T-Mobile stage. King Princess is the stage name for Mikaela Straus, who dropped a new album in September titled Girl Violence. The latest foray leans more heavily into alt-rock and experimental sounds. She started her set with one of the new tracks from it titled “Cry Cry Cry.” It was a nice warm-up for the audience before Straus strutted across the stage with crazy confidence, shouting to the audience, “I heard Austin likes pussy” before launching into “Pussy is God.” We hope there weren’t too many kids in the audience wanting to see that nice girl who does that “1950” song. She eventually did that bop, but of course, she saved it for the tail end of the set. 

One of our must-see acts for the festival was Cage the Elephant, and they did not disappoint. The band kicked off their set with “Broken Boy” as lead singer Matt Schultz erratically ran onto the stage with pyro erupting behind him. We expected nothing less and they fully delivered.  

More than once guitarist Brad Shultz climbed into the crowd to get up close and personal, full on jumping into a mosh pit during “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked.” Shortly after the song, Matt took a short moment to catch his breath and thank the audience for making space in their lives for their music, before keeping the energy going. We don’t think we’ve seen a rock band with this much on-stage energy since Coldplay hit the scene. We need to know how many calories these guys burn each show; that is some cardio. The only bummer about their set was that festival organizers overlapped it with Empire of the Sun’s set on another stage, forcing many fans to pick or split time if they wanted to see both.

Friday already felt jam-packed and we still had two more acts to see. Our 7:30 p.m. pick was Arlington native Maren Morris headline set on the Beat Box stage. She opened the set with a new song, “Cry in the Car,” from her latest album Dreamsicle. It’s one of the more poppy tracks that makes you feel like you stepped back into the ‘80s in the best way. Once Morris got warmed up, her vocals were buttery and clean as she whipped her hair around, jamming and weaving through her catalog. Mid-set, we were happy to hear the fun song “Rich” from her debut album Hero where she cheekily changed the original Diddy lyric to Dolly. 

Morris took a moment to talk to the audience about how she and her friends from junior high would come down to ACL when she was younger, and they were coming to enjoy Saturday with her at the fest. We can imagine that playing it always feels full circle.  Morris gets better with each passing album, and we don’t see her slowing down anytime soon. She continues to be a bright star.

We ended the evening checking out Luke Combs, in the headline slot at the Amex Stage. Oddly, he wasn’t the biggest draw for headliners, as the opposite stage with Hozier was crazy packed. 

The fans that did show up for Combs showed out and were in for a great set as Combs hit the stage to “Back in the Saddle” with sparks flying. The country superstar kept the hits coming with “When It Rains It Pours,” “Cold as You” and “Beautiful Crazy.” Honestly, it’s kind of crazy when you realize this is the first time he’s headlined ACL Fest and he has 19 No. 1 hits. Watching Combs work the stage and rock out with his band was a master class in country music showmanship. 

Combs has that special sauce that lets him appeal to multiple generations of fans. The country music master has a clear love of the soul and singer songwriter genre. He even treated the audience to a cover of “Dive” by Ed Sheeran.  As he introduced it, he said it was one of his favorite songs.  Us too Luke, it’s a good one, and we think the audience sing along confirmed they also agreed.  

Combs had a solid set full of good ol’ boy country songs about booze, women and good living.  “Fast Car” made him a mainstream household name, but his mantra for the night was “Country music is for all of us baby!”  Combs wrapped his set with a fire filled version of “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” from the movie Twisters we are sad to report there wasn’t a Glen Powell cameo even though he was in town that day.   

ACL Fest 2025 – Saturday, Oct. 4

The first act we checked out was Olivia Dean, a rising musician from London in the neo soul scene. Her set was airy and fun, with a mix of jazzy and soulful. Dean was often playful with her gestures as she sang her hits like “Nice to Each Other,” “Man I Need” and “Dive.” We only wish she had moved around a bit more, especially when not playing guitar. Many artists were glued to their microphone stands this weekend, so she wasn’t alone in this habit. It’s important to find a balance and work the stage. If she can hone in her stage presence, Dean has real star potential.

Midday, we switched up our original plans to see Magdalena Bay and instead went to see Riize, the first K-pop band to ever play at ACL Fest. The six-piece group took over the Beat Box stage to the sheer delight of screaming fans who had been lining the barricade since the gates opened, staking out their spots and holding up signs for Wonbin, Shotaro, Anton, Sungchan, Sohee and Eunseok. Their songs had fun lyrics and beats paired with insanely tight choreography. This particular group reminded us of the boy bands of the 2000s, which isn’t a bad thing.

After our K-pop excursion, we went to Doechii for another must-see set. The Swamp Princess hit the stage and gave Austin a master class in rap and hip-hop. As she rose up on a swampy grass-covered platform, she commanded the crowd with her effortless flow to classic beats reminiscent of greats like Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliott.

Her tight 50ish-minute set packed a whopping 16 tracks, jumping from her EPs to one-offs like “Nosebleeds” and, of course, plenty from her Grammy Award-winning album Alligator Bites Never Heal. After coming down off her platform, she made good use of the catwalk, twerking, hip rolling and straight vibing with the crowd. At some point, she even ripped her pants near the back pocket, but kept going like nothing happened. A real standout of the set was on “Alter Ego,” where she got the audience losing their mind, going wild, as she also sashayed.

Doechii saved the biggest and the best for the end of her set, winding down with “Anxiety” and “Denial is a River.” The latter was fun to see live, as she fully commits to her facial expressions, and we are here for it.

After our trip to the swamp, we hopped over to the Lady Bird stage to see DJO. His song “End of Beginning” went viral on social media a few years ago. DJO is the stage name for Joe Keery, but you probably know him better as Steve in Stranger Things. We aren’t super familiar with his albums, but we could tell he was heavily influenced by The Cars from his vocals alone.

DJO often stayed near his microphone stand, but would occasionally wander away from it if he wasn’t playing guitar or was playing the synthesizer. Unfortunately, it was hard to get a feel for any charisma, and Keery left a lot to be desired as far as stage presence most of the time. Too many acts become too obsessed with having every note perfect and forget it’s supposed to be live and engaging for the crowd. We wonder if the crowd would have been so big if it weren’t for his TV star status.

We ended our night with a little bit of The Strokes and some Sabrina Carpenter. The Strokes sounded fantastic, just like they do on their albums. Our biggest gripe was that you couldn’t see the band. They were backlit to the point of being silhouettes, which means everyone at that show could have gotten the same experience by just slapping a Strokes playlist on shuffle and shining bright colored lights in their faces, and at least they would be out of the sweltering heat. It was not worth it for the casual fan to wait all day for that disappointment.

Carpenter had the same setup as her Short n’ Sweet Tour, with the white staircases and platforms. The set list was very similar as well, and it was like watching a well-oiled machine. Carpenter is the woman of the moment, with her brand new album and songs on the radio. You can not escape her even if you tried. Outside of the festival she was on the Pedicabs, fans dressed up like 1960s housewives walking to the festival, her influence is everywhere and unavoidable.

More than ever, it feels forcibly fabricated. From touring with Taylor Swift, to using Swift’s long-time collaborator Jack Antonoff, to bringing out celebrity guests like Shania Twain and Joe Keery, she saw the formula and is following it to a T. At one point, Carpenter made a comment about Texas accents, and she said she loved them and they made her laugh. But it felt more like an insult than a compliment.

Her dancing was on point, and her hit songs sounded fine. But of course they did, she’s done them a hundred times. Out of her entire set, she only performed two new tracks from her new album, a small letdown for the audience who had probably seen Carpenter on her tour last year.

ACL Fest 2025 – Sunday, Oct. 5

We finished the festival with T-Pain’s set on the Amex stage. This year has been a full-on resurgence for the music veteran. He’s been winning over a young new audience with his energy and candidness. With his appearance on The Masked Singer, he showed the world he didn’t need Auto-Tune and has been seizing the opportunity since.

Being a true showman he had a crazy stage set up that included a saloon, two horses, a big wagon wheel and a rocking chair. He fully embracing the western theme in the state of Texas.

As smoke filled the stage and his dancers made their way out, T-Pain mosey’d on out through swinging doors. Then he hit us with one hit after the next in a crazy medley of features from “Cyclone” to “Good Life” to “Got Money.” They just kept coming. It was like a whiplash of top 40 hits, but like fun whiplash.

As he made his way through the set list that included a hefty 24 songs and features, he hit choreographed dance moves and ran laps around the stage. Taking a breather about 30 minutes into his set to be candid with the audience, “My stylist asked if I was sure I would be alright in leather for my outfit design and I confidently said yes. And that was a mistake.” Props to him for getting through half the set in the full leather and 95-degree direct sunlight, getting up before removing his jacket.

One of our favorite moments from the set was when he got the crowd involved in a big “Don’t Stop Believin’” sing-along and then hit us with a little “Tennessee Whiskey” cover. The crowd was completely hyped and it might have been the most fun we saw folks having all weekend, dancing and just have a good time. Who would have thought this would possibly be the best set of ACL?

All in all, this year’s ACL was pretty good if you were into country or pop music. There were enough acts to feed those genres. If you’re an alt-rock fan, those acts were ultimately disappointing. But with a festival that’s par for the course. ACL is usually very good at booking a little something for everyone. There’s always next year.