How Many North Texans Are Playing ACL '11?

By Pete Freedman Thu., Sep. 15 2011 at 4:32 PM

Over on the Star-Telegram's music blog this afternoon, music critic Preston Jones posted a nice little Q&A with Hudson Moore, the Fort Worth-based country singer-songwriter who has been tapped to be the very first performer at this year's Austin City Limits Music Festival. It's either an awesome honor or kind of a slight, but either way, Moore's got this going for him: His 11:15 a.m. set on the BMI stage in Zilker Park tomorrow will forever go down in the record books as the kickoff to the tenth anniversary of the festival.

Says Moore to Jones of the timeslot: "Well, as the opening act, it's our job to kick off the festival with energy and enthusiasm and really get people excited for the weekend."

Spoken like a pro.

But there's something else interesting in Jones' blog post. In the lead, he mentions that Moore is the lone North Texan playing the fest. Au contraire, my friend. Au contraire.

By my count, there are at least seven bands with North Texas ties that are playing the festival. They are, in no particular order:

Hudson Moore, whom we already mentioned.
Ruby Jane, the 16-year-old Dallas-born fiddle prodigy, who will be playing the fest for her second straight year. Catch her on the Austin Ventures stage on Sunday morning at 11:20.
Jack Ingram, who is from The Woodlands, but got his career going while attending SMU here in Dallas. He performs Sunday at 6 p.m. on the Vista Equity stage.
Court Yard Hounds, the side project from Austin Ventures, from Dallas-bred sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks. They perform Saturday, at 7 p.m. on the Austin Ventures stage.
Dallas native Ariel Saldivar is currently on tour with Broken Social Scene and will be performing with them at ACL. Catch her at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Bud Light stage.
20-year-old guitar prodigy Tyler Bryant, who we interviewed earlier this week, will be playing the BMI stage on Saturday at 11:15 a.m. He's from Honey Grove, which really puts the "north" in North Texas.
Sara Hickman, once the Sarah Jaffe of her late-'80s and early '90s Deep Ellum day, will be playing two sets on the Austin Kiddie Limits stage, first on Friday at 2:30 p.m., and then again on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.

So, there you go.