Oct 11
Silversun Pickups/Electric Guest:
Official ACL Music Festival Late Night Show
Leave it to Austin City Limits to make the annual festival even bigger (beyond expanding to two weekends and jacking up weekend passes to near the $300 mark, that is). ACL’s official Late Night Shows will farm out mid-level bands for one-off performances throughout the fest’s two weekends. For SA’s part, ACL will dispatch Los Angeles-based grunge-pop outfit Silversun Pickups (who have further honed their Smashing Pumpkins sound on last year’s Neck of the Woods) along with openers Electric Guest. $20-$22, 7pm, White Rabbit, 2410 N St. Mary’s, sawhiterabbit.com. —J.D. Swerzenski
Oct 20
Avenged Sevenfold
Avenged Sevenfold comes to SA soon after scoring its second consecutive Billboard 200 No. 1 album: Hail to the King, which was released August 23 and replicated the success of its predecessor, 2010’s Nightmare. On September 22, the band fulfilled one of their lifelong dreams: to perform at Brazil’s Rock in Rio Festival, immediately preceding Iron Maiden, on the closing night of a week previously headlined by Bruce Springsteen, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé, Muse, Metallica and Bon Jovi. Openers for the SA show will be Ghost B.C. and honorary San Antonians, Deftones. $51.63-$65.77, 7pm, AT&T Center, One AT&T Center, ticketmaster.com. —Enrique Lopetegui
Oct 25-26
Todd Snider
Agnostics, stoners and lefties with a twang rejoice, your bard, country-folkster Todd Snider will play a special acoustic set two nights in a row at the lovely Gruene Hall. Though Snider’s been gigging and recording steadily since the 1980s, he only recently came to be embraced by the redneck hippie brigade with his gutsy 2008 antiwar album Peace Queer. He carried that sardonic tune forward on 2012’s even-better Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables. However angry, his songs still manage to put a smile on listeners’ faces with their sly lyrics and laid-back grooves. $20, 9:30pm Fri, 10:30pm Sat, Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene Road (New Braunfels), gruenehall.com. —Callie Enlow
Nov 5
Nine Inch Nails
On September 3, Trent Reznor released the acclaimed Hesitation Marks, Nine Inch Nails’ first album since 2008’s The Slip. The album, produced by Reznor and longtime collaborators Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder, set up a tour almost as ambitious, no small thing for a man known for huge live multimedia events. He comes to SA with Austin’s Explosions in the Sky as the opening act. According to early Billboard reports, the Tension 2013 tour has a solid mix of the “human element” and “NIN’s brutal trademark technological precision.” $49.57-$109.53, 7:30pm, AT&T Center, One AT&T Center, ticketmaster.com. —EL
Nov 7
Misfits/The Attack
Though they roll into town a little late for Día de Los Muertos, hardcore heroes and horror-punk originators the Misfits aim to pack Mission County Park with tees emblazoned with their signature skull. At one time, the absence of singer Glenn Danzig may have been a detriment, but his show-ruining diva antics have established the Jerry Only-led, Danzig-less lineup as the incarnation to catch for a slam-dancing good time. With four-piece the Attack, still “too punk for hardcore and too hardcore for punk.” (Full disclosure: After editorial completed this write-up, the Current business department became a promotional partner.) $20, 6pm, Mission County Park No. 1, 6030 Padre Drive, prekindle.com. —Matt Stieb
Nov 8-10
FUN FUN FUN FEST
Pencil in MGMT, Slayer, M.I.A., Snoop Dog (aka Snoop Lion), Descendants, Tenacious D, the Walkmen, Lupe Fiasco, Deerhunter and lots more during three days and nights of music. In its eighth annual edition, FFFF has consolidated itself as the perfect festival: big enough for one to feel there’s a great party going on, and small enough to enjoy the fact that you’re not at Austin City Limits or South by Southwest—at FFFF, you can actually walk and be able to see something without having to get there early and wait under the scorching sun for endless hours. $79-$325, 10am-11pm, Auditorium Shores, 800 W Riverside (Austin), funfunfunfest.com. —EL
Nov 12
Drake/Miguel/Future
Hot off the chart-topping strength of the freshly released Nothing Was the Same, history’s greatest Canadian, half-Jewish, child-acting rapper will bring his Would You Like a Tour? tour through the AT&T Center after first postponing it “due to an intense rehearsal schedule and technical production requirements that will be part of the show,” according to Pitchfork. Along for the ride are R&B wunderkind Miguel (“Sure Thing,” “Adorn”) and hazy hit-maker Future (“Neva End”), rounding out perhaps the gushiest hip-hop bill since Bone Thugz-n-Harmony’s ill-fated Thugs & Kisses tour in ’95. $99-$375, 7pm, AT&T Center, One AT&T Center, ticketmaster.com. —JDS
Nov 27
Girl in a Coma/Hacienda/Tele Novella
Few bands fall into the fortunate setup of enlisting one of the world’s biggest rock stars as a diehard advocate, let alone getting him to produce all their records and take them along on tour. However, after all of their Dan Auerbach-assisted rise, SA’s Hacienda hit a major patch of misfortune earlier this year with the departure of guitarist Dante Schwebel. Now a trio, the Villanueva brothers will work to maintain the momentum of their fantastic 2012 release Shakedown. With hometown heroes Girl in a Coma and Austin’s Tele Novella. $10-$15, Doors at 8pm, Backstage Live, 1305 E Houston, (210) 446-7950, backstagelive.com. —JDS
