'Austin City Limits' Features Great Up-and-Coming Pairing of Lumineers, Shovels & Rope

by Julian Spivey
Oftentimes playing “Austin City Limits” means you’ve made it as a group or artist. The long-running PBS musical show features some of the best and brightest musicians that the world of roots music has to offer. On Saturday, Oct. 19, two of the brightest new acts in the genre of Americana made their ‘ACL’ debuts with glorious performances. Those groups are The Lumineers and Shovels & Rope.
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The Lumineers, a Grammy-nominated act out of Denver, took the world by storm with their massive crossover hit “Ho Hey” in 2012 off of their debut self-titled album. The group is massively talented led by guitarist and lead vocalist Wesley Schultz, whose raucous performance style is highly infectious and seems to always have the crowd singing along to highly catchy, in a good way, tunes that are beautifully melodic. The rest of the group: drummer/mandolin player Jeremiah Fraites, cellist Neyla Pekarek, pianist Stelth Ulvang and bassist Ben Wahamaki all seem to share Schultz’s infectious style of play and are all equally as talented.

The group’s set was probably the more exciting of the two acts on the episode of “Austin City Limits,” mostly because the entire set was known by this viewer and probably most viewers. The group kicked things off with their most recent single “Submarines,” followed by a rip-roaring performance of “Ho Hey,” the cutesy “Classy Girls,” which features fantastic guitar playing from Schultz, a nice cover of Bob Dylan’s folk classic “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Charlie Boy.” The Lumineers finished their fantastic set with a performance of “Stubborn Love,” which didn’t become quite as big of a hit as “Ho Hey,” which in itself doesn’t really make much sense, because it’s definitely as infectious and well-written.

Despite jumping on the scene at the very same time as The Lumineers, Shovels & Rope was certainly the lesser known of the twosome of performers on the ‘ACL’ episode. While both being in the all-encompassing genre of Americana music, Shovels & Rope tends to lean more on the rock/alternative country side of things, whereas The Lumineers are more of a folk group. Interestingly enough Shovels & Rope’s hit “Birmingham” actually beat out “Ho Hey” for 2013’s Americana Song of the Year at the recent Americana Honors. Strangely enough, the group didn’t include this award-winning song in their ‘ACL’ set, which is where the only real disappointment from the episode comes in. Shovels & Rope seem very in the moment (and basically say so in their brief post set interview) and seem to play whatever they feel like on any given night, but if you’re playing to a national audience on your “Austin City Limits” debut it would be nice to play your most-known and best work.

Despite the snubbed “Birmingham,” Shovels & Rope thrilled the audience with a bunch of songs that I unfortunately wasn’t previously attuned too: “Tell the Truth,” “Shank Hill Street,” “Boxcar,” “Gasoline”, “Hollowpoint Blues” and “Hail Hail.” The group, consisting of married couple Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent, however, was incredibly energetic and fun to watch as they slyly played off of each other. The duo is also supremely talented as they often play multiple instruments at a time and at one point in the show I was bewildered by Hearst tripling duties on vocals, drums and harpsichord.

Sometimes it’s just a whole lotta fun to sit back and watch musicians perform who themselves are having a whole lotta fun. Saturday night’s episode of “Austin City Limits” featured two groups that seem to mix their incredible talents together in a way that just oozes fun.