6 Austin Artists to Catch at ACL Fest 2026

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ACL Festival 2026 - Grocery Bag

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Date: Friday October 2, 2026
Time/Stage: 5:15pm BMI Stage

Austin’s Grocery Bag feel built for the exact moment ACL starts shifting from afternoon discovery into evening chaos. The four-piece came up through Austin’s co-ops, house shows and dive bars, turning psych-garage rock into something fuzzier, more abrasive and increasingly difficult to pin down. Their mix of grunge, punk, psychedelia and shoegaze already feels made for a festival stage. What makes this hometown appearance even more exciting is the time slot: Grocery Bag land on the BMI Stage at 5:15 p.m. Friday of Weekend 1. That is a GREAT slot for a local band, and I hope everyone moving between the larger stages gives themselves enough time to stop and catch the frenetic energy of one of Austin’s own.

👂 First Impression
The guitars arrive fuzzy and abrasive, the rhythm section feels permanently on the verge of sprinting ahead, and Bella Martinez’s vocals cut through the noise with a directness that keeps the chaos from swallowing the melody. The immediate impression is movement: everything feels restless, physical and slightly unstable in the best possible way.
Some tracks open into hazier, shoegaze-adjacent stretches before snapping back into harder riffs, while the psychedelic side gives the band room to stretch without losing urgency. The tension between fuzz and melody is what keeps Grocery Bag from fitting into any particular category.

▶ Start Here: "Deadvolt"
The title track from their 2026 EP is a strong doorway into the version of Grocery Bag arriving at ACL: urgent, fuzzy, and constantly moving. The guitars have weight, but there is still enough groove and psychedelic looseness to keep the track from becoming straightforward punk.

🎧 What I Hear
RIYL: Hole • L7 • Wolf Alice
Overall Sound: Frenetic Austin psych-garage blending grunge edge, punk energy and shoegaze haze.

💿 The Evolution
Grocery Bag formed in Austin in 2022 and their 2023 album Break You established the fuzz-heavy garage/psych foundation, but the band kept expanding through increasingly bigger touring opportunities. A 2024 Levitation performance helped lead to a U.S. tour supporting Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, and after several years of unofficial SXSW shows, 2026 marked their first appearance as an official SXSW artist. The May 2026 DEADVOLT EP pushes the band further into a louder, tighter and more volatile sound just as they arrive at their first ACL Festival appearance.

💜 WAALT Take
Grocery Bag is exactly the kind of band this ACL discovery series is meant for. They are buried low enough on the lineup that plenty of festival-goers may not know the name yet, but their live reputation suggests they will not stay anonymous once they start playing. The BMI Stage has historically been a launchpad for artists on the verge of something bigger, and a 5:15 p.m. Friday slot gives this Austin band a real opportunity to be exposed to a much larger audience. My advice: catch them before they blow up! 

🔁 Listen Next
“Stop Calling Me Out” A compact, immediate DEADVOLT cut that puts the hooks right up against the band’s sharper garage-punk attack.

“Watching TV” A darker, more anxious track that shows how Grocery Bag can stretch the atmosphere without giving up forward motion.

“Reason” A longer DEADVOLT track with enough space for the band’s psychedelic side to breathe while keeping the tension high.

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