Review: Twenty One Pilots End ACL Weekend One with an Unforgettable Set

Written by Claire Hookstra

After a rainy, overcast, and absolutely muddy three days of Austin City Limits, the crowd gave it their all at the final headlining set of the weekend: Twenty One Pilots. All day, from Geese to Fcukers, concertgoers were dressed in their best Twenty One Pilots garb, old merch from past tours, and some even dressing up as “Clancy” himself. When 8:30 p.m. struck on the humid Sunday night, the audience settled into the muddy grounds as the American Express stage lights went dark. 

The high-energy and anxious intro to “Overcompensate” blared through the speakers, the crowd went wild, and drummer Joshua Dunn and lead vocalist Tyler Joseph took their designated spots onstage. No one else joined them, but the duo commanded the stage better than most five-piece bands could. “The Contract” brought Joseph down from the stage, only to appear in the middle of the crowd, standing on a platform held up by the strength of his fans. “I don’t sleep much / That’s crazy / How’d you know that?” Joseph and the crowd screamed in unison. From the second song of the nearly hour-and-a-half set, I knew Twenty One Pilots were about to put on a show. 

“Heathens,” being one of the duo’s most recognizable songs, had what sounded like everyone in Zilker Park singing along, while “Next Semester” had fans throwing their hands in the air, yearning, singing “I remember / I remember certain things / What I was wearing / The yellow dashes in the street.” A cover of Milky Chance’s “One Dance” followed, before the ultimate ballad, “Tear In My Heart,” blared through the speakers. With smiles on their faces, the crowd eagerly prepared themselves to yell “The songs on the radio are OK / But my taste in music is your face!” with Joseph. 

“Jumpsuit” showcased the deeper range of Joseph’s vocals as he screamed into the microphone, electrifying the park. Before moving into the next act of the set, Dunn appeared onstage dressed as the “torchbearer” from the duo’s Trench era. Holding a lit torch, the drummer placed the flame on the stage before the screen turned into Dema (a fictional land many of the band’s songs are based in), and the two musicians launched into “Nico and the Niners.” 

A standout of the night was “Drum Show” off their latest record, Breach. Showcasing Dunn’s vocals, which is a rare occurrence, the audience cheered for the drummer. Before the song’s final chorus, Dunn left the stage and began to climb a ladder to a secondary drum set that soared above the left side of the crowd. While accomplishing this feat, Joseph remained on the main stage singing a quick cover of Creed’s “Higher” as Dunn scaled the side stage. Once settled and seated at the drum set, “Drum Song” quickly resumed, the crowd screaming louder than they had the whole hour the band had been on stage. 

Joseph jumped down to the barricade to perform “RAWFEAR.” After interacting with attendees near the barricade and gifting some themed fan-made sunglasses to security guards, Joseph made a “here goes nothing” type expression to the camera and fell chest-first into the mud, receiving roars of applause. Running back to the stage, he made a brief remark about how the crowd might’ve been the smelliest yet. “Ride” was performed with a festival security guard singing alongside the duo onstage before the duo performed their viral cover of The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” 

As the set came to a close, the opening staccato notes of “Trees” filled the thick, faintly potent air, and fans around me looked at one another with love, care, and a slight sadness, knowing the set was nearly over. “I know where you stand / Silent in the trees,” Joseph crooned before appearing in the crowd with Dunn on platforms held up by fans once again, but this time with an accompanying large drum. The duo moved in perfect syncopation as they slammed their oversized drumsticks into the instruments as the crowd chanted “yeah!” on beat with the ballad. The euphoric ending to the set was something of pure artistry, more emotional than anything I had witnessed over the past three days. 

After a captivating performance of impressive vocals, soul-shaking drum lines, pyrotechnics, and fog machines, Twenty One Pilots took the stage for their final bow to the packed Zilker Park. It felt as if all the begrudging treks through the mud, the extra-mile walks to find Ubers, the rain, and the sweat of the weekend were completely worth it. Before the set even officially ended, I found myself nostalgic for the weekend I had just experienced. 

As the lights began to dim and the duo finished their bows, they said to the crowd, in true Twenty One Pilots fashion, “We are Twenty One Pilots, and so are you.” What an ending to weekend one.