Billy Strings plays his first full-band set since breaking his leg on Austin City Limits

Billy Strings returned to a stage of his own on 2 July, taping an hour for Austin City Limits at ACL Live at The Moody Theater. It was his first full-band show since he broke his leg in a backstage skateboarding accident in April, and the resulting Season 52 episode premieres on PBS on 19 September.

The staging is old-fashioned in the best sense. Strings and his band play seated in a semicircle, and on Malfunction Junction each of them takes a solo in turn: mandolinist Jarrod Walker, bassist Royal Masat, banjoist Billy Failing and fiddler Alex Hargreaves. The tune is an instrumental from Highway Prayers, the album that won Best Bluegrass Album at the 2026 Grammy Awards, and Strings introduced it to the room as a little thing called Malfunction Junction.

The seven-song hour spreads wider than the newest record. Red Daisy, Love And Regret, The Fire On My Tongue and Seven Weeks In County fill the middle, and Strings pays his dues to two mandolin players by pairing Frank Wakefield's End Of The Rainbow with David Grisman's Dawg's Rag. The set closes on an extended Hide And Seek that works riffs from Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child into a bluegrass arrangement. SPIN, which premiered a second clip, adds that the setlist also reaches back to 2021's Renewal.

Getting there took a run of guest spots rather than headline shows. While off the road with the injury he sat in with Primus, Trey Anastasio and The McCourys, and the Austin taping was followed two days later by a set at Willie Nelson's 4th of July Picnic.

This is his second time headlining the programme. He first did it in Season 47 in 2021 and appeared again in the show's 50th-anniversary special in 2025, which for a bluegrass act in his thirties is an unusual amount of ACL screen time. The show's executive producer Terry Lickona explained the interest plainly: "I've never seen a bluegrass singer and picker sell out arenas for multiple nights," he said, praising a no-frills act that keeps things simple.

The year around it has been busy on record as well as on stage. His latest solo album, So Much For Goodbyes, debuted at a career-best number 13 on the Billboard 200, and a collaborative project recorded in Australia with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is expected to follow. He has dates booked through to February 2027, and will play two benefit shows with Trey Anastasio on 20 and 21 November at DCU Center Arena in Worcester, Massachusetts, for Anastasio's Divided Sky Foundation.

The episode goes out at 8pm CT and 9pm ET, and streams afterwards through PBS.org, the PBS App and the ACLTV YouTube channel. Strings signs off with a line that fits the format: my name's Bill, it's been a thrill. Even during the layoff he kept turning up unannounced, sitting in with a bar band in West Virginia on a night off. More country and roots coverage sits on the hub.