Austin's New Year's Eve calendar just picked up a Talking Heads night. HeartByrne is scheduled for Austin City Limits Live on December 31, 2026, with an 8:45 p.m. start.
The date and time come from a CultureMap Austin listing published November 13. The room is Austin City Limits Live, also billed as ACL Live and 3TEN ACL Live, at 310 W Willie Nelson Blvd.
A torch from Stop Making Sense
HeartByrne pays tribute to Talking Heads and David Byrne. The listing describes that catalog as pop, funk, art rock and African rhythms fused together, music that came out of the new wave movement.
The pitch is specific about the reference point: HeartByrne "picks up the torch where the seminal concert film Stop Making Sense left off." That is a concert-film brief, not a museum lecture. The job, as advertised, is to keep that stage language moving.
Who is named, and who is not
The touring act will feature vocalist Darin Murphy and lead guitarist Josh Pearson, plus other musicians. Those other players are not named on the listing, so the public bill stops at the two named leads and a band still off the marquee.
That is a touring show, not a one-off jam billed under somebody else's name. The tribute is the product.
Same venue, a slightly earlier bell
This is not the act's first New Year's Eve on that block. An ACL Live listing for December 31, 2024, advertised a 9 p.m. start and described what began as an informal "hoot night" as a touring act built from Austin musicians. The 2026 listing moves the downbeat to 8:45 p.m.
Fifteen minutes is not a reinvention. It is a different clock on the same holiday, at the same address, two years on.
Plans, weather, and the fine print
CultureMap's page carries the usual venue caveat: all events are subject to change because of weather or other concerns. December 31 in Austin can be mild, or it can be the night the forecast wins.
For now the plan is concrete. HeartByrne, Murphy and Pearson, 8:45 p.m., 310 W Willie Nelson Blvd, with the rest of the band still unnamed and the night still officially changeable.
