from Austin 360 on austin360.com

Tune in Saturday to the last show of "Austin City Limits" Season 36, the final turn in the historic studio where the series began, and you'll see a familiar big-nosed, square-jawed guy in a spiffy suit singing "Closing Time" with nearly 40 other people.

He's followed on TV by another act, Bob Schneider, who looks nothing like Lyle Lovett and represents a different style of Texas music.

Lovett has planted his boots on the brown-painted stage boards of Studio 6A a dozen times (more than anyone else, counting songwriter group specials). The choice of the "ACL" friend and fan for the final taping at the KLRU studio on the University of Texas campus became a sentimental one.

Executive producer Terry Lickona ceded an expected booking of Willie Nelson, whose 1974 pilot debuted the concept that has endured as the longest-running music series on television, to an imposing new concert venue on West Second Street. Nelson will help christen the dual-use Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater with two February performances.

The crowded stage for "Closing Time" completed a hiccup-free taping Nov. 8, the high point of an emotional day. So many music greats, some gone now like Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, played this stage.

Lovett's Large Band swelled with nearly the entire "ACL" staff joining in for the song about closing up a bar for the night. "Unplug them people and send them home," they sang as Lovett added, "Here's to another 36 years, 36 seasons of 'Austin City Limits.'u2009"

"Abandon your posts," Lickona had commanded his staff as Lovett began the song. Of course, he had made sure some camera operators would stay on duty and a visiting pro would cover in the control room for director Gary Menotti. A few eyes welled with tears, but big smiles of pride dominated in the studio designated last year as a historic landmark by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

It was time to bid goodbye to the unadorned, black room with tables of free cups of beer outside and an outdated city lights cutout behind the stage. When Season 37 begins taping several weeks from now in the new building, everything will be different — and very much the same.

By design, PBS viewers like you at home won't notice many changes in "Austin City Limits," which has earned respect for its performers-rule, no-host-gab simplicity. Lickona and his staff saw no need to fix a formula that isn't broken.

The move downtown is a complex transition for the small staff of "ACL." But on the air tonight, the final Studio 6A show will look like a blip in the program's history. Lickona opens with a few lines about the old and new studio. Then it is on to five songs by Lovett: The "Closing Time" finale follows Townes Van Zandt's "White Freight Liner Blues," the chorus workout of "I Will Rise Up," the new "Natural Forces" and the lively "Up in Indiana."

On Nov. 8, the taping rehearsal proceeded like most others, though the mixed feelings about the studio departure were evident as current staffers and visiting "ACL" alums reminisced. "It just dawned on me that I'll have to move my locker," said veteran still photographer Scott Newton.

Lovett's afternoon rehearsal finished, the musician talked about how "I'm sure in the new studio the spirit of the show will be the same. It's never about a physical space. They could do 'ACL' out in the middle of the street, and I'm sure it would be the same. It's all about the spirit and soul."

He said that before his first record he watched tapings as a guest in the bleachers and in the control room, observing how the "TV aspect of the show doesn't get in the way here. They either get it live, or they don't. They don't stop things in the middle for technical reasons like other shows. Terry and Gary have found a way not to do that, and it makes for a more genuine performance."

For himself and other acts, Lovett said, "Getting to do 'ACL' is a big deal. You want to live up to the show."

His easy rapport with the staff was obvious during rehearsal as he started the Nelson staple "Funny How Time Slips Away." "I don't think we've ever done this on the show.

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