While these are the acts that played most frequently, they still do not suggest the tremendous depth and breadth of the list of artists who played the Armadillo. The Kinks and Blondie shared a bill, as did Joe Ely and the Clash, the Ramones and the Runaways, and Ray Charles and David Allen Coe, to say nothing of George Clinton, Jimmy Cliff, Tom Waits, Tom T. Hall, Iggy Pop, Bette Midler, or Devo. Not all of these performances resonated equally with audiences, which is perhaps why stories of some artists circulate more intensely than others.

Frank Zappa looms large in such lore as an artist whose offbeat sensibilities fit well with the venue's self-image, and he returned the favor to Austin audiences by recording his live album Bongo Fury at the Armadillo with Captain Beefheart in 1975. Bruce Springsteen also comes up frequently in conversations with those remembering noteworthy concerts in the hall. He turned in a blistering set of performances in the spring of 1974, a pivotal moment in both his own career and that of the Austin music scene. Booked for Friday and Saturday nights, Springsteen quickly endeared himself to the Armadillo audience by appearing a day early when he enthusiastically joined local honky-tonk singer Alvin Crow onstage Thursday night. The experience so excited and exhausted Armadillo audiences that few today claim to remember that the British super-group Genesis played their first and only Armadillo show the Sunday night following Springsteen's Saturday encore.