The second day of the Stagecoach Festival in Indio, Calif. on Saturday, April 27 featured many incredible sets of country music with the day culminating in the rip-roaring headlining set by Miranda Lambert.

Many of the day's sets from the festival were also streamed for viewers at home on Amazon Prime Video, which is how I’ve been tuning into the festival, and Twitch.

I caught five of Saturday’s sets that I greatly enjoyed – four of them for the music and the other for the spectacle.

Lambert’s set was a blistering 22-song set filled almost exclusively with what one should call the “greatest hits” of her career that has now spanned 20 years, despite her only being 40 years old. This was probably pleasing to those who were upset by the uniquely crafted setlist fellow country music superstar Eric Church gave as the headliner on night one of the festival.

Lambert began her set with “Fastest Girl in Town,” a top-5 hit from 2012, before going into her first big hit “Kerosene” from her 2005 debut album of the same name that continues to be one of her finest songs two decades later.

Hit after hit would follow for the next hour-and-a-half or so, including No. 1s “Heart Like Mine,” “Bluebird” and her all-time greatest song, “The House That Built Me.” How ridiculous is it, by the way, that Lambert only has four career No. 1s if you don’t count duets?

The great thing about a Lambert set is you’re going to get the fire-y performances like “Kerosene,” “White Liar,” “Pink Sunglasses,” etc. mixed in with ballads like “Tin Man,” which she did solo on stage, “The House That Built Me,” “Bluebird” and “Vice.”

One of the highlights of Lambert’s set was the debut of a new song called “Wranglers,” which fits right into that firebrand aspect of her recordings. As she told the Stagecoach crowd she loves to set shit on fire. It’s a fun song that should be a country hit – but who knows with mainstream country music these days? It’ll be available on streaming sites later in the week.

The true power move of Lambert’s headlining set came toward the end when she brought out another firebrand of an artist in the legendary Reba McEntire to perform “Mama’s Broken Heart.” The two legends of country music then teamed on Reba’s 1990 hit “Fancy,” before ending the show teaming up on Lambert’s “Gunpowder & Lead.”

Before Lambert took the Mane Stage (it’s intentionally spelled that way) at Stagecoach she was preceded by gigantic pop star and authentic ‘90s country music lover Post Malone for a set of country music covers on songs that seemingly all came out in the ‘90s or early ‘00s (though I did miss the first little bit of his set watching the entirety of Charley Crockett’s on the stream from the smaller Palomino Stage). Post Malone had put up a Billboard near the festival with a phone number asking for country cover requests. He didn’t disappoint in covering modern classics like Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee,” George Strait’s “Check Yes or No,” John Michael Montgomery’s “Be My Baby Tonight,” Toby Keith’s “Who’s Your Daddy?” and more. Highlights included bringing out Dwight Yoakam to duet on “Little Ways,” Sara Evans to sing her hit “Suds in the Bucket” and Brad Paisley to duet on “I’m Gonna Miss Her” and play guitar on Vince Gill’s “One More Last Chance” and the show-ending “Chattahoochee.”

It was a fun set, which is really what the festival is all about, and if Post Malone can bring more lovers to these classic country music legends then it’ll all have been for fun. But the time could also have been spent showcasing actual country music legends or more up-and-coming artists.

Just a few days before his 91st birthday, the absolute legend that is Willie Nelson took the stage with his band Family for his greatest hits that showed the legend could still do his thing, especially on his loyal guitar Trigger, all the while being battered by the brutal winds that struck the fest on Saturday.

Nelson ran through “Whiskey River,” “Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer)” and “Bloody Mary Morning” in quick, awesome succession before showcasing his brilliant guitar picking in “I Never Cared for You,” a lesser-known song I’m thrilled to see him bringing out now. His set doesn’t change all that much and why should it when you’re in your nineties?  

Nelson’s talented son Lukas, who leads his own band Promise of the Real when not playing in Family, got to show off his bluesy vocals on a cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Texas Flood,” which he and Willie pick a mean guitar on.

Lukas and Willie would later duet on Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe,” a cover they released a decade or so ago.

More hits would come like “On the Road Again,” “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,” “Always On My Mind” and I’m always thrilled to hear the sarcastically biting “Write Your Own Songs.”

Nelson finished with a medley of his usual gospel favorites like “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “I’ll Fly Away” before wrapping things up with a fun cover of the Mac Davis song “Hard to Be Humble” and Willie is indeed “perfect in every way.”

Earlier in the evening I was thrilled to see some of the younger, up-and-coming singer-songwriters of country music showcase their stuff on the stream from the smaller Palomino Stage.

Charley Crockett ran through an incredible set of 16 songs in roughly an hour or so on the stage including a handful of numbers from his brand new album $10 Cowboy, which just came out the day before. I particularly enjoyed the title track, “Hard Luck & Circumstances” and “Solitary Road” from the new release.

The troubadour who sounds like he could’ve been a successful performer in any decade of country music performed numbers from his entire discography including some of my favorites like “The Man From Waco” and “I’m Just a Clown.”

Crockett has become quite the major hit about the Texas Country/Americana/Singer-Songwriter subset of country music and seems like he’s only going to keep growing in popularity.

Drayton Farley is someone I was first introduced to last year with his album Twenty on High which included one of my favorite songs of 2023, “Norfolk Blues,” which I was thrilled to see him begin his Stagecoach set with on Saturday afternoon, despite the sound on the Palomino Stage being wonky for a good portion of it. He would also perform another one of my favorites from that album, “Devil in NOLA.”

Farley only had about 25 minutes on stage to perform six songs but I enjoyed some of his stuff I hadn’t been nearly as familiar with from previous albums like “Dreamer” and “Pitchin’ fits,” which he ended the set with.

Eric Church did something unique on Friday night (April 26) as the Day 1 headliner at the Stagecoach Festival in Indio, Calif.

The country music superstar effectively took the audience to church, while also managing to piss off many in the process. It feels like the kind of thing only Church could do.

I watched the set via the Amazon Music stream on Prime Video, which will continue to take place over the next two nights at the festival.

Church completely threw his regular show to the side and did something I’ve never seen him do and I’m not sure he’s ever done before. He crafted a specific set filled with some of his greatest hits intertwined with many of music’s greatest hits in general that revolved around his song “Mistress Named Music” off his 2015 album Mr. Misunderstood, which was something he certainly seemed to be on Friday night.

It seemed to be a night of paying tribute to the music that shaped him starting with mostly gospel and branching into soul and even a bit of West Coast hip-hop, mostly written and popularized by black artists. Church performed atop a stool, just his guitar and a large mostly black group of vocalists behind him in front of a set adorned with stained glass windows.

It was the kind of set that led to a man named Jason Feffer on Twitter bringing up an interesting theory: “I wonder if all the angry MAGA #Stagecoach viewers understand the point that Eric Church is using his platform to make. That similar to Rock n Roll, Country music owes everything to black – primarily gospel – music.”

I don’t know if there’s any truth to that theory or if Church was just being Church (a man known for doing things his way) but it struck me as interesting, especially amidst all of the talk recently surrounding Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album.

The use of politics in Feffer’s tweet might have some shaking or scratching their head but as someone who was following the controversy that Church’s set brought up on Twitter politics seemingly had a lot to do with the conversation. There were many upset by Church’s set claiming the artist was “virtue signaling” and one even stated: “Hey, get over your white guilt and play some fucking country music” even though much of what Church performed on Friday night was country music. Also, Stagecoach may be deemed country music’s Coachella because it shares a venue but Nickelback was performing at the same time as Church at a different location on the grounds and tomorrow night will feature a set by Post Malone. Church’s music sounded a good deal more country than the artist on the Mane Stage (it’s intentionally spelled that way) before him, Jelly Roll.

When I set down to watch Church’s set I expected to do a normal concert review of a normal Church set filled with hits from his 20 years in the music business. But it turned into something much more interesting to me with all of the vitriol I was seeing online. I’ve seen Church live in concert at least five times and he’s always done his normal show of playing the hits and fan-favorites. I would expect him to do so on his tour. People come out for those shows to see him specifically and they’re going to want the Church music they expect. I think that’s to be expected.

But when you go to a festival you’re not just going for one artist. You’re going to see a bucket load of artists and you’re going as much for the spectacle of it all. I think if an artist wants to try something new or interesting it’s the perfect opportunity to do so and Church seems to have crafted a special night of music to him specifically that he wanted to share with this audience – maybe he had a pointed message behind it or maybe he didn’t – and that’s his prerogative. His stage, his show.

And if you didn’t like what you saw tonight please go to one of his tour stops because you will get the kind of show you want from him.

Frankly, I enjoyed it. I didn’t need to see him sing “Drink In My Hand” or “Homeboy” again. It was a lovely change of pace to get to hear him do Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher,” Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” and The Impressions’ “People Get Ready.” It was a kick hearing him bust out a Corb Lund tune (“Dig Gravedigger Dig”) of all things. And when he did perform his songs like “Sinners Like Me,” “Like Jesus Does” and “Springsteen” they were done in soulful, fresh new ways that gave new life to them.

​I was entertained by the entirety of Church’s performance – the songs, the response online and just the guts to go out there and try something new and different and not give a damn what others thought of it.

Isn’t that what Eric Church has been all about?

Music legends Elton John and Bernie Taupin were honored with The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song on March 20 in Washington D.C. for over 50 years of songwriting excellence.
The tribute, which featured an all-star performance of the duo’s biggest and best songs, aired on PBS on Monday, April 8.

Elton John and Bernie Taupin were the third songwriting duo honored with the Gershwin Prize, which began in 2007, behind 2012 recipients Burt Bacharach and Hal David and 2019 recipients Emilio and Gloria Estefan. Other recipients include Paul Simon (2007), Stevie Wonder (2009), Paul McCartney (2010), Carole King (2013), Willie Nelson (2015) and Joni Mitchell (2023).

Elton John and Bernie Taupin have been working together since the late ‘60s with Taupin supplying the lyrics and Elton John composing the music to go with them. The partnership has led to No. 1 classic hits such as “Crocodile Rock” and “Bennie and the Jets,” as well as other hits like “Your Song,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Rocket Man” and many more.

Surprisingly, some of the duo’s biggest hits like “Rocket Man,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Crocodile Rock” and “Candle In the Wind” didn’t appear during the nearly two-hour Gershwin Prize tribute concert.

The concert featured 11 performances by a group of music superstars like Metallica, Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris and former Gershwin Prize recipients Garth Brooks and Mitchell.

Among my favorite performances of the evening were the two by Carlile, who began with 1971’s “Madman Across the Water” and later performed “Skyline Pigeon” in tribute to friend Ryan White, the American teenager who died of AIDS in 1990 after contracting it via blood transfusion. The friendship helped lead to Elton John’s charitable AIDS foundation. Elton John performed “Skyline Pigeon” at White’s funeral in 1990.

The liveliest performance of the evening came from Metallica’s rocking cover of “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,” which the telecast honestly needed for a little kick in the pants with many of the tributes being nice but not exactly up-tempo (except for Billy Porter’s “The Bitch is Back.”) Porter also hosted the ceremony.

Jacob Lusk, who was a contestant on the 10th season of “American Idol,” did a lively performance of “Bennie and the Jets,” but it started a bit too lounge-singer-y for my taste.

Garth Brooks was the only artist other than Carlile with two performances and they were very Garth-y selections with him doing “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” and “Daniel.” I preferred “Daniel” of the two, but I also prefer that song of the two in general.

Maren Morris did a nice performance of “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues,” while Charlie Puth gushed about being included in such a tribute to his musical hero before performing “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me.”

More highlights from the show were Annie Lennox’s soulful show opener of “Border Song” and Joni Mitchell’s take, with altered lyrics to fit her life, on “I’m Still Standing.” “I’m Still Standing” has never been one of my favorite Elton John songs and I quite enjoyed Mitchell’s jazzy take on it.

Before Elton John and Taupin received the Gershwin Prize and said a few words each, Elton John took the stage with his backing band, who had performed much of the evening with the guest stars, for terrific performances of “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” a non-single deep cut that has always been one of my favorites of his, and a rocking performance of “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting.”

After Elton and Taupin were awarded the prize, the show wrapped up with a beautiful performance of my all-time favorite Elton John song, “Your Song,” with Taupin leaning on the piano and watching the entire performance. It was a fitting performance and sight for the two legends who have provided so many great popular tunes for more than half a century.

Tim McGraw brought his many country hits spanning over three decades to the BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla. on Saturday, April 13 for a packed crowd of adoring fans.

Having never seen McGraw live before I didn’t know whether he had entered the “legacy act” portion of his career or if he was still selling out arenas and now I know at nearly 57 years old and not having a major hit in nearly a decade that he still packs them in. If BOK Center wasn’t sold out on Saturday night it was damn near it.

McGraw began his set off with the lowest point of the evening and of his career with his nonsense 2012 song “Truck Yeah,” which barely cracked the top 10 on country radio airplay so I’m surprised it’s something he hauls out as a tour opener a dozen years later. I will admit the crowd didn’t hate it nearly as much as I did.

McGraw’s set would improve from there with greatest hits scattered throughout with some new songs like the title track to his most recent album “Standing Room Only” from last year and “One Bad Habit,” seemingly from an upcoming album.

The hits varied for me with myself typically preferring the ones that were 20-plus years old as opposed to some of his more recent ones like 2010’s No. 1 “Felt Good on My Lips” and 2012’s “Shotgun Rider.”

My favorite performance of the main set was of 1997’s No. 1 “Just to See You Smile,” which I’d been concerned he wouldn’t perform because it hadn’t appeared all that much on the Standing Room Only tour that kicked off about a month or so ago.

Other performances of major McGraw hits from the mid-to-late-‘90s that made my night and seemed to be a sentiment shared by the arena as a whole were his 1995 No. 1 “I Like It, I Love It,” his 1998 No. 1 “Where the Green Grass Grows” and his 1999 No. 1 hit (Tim McGraw has a lot of No. 1s in his career) “Something Like That,” which was probably my wife Aprille’s favorite performance of the whole show.

There were some slower songs from McGraw’s repertoire that I was happy to see him perform live and weren’t ones I really thought he’d do very often – both coming from 2002’s Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors – “Watch the Wind Blow By” and “Red Rag Top.”

I was very surprised by the crowd’s reaction to “Red Rag Top,” a song that takes on the heavy and, especially for country music controversial, topic of abortion. It’s a song I don’t remember being very keen on when it came out but was probably far too young to truly understand all of its meaning. I re-listened to it again as an adult a while back and it’s certainly among the best of his career. It was very awkward though during the song’s long instrumental outro when McGraw began waving his arm back and forth in the air to get the crowd to do the same thing as if it wasn’t a tragic song.

There were some curious choices in McGraw’s setlist. I didn’t mind getting to hear his faithful cover of the Elton John classic “Tiny Dancer,” which appeared on Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors and was even released as a single, but I probably would’ve preferred another of the artist’s many hits that he didn’t get to on the night like maybe 1997’s “Everywhere” or even something newer like 2014’s top-10 “Meanwhile Back at Mama’s” in its place.

Then there was the strange decision to throw his 2004 crossover pop hit “Over and Over” with rapper Nelly into the setlist – which I knew was going to happen because I’d been following his setlists online but I’d assumed the show would have Nelly’s part via video. So, this performance was essentially McGraw just repeating the chorus over and over (no pun intended) to his band. McGraw later utilized Taylor Swift’s vocals for a performance of “Highway Don’t Care,” making the “Over and Over” performance all the stranger without Nelly.

McGraw ended his set with a rocking performance of 2003’s No. 1 “Real Good Man” before returning shortly for a nice three-song encore that began with my all-time favorite McGraw song, “The Cowboy in Me.” With lyrics about questioning one’s actions and all-around not understanding all the reasons for doing what one does, it has always spoken to me internally. It was one of those “always wanted to see this live” performances.

McGraw followed “The Cowboy In Me” with his most recent No. 1 hit “Humble & Kind,” from his 2016 album Damn Country Music, which won Song of the Year at the 2016 CMA Awards for its songwriter, the excellent Lori McKenna, as well as Best Country Song at the Grammy Awards.

“Humble & King” is a terrific life advice song, which led into perhaps the biggest live advice song of McGraw’s career and one of the most massive hits country music has seen in the last quarter-century with 2004’s “Live Like You Were Dying.” I’ve always known “Live Like You Were Dying” was a great song but like many anthemic songs it began to grow annoying due to oversaturation fairly early in its life cycle and is one I’ve often skipped over the years, but it was a no-brainer way to finish out an evening of many of the massive superstar’s biggest and best songs.

Carly Pearce opened up the show on Saturday night and gave a performance that showed me she should be headlining her own arena tour, although she doesn’t seem to mind tagging along with McGraw.

Pearce has had quite the career since her debut album Every Little Thing nearly seven years ago and is on the brink of releasing her fourth studio album Hummingbird in June.

She’s already released two singles off the new album to streaming sites, the title track and “My Place” (it looks like previously released singles “We Don’t Fight Anymore” and “Country Music Made Me Do It” will also be on the album) and debuted a new one on Saturday night, “Truck on Fire,” which is in the vein of Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” and many Miranda Lambert singles and will likely be a hit.

She also performed great renditions of “We Don’t Fight Anymore” and “Country Music Made Me Do It” on Saturday evening.

My favorite performance from Pearce’s set was when she took on both roles in “Never Wanted to Be That Girl,” her 2022 No. 1 country radio hit duet with fellow singer-songwriter Ashley McBryde, which earned the two a Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance. The song has a unique spin on the cheating song theme in country music.

Being on tour with McGraw, Pearce also took the opportunity to pay tribute to McGraw’s longtime wife and fellow country music legend Faith Hill with a cover of Hill’s 1995 hit “Let’s Go to Vegas.”

I’d been wanting to catch McGraw on tour for some years but he hasn’t been too close to my neck of the woods in a while and was thrilled when I saw Pearce would be his opener. I look forward to hearing that new album of hers come June.

John Mellencamp brought his heartland rock & roll music to the Robinson Center in Little Rock, Ark. on Wednesday, April 10.

The Rock Hall of Famer performed as he likes to say: “Some songs you know, some songs you don’t, some you can sing along to and some you can dance to.” And, his 90-minute, 19-song set was hard to argue with when it comes to that statement. There were classics, some newer stuff, some that everybody in the crowd knew all the words to and some that got people out of their seats, even at the usually stuffy venue, to groove with.

The evening didn’t get off on a high note though as it began with an almost 30-minute film consisting of classic black & white film clips that seemingly mean something to Mellencamp and I could tell were meant to add an aesthetic and some nostalgia to the overall performance but much of the crowd just was not into it at all. You would hear groans permeating through the venue with each ensuing clip.

This had me a slight bit nervous as if the crowd might piss off the cantankerous rocker, who had given an Ohio audience member an earful last month after they rudely interrupted an emotional monologue before a song. Mellencamp had threatened to end his concert then and there before walking off stage and returning a while later (probably after being encouraged to do so).

When the music did begin, with a performance of “John Cockers” off his 2008 album Life, Death, Love and Freedom, it never disappointed – though I will admit on those “songs you don’t know” it was a little harder to follow along with the lyrics. I’m unsure whether this was a venue issue or the band’s setup.

Among my favorite performances of songs, I wasn’t familiar with on Wednesday night were “What If I Came Knocking,” off 1993’s Human Wheels (of which he also performed the title track), and “The Eyes of Portland,” off his most recent album Orpheus Descending from last year. The track about the issue of homelessness and the apathy when it comes to figuring out the problem was a touching moment of activism from an artist no stranger to such things.

The Little Rock crowd was mostly pumped for the “songs you know and can sing along to” portion of Mellencamp’s set, which included about nine of what I’d refer to as his “greatest hits,” most of which were packed in the last third of the set.

“Paper in Fire,” a No. 9 hit from 1987’s The Lonesome Jubilee, and “Small Town,” a No. 6 hit from 1985’s Scarecrow, were the two earliest “hits” during the set that got things going. Over the years “Small Town” has climbed the list of my Mellencamp favorites to the point where it’s probably my favorite song of his to see live since he never does 1981’s “Ain’t Even Done with the Night” it seems.    

During the middle of his set, Mellencamp slows things down a bit with less accompaniment from his talented rock band. This is when he performed “The Eyes of Portland,” gave his touching monologue about his grandmother that he always gives before performing “Longest Days” and then performed his usual stripped-down version of “Jack & Diane,” probably his most famous song which went to No. 1 (his only of his career) in 1982. Some fans could be heard grumbling about it being the stripped-down version but Mellencamp is 72 years old and going to do whatever he wants to do. He is and seemingly has always been the walking definition of the term “no fucks given.”

The final seven songs of Mellencamp’s set could be put up against just about any artist of his era. Starting with the downtrodden farmer anthem “Rain on the Scarecrow” came one fantastic performance after another including “Lonely Ol’ Night,” “What If I Came Knocking,” “Crumblin’ Down,” “Pink Houses,” “Cherry Bomb” and “Hurts So Good.” Seriously, try topping that. I’ve seen a good many legends in my time and that finish has probably only been topped by a few.

 
Beyonce released her eighth solo studio album Cowboy Carter on Friday, March 29 to much acclaim.
The album, which has been labeled as “Beyonce’s Country Album,” features many types of sounds, including country, R&B, soul, house, funk, rock, pop and even opera.
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Despite being a veritable melting pot of different sounds and genres, Rolling Stone magazine made waves late Friday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the album’s release, by stating: “Beyonce has made the greatest country music album of all time.”

In a review, written by Ron Masekela, Cowboy Carter was hailed as the greatest achievement in the nearly 100-year history of the genre known as country music.

Masekela wrote: “Step aside Red Headed Stranger [Willie Nelson’s 1975 concept album], step aside Coal Miner’s Daughter [Loretta Lynn’s 1970 autobiographical album] and step aside all you Honky Tonk Heroes [referencing Waylon Jenning’s 1973 release], the Queen of Country Music (and We Don’t Mean Dolly Parton) has arrived.”  

Cowboy Carter was first hinted at on Super Bowl Sunday when Queen Bey was featured in a Super Bowl ad for Verizon, in which she said: “OK, they ready. Drop the new music” and the songs “Texas Hold ‘Em,” a country-pop dance number, and “16 Carriages,” an introspective ballad about growing up,” appeared on streaming sites.   

When the album was released on Friday it included interstitials by country legends Nelson, Parton and Linda Martell, who could’ve been country music’s first black female star had her 1970 album Color Me Country been better received within Nashville.

The album also included a reimagining of Parton’s 1973 country classic “Jolene,” in which Beyonce as the narrator is a bit more threatening toward the hussy trying to steal away her man.

Masekela said: “Much like what Whitney Houston did with Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You,’ Beyonce has taken Parton’s original, breathed new and improved life into it and come out with a better version that could only make Parton weep, wishing she had an ounce of the talent Beyonce exudes.”

Cowboy Carter also includes a touching cover of The Beatles “Blackbird,” written by Paul McCartney, which Masekela called: “Absolutely transcendent. I’m not sure who this McCartney fellow is, but as long as he sticks with Beyonce he’s bound to go places.”

Beyonce doing country music has caused some consternation and controversy within the country music industry.

Within an hour of Masekela’s review dropping on RollingStone.com, the popular country music website Saving Country Music sent out a tweet or an X or whatever they’re calling it these days saying: “DEI, DEI, DEI. That’s all this is!”

When we attempted to reach Rolling Stone founder and longtime editor Jann Wenner, who had a major controversy in September of last year when he was quoted in a New York Times interview as stating “[black and female artists were] not in his zeitgeist” and later doubled down by saying “none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level,” about his creation labeling Beyonce’s album as the greatest country album of all time we simply received a one-sentence response: “Look how they massacred my boy.”