Marty Stuart, Nikki Lane, Morgan Wade Highlight Day 2 of Stagecoach Festival

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by Julian Spivey
Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives brought their eclectic style of country music – featuring traditional country, bluegrass, folk, rockabilly and surf/psychedelic rock to the Palomino Stage at the 2023 Stagecoach Festival on Saturday night (April 29).

The band absolutely stunned those watching live from the venue and those of us watching the live stream via Amazon Prime Video or Amazon Music’s Twitch with their musicianship with Marty Stuart showing off on mandolin, “Cousin” Kenny Vaughan on guitar, Chris Scruggs on bass and Harry Stinson on drums – though also showing off with his vocal on the Woody Guthrie classic “Pretty Boy Floyd.”

Stuart always gives the Fabulous Superlatives a chance to show off on vocals during his regular shows and even though this was about a 45-minute festival set it was nice to see this still happen. My favorite performance was Stinson’s, but Vaughan and Scruggs had their time to shine too.

The band performed some of their usual hits like “Tear the Woodpile Down” and “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’,” while mixing in some of the surf-rock of their most recent release Way Out West from 2017. One of the set’s highlights was a new release from the group called “Sitting Alone,” which will be on their upcoming album Altitude, which debuts on May 19.

Where Stuart truly had a moment to show off on his beautiful mandolin was a cover of the country/bluegrass traditional “Orange Blossom Special.”

The stream on Amazon Music’s Twitch page had a live chat going with it, which was a really interesting thing to follow along with. You basically had three types of people watching: fans of Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, people who were just being introduced to them and blown away (these were my favorites) and those complaining about the music and wondering when Kane Brown’s set was going to happen.

Earlier in the day, Nikki Lane performed at the Palomino Stage and showed off her brand of Outlaw country/Americana.

Her 2022 release Denim & Diamonds was one of the best country/Americana albums of last year and she performed many tracks from it during her 45-minute set, including the title track, “Black Widow” and “First High,” which was my favorite from the album.

Lane has this take no prisoners attitude about her when performing absolutely owning the stage. She’s a regular at Stagecoach Festival and you can tell some of the veterans who return to the festival annually absolutely adore her.

Other terrific performances from her set included the set ending “Jackpot” and “Highway Queens,” off the 2017 album of the same name, and “Right Time,” “Man Up” and “700,000 Rednecks,” which she began her set with.

Over at the Mane Stage (intentionally spelled that way as in a horse’s mane) during the afternoon, up-and-comer Morgan Wade, whose 2021 Thirty Tigers label debut Reckless was one of that year’s highlights and really put her on the map gave a terrific 45-minute or so set of some of the finest tracks on the album.

There’s an edge to Wade (covered in tattoos) and her music that has some labeling her alternative country, but whatever you want to call it it’s excellent.

My favorite track off Reckless was “Take Me Away,” a song about getting lost in the loving of someone as a means of taking your mind off life’s troubles. It was my favorite performance of her set.

Other terrific performances from Reckless included: “Last Cigarette,” “Mend” and “The Night.” She ended her set with another one of my favorites from the album, “Wilder Days.”

The surprise of Wade’s performance was her mash-up covers of The Outfield’s 1986 top-10 hit “Your Love” and Rick Springfield’s 1981 No. 1 smash “Jessie’s Girl.” I never realized how well these songs would meld together, so kudos to Wade and her band for knocking it out of the park.

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