Miranda Lambert, Post Malone, Willie Nelson and More Highlight Stagecoach's Day 2

by Julian Spivey

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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.