Less than a week after Coachella concluded, the Stagecoach country-music festival has drawn another crowd in the tens of thousands to the now mostly grassless Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif. The three-day event kicked off Friday and will run through Sunday night with headliners Zach Bryan, Jelly Roll and Luke Combs. I’ll be here all weekend to bring you the highs and the lows as they happen. Here’s what went down on Day 1:
Big stage, big show
Three years after he made his Stagecoach debut in 2022, Zach Bryan returned to headline the festival’s first night with a jumbo-sized performance in which he and a band of more than a dozen players ran through roughly 30 songs (and in the process blew way past his scheduled curfew ). The music was ragged but soulful, and as at every Bryan gig, it inspired folks in the crowd to scream his lyrics into each other’s faces.
Wearing what he said was the same sleeveless Indian Motorcycles T-shirt he wore last time at Stagecoach — “I thought it was cute,” he said — Bryan thanked the audience profusely, which felt inevitably like a bit of damage control after his ex-girlfriend, podcaster Brianna Chickenfry, went public last year with accusations that he had been emotionally abusive. (Bryan didn’t directly respond but wrote on Instagram that he was “unphased by the fake s— people say about me online.”)
But if his career seemed in danger just a few months ago, nothing about his reception here suggested that the enthusiasm about him has cooled. He even got away with doing a rollicking version of Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” which he called his favorite song of all time — and which hardly anybody on the field seemed to know.
An unexpected revelation
The headline out of Lana Del Rey’s set — which came as she’s been teasing the release of a purported country album that may or may not drop next month — is that she once made out with Morgan Wallen, at least if the lyrics of one of her rootsy new songs are to believed.
“I kissed Morgan Wallen / I guess kissing me kind of went to his head,” she sang over strummy acoustic guitar (after telling the audience that this would be the last time she’d ever sing the lines), “If you want my secret to success / I suggest don’t go ATVing with him when you’re out west.”
OK!
Let’s not let that bombshell keep us from savoring some of the other peculiarities of this song, which evidently is called “57.5” after the number of monthly Spotify listeners Del Rey once had — “I got 57.5 million listeners on Spotify,” she sang — and which also had her revealing that she talks to Jesus, hates everybody and still flies commercial. “You need an autograph?” she sang with a little shrug. “S—, I don’t mind.”
Performing on a set made up to look like the porch of a backwoods country cabin, Del Rey debuted a couple of other new tunes, including one that appears to be about her alligator-boat captain of a husband, and one that fans online are calling “Quiet in the South.” She covered Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man” and John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and she brought out the up-and-coming country hunk George Birge to do his “Cowboy Songs.”
She also sang lightly countrified versions of “Video Games” and “Summertime Sadness” that made you think about how durable Del Rey’s fame has been over the past decade and change even as she’s taken every available opportunity to test its bounds.
Maybe that’s why.
T.J. Osborne, left, and John Osborne of Brothers Osborne at Stagecoach on Friday.
(Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for Stagecoach)
Five minutes backstage with Brothers Osborne
How often do you shampoo your hair?
T.J. Osborne: Never.
John Osborne: Never?
T.J.: Never.
John: Wow. I’m once a week.
How many unread text messages do you have?
John: Six. And two unread emails. I try to keep it below 10.
Does anyone besides you know the passcode to your phone?
John: My wife. I don’t know the passcode to hers, though.
T.J.: Anybody that’s partied at my house and they’re like, “What’s the passcode? Gotta change the music.” I’m like, “OK, here you go.”
You don’t have to say with whom, but are you currently involved in a beef with anyone in music?
T.J.: Oh, always.
Would you rather be 10% more talented or 10% better looking?
John: I’ve got plenty of talent.
Name a country song you wish you could sing but you know you can’t.
John: Pretty much any Chris Stapleton song.
T.J.: Or Vince Gill. “Go Rest High on That Mountain” — it just needs that high tenor.
What’s an adult beverage you’ve sworn off?
T.J.: No cinnamon drinks. Fireball, Goldschläger, any cinnamon schnapps — won’t do it.
What’s the last thing you used ChatGPT for?
John: If you come in last in our fantasy football league, you have to do open-mic stand-up comedy. And I was nearly in last place, so I used it to help write jokes. It was so bad. ChatGPT is amazing — but a horrible comedian.
Did you come in last?
John: Fortunately, I didn’t have to use the jokes.
T.J.: The guy who did lose, one of our friends got on a Facebook group for the area we live in and told everyone that Nate Bargatze was gonna do a pop-up to get more strangers to come watch him.
Paris Hilton deejays at Stagecoach on Friday.
(Timothy Norris/Getty Images for Stagecoach)
The art(?) of the mix
Wearing bedazzled headphones to match the rest of her super-sparkly outfit, Paris Hilton took all of about eight seconds to bludgeon the crowd inside Diplo’s HonkyTonk with “We Found Love” by Rihanna and Calvin Harris, which she mixed into Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” to open an almost charmingly obvious DJ set. Later, Hilton brought out Lizzo and the two shouted along to Icona Pop’s “I Love It.”
Best introduction of a song so far
Carter Faith, teeing up her feisty new single, “Grudge”: “This song’s about a stupid bitch that pissed me off.”
Cringiest product placement so far
Tucker Wetmore performed on the main stage in front of a digital mock-up of an old-timey saloon complete with a mounted deer head, several American flags — and a sign advertising the canned vodka seltzer sponsoring his summer tour. Womp-womp.
T-Pain performs at Stagecoach on Friday.
(Timothy Norris/Getty Images for Stagecoach)
Three for three
No one has been more visible on the polo grounds this month than T-Pain, who after playing both weekends of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival capped Stagecoach Day 1 with a late-night set in the Palomino tent. The veteran R&B star said he initially had his doubts that he’d be welcomed by a country crowd when Jelly Roll brought him out for a surprise appearance at last year’s Stagecoach: “These people don’t wanna hear my s—,” he said he told Jelly Roll. Yet here, as at Coachella, his hits went over like the classics they are. Paying forward Jelly’s favor, as he put it, T-Pain brought out another country outsider in Kesha, who joined him to do their new single, “Yippee-Ki-Yay,” which unfortunately is very bad.
Still stomp-and-clapping
Just days after Winston Marshall published an essay in the Free Press about abandoning what he views as an immoral music industry, Marshall’s old bandmates in Mumford & Sons put in a last-minute appearance at Stagecoach that drew a gargantuan crowd to the Palomino. Did everybody but me know that Mumford & Sons was still this big?
Carly Pearce performs Friday at Stagecoach.
(Timothy Norris/Getty Images for Stagecoach)
Five minutes backstage with Carly Pearce
Would you rather drive or be driven?
Drive. I get very car sick.
What’s the last thing you cooked?
Spaghetti squash.
How often do you shampoo your hair?
Every day. I’m that person — I know it’s wrong.
Would you rather be 10% more talented or 10% better looking?
Ten percent better looking, for sure.
Name a country song you wish you could sing but you know you can’t.
Martina McBride, “Independence Day.” She just belts on a level I don’t belt.
What’s an adult beverage you’ve sworn off?
Beer.
A go-to indulgence?
Designer handbags.
You have a tattoo you regret?
I have a rainbow butterfly on my foot that I got to match all the colors in my outfits when I was 16. Now it’s a little trashy.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
