Stagecoach Festival '18 Day 2 review, feat. Keith Urban, Kacey Musgraves, Dwight Yoakam, Jason Isbell, Brandy Clark

Right After Dwight Yoakam did the first of several tributes to Merle Haggard and Buck Owens at Stagecoach, he told the crowd that a lot of people had probably “travelled down Highway 99 from Bakersfield, Tulare, Stockton and Modesto to get here.”

Much farther too. Last Friday-Sunday, Stagecoach – California’s Country Music Festival, drew 75,000 attendees daily to Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, Calif. from multiple states. It is among the top-grossing U.S. concert events annually.

The 2018 edition was headlined by Florida Georgia Line, Keith Urban and Garth Brooks. While the lineup is always impressive, Day 2 was especially strong this year. 

On the Mane Stage, Keith Urban (pictured below) delivered a top-notch performance amid heavy winds that featured six songs from his eclectic new album “Graffiti U.” Kicking things off with a typically high-energy “Somebody Like You,” he mentioned the full moon and wife Nicole Kidman watching from the wings made for a perfect Saturday night. Latest single “Comin’ Home” sounded strong and a pre-recorded Julia Michaels appeared on the large screens for her duet part.

A rousing “Long Hot Summer” and “Somewhere in My Car” were high energy standouts and an emotionally resonant “Cop Car” featured some riveting visuals. The playful “You Look Good in My Shirt” saw Urban head into the crowd to make his way to the SiriusXM Spotlight Stage facing the general admission sections.

Immediately, a bunch of guys hoisted gals onto their shoulders, which made it nearly impossible to watch other than on the screens.

Brothers Osborne, who played earlier on the Mane Stage, were invited onstage to do what Urban called a “California song” and it ended up being a fun take on Yoakam’s “Fast as You.” The songwriter himself also joined them to sing and play acoustic guitar. Later, the ballad “Blue Ain’t Your Color” had the all the cowgirls singing along and the smoldering new rocker “Texas Time” proved highly infectious.

The weather affected Kacey Musgraves, who preceded Urban on the Mane Stage, more. Not vocally; everything was fine in that department. She did mention the wind a few times, constantly brushed hair away from her face and struggled to keep the microphone stand steady.

Taking the stage to a snippet of The Beatles’ “Because” (from “Abbey Road”), Musgraves opened with the equally lush acoustic guitar-based “Slow Burn,” which leads off her adventurous new album “Golden Hour.” Another delightful new gem, “Butterflies,” featured soft synth washes alongside the banjo and pedal steel.

“This is about love over hate,” said Musgraves, before satisfying “Golden Hour” track “Love is a Wild Thing,” as a pink-hued forest scene was projected on the screens. The Texas singer/songwriter/guitarist gave “Mama’s Broken Heart,” her ACM-winning co-write with Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally for Miranda Lambert, a semi-aggressive delivery complete with cello. The crowd went crazy. Hit single “Merry Go Round” was done solo acoustic and fared well.

Other fresh selections, like the orchestrated “Velvet Elvis” and country-meets-disco of “High Horse” (plus totally danceable Brooks & Dunn cover “Neon Moon”) kept things livelier toward the end.

Earlier, Dwight Yoakam played to an overflow crowd at the Palomino tent. His twangy country journey began with Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie” and kept on the early rock ‘n’ roll tip, thanks to his hit version of Elvis Presley-popularized “Little Sister.”

The band, clad in matching attire and featuring Eugene Edwards' tasteful electric guitar work, really let it rip on “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke” (from 2012’s underrated “3 Pears”). Yoakam’s aforementioned tribute to his idols encompassed a feisty, accordion-accented “Streets of Bakersfield,” “The Bottle Let Me Down,” “Today I Started Loving You Again,” “Mama Tried,” “Okie from Muskogee” and “My Heart Skips a Beat.”

As for his own songs, Yoakam also turned in a lively “Honky Tonk Man” and “Fast as You” and did his trademark scooting across the stage and spinning around. “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere” was stirring as ever.

Jason Isbell never ceases to amaze in concert. Touring in support of last year’s excellent “The Nashville Sound,” the Alabama native and his band The 400 Unit (including wife Amanda Shires on violin/backing vocals) played one of the strongest sets on Saturday.

Holding court in a well-attended Palomino (many chatty people watching were obviously there to find a good viewing spot for Yoakam), Isbell and company got the proceedings rocking from the get-go, thanks to “Hope the High Road” and some searing guitar work from Isbell and Sadler Vaden. “24 Frames” was an early standout, while the racing “Cumberland Gap” boasted a dangerous sonic vibe and soaring vocals.

“We do actually have a country song and an accordion,” said Isbell, facetiously, before slowing things down a bit for the sprightly, fiddle-infused “Codeine.” Later, he’d joke about not being able to compete with Yoakam’s trademark tight acid-washed blue jeans look and not being inclined to try.

Isbell and Shire sang the vocals for “Stockholm” while looking at each other, elevating the song’s sense of loneliness and warmth. Later, their dramatic delivery was mesmerizing on “Vampires.” A gripping “Cover Me Up” saw Isbell belt out the vocal.

The 400 Unit pulled out all the rocking stops for mid-period Stonesy rave-up “Super 8” (where Isbell had a good time) and again on the final song, a Neil Young & Crazy Horse-styled cover of Isbell’s former band Drive-By Truckers’ “Never Gonna Change.”

Country Music Hall of Famer Ronnie Milsap also drew a capacity crowd to the Palomino, with Stagecoach attendees eager to see the legend while he was still around. Now 75, Milsap was admirable at best on vocals and electric piano, but sounded better when members of the six-piece band joined in on backing vocals. A quick audio introduction summarized his career, then Milsap – wearing a shiny black shirt festooned with cactus - started with “Prisoner of the Highway.”

photo: George A. Paul

An eight-song medley of hits had several elderly ladies near me swaying and singing right along. It contained “I Wouldn’t Have Missed it for the World,” “What a Difference You’ve Made in My Life,” “No Gettin’ Over Me” and “She Keeps the Home Fires Burning,” among others.

Milsap cracked a couple jokes about a recent career retrospective and working on a new album “that’ll be out before I die.” He also performed such 1970s and ‘80s hits as “It Was Almost Like a Song,” “What Goes On When the Sun Goes Down,” “Pure Love,” “Stranger in My House,” “Smokey Mountain Rain” and “Lost in the Fifties Tonight.” The latter, which incorporates The Five Satins’ “In the Still of the Night,” got one of the loudest reactions.

The entertainer gave a shout out to military personnel and first responders for “keeping us safe” and closed with “America the Beautiful.” I’m surprised some young guys and gals wearing flag-emblazoned shorts and tops near the front of the stage didn’t take them off and wave them around.

Outside in the blazing heat, Carly Pearce was quite the spunky singer. Performing on the SiriusXM Spotlight Stage, she did several songs from debut album “Every Little Thing,” including the big hit title track “Careless,” plus “Hide the Wine,” “Everybody Gonna Talk” and a lively take on Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”

One of the most in-demand songwriters in country music today, Brandy Clark has a keen eye for detail and her lyrics about Southern life really hit the mark (amazingly, she hails from Washington state). Having flown into the festival from North Carolina that morning, Clark’s solid Stagecoach set contained several songs about crazy women – a fact she joked about.

Singing with the grace of Rosanne Cash in the Palomino, the multi-award-winning artist was most memorable on “Pray to Jesus,” a beautiful “Favorite Lie,” thought-provoking “Love Can Go to Hell,” the title track to 2016’s “Big Day in a Small Town” (where the lyrics surround the townsfolk's problems), a sadly humorous “Get High,” “Girl Next Door,” the tender love song “Hold My Hand” and spirited “Stripes.”

photo by George A. Paul

Newcomer Jade Jackson put out her winsome debut album “Gilded,” produced by Social Distortion’s Mike Ness, last year.

In the Palomino, the Rancho Santa Margarita, California native sang her alt-country songs with a dusky voice that sometimes recalled Shelby Lynne. “Aden,” “Finish Line,” “Bottle it Up” and the haunting “Good Time Gone” impressed most. She also did a short acoustic set later in the afternoon on the Toyota tent's Music Den stage. Definitely one to watch.

Archival photo of Yoakam by Drew A. Kelley