Hillbilly Live!

Stagecoach Festival needed to hear this tribute.

It’s still hard to accept the fact that the country music world lost Big Dog Toby Keith back in February of 2024. He passed away at the young age of 62 after a long battle with stomach cancer. Now we’ve already passed the two year anniversary of his passing…which still sucks to live with.

This past weekend at Stagecoach, Post Malone brought the tribute that California needed to hear. During his headlining finale of the country music festival, he paid respect to Toby with one his greatest, patriotic bangers, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.”

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Kacey Musgraves is releasing her new album, “Middle of Nowhere”, on Friday (5/1/26). It includes a song with Willie Nelson called “Uncertain, TX”.

Or as Kacey calls him, “everyone’s favorite gangster great grandpa” and the, quote where she said he the, “patriarch of truth [and] country music”. She says when she recorded with him, he did it in one take.

She said, “he walks in, does the take, and literally, that’s it. So, it better work. He’s like, ‘I’m in my 90s…I’m giving you 30 seconds, and then I’m out.’ He’s earned that. He’s a true American legend, transcends space and time. He’s amazing.”

This was their third time recording together. Their other two songs are “Are You Sure” from Kacey’s “Pageant Material” album and “A Willie Nice Christmas” from “A Very Kacey Christmas”.

King George Strait brought out his opener, Miranda Lambert, Saturday night to help him perform “She’ll Leave You With A Smile”.

George offered her the opportunity after she sang “Run” at his induction as a Kennedy Center Honoree. He asked her to pick a song she wanted to sing with him onstage in Lubbock. It took her four days to come up with a song to sing with George onstage obviously…and it would’ve taken me longer to be honest. Especially knowing how many songs he has that I’m in love with.

Miranda said, “like four days ago, I finally made my decision. I mean, I get to sing with King George, y’all.”

Luke Combs tied his own record as the only artist in history to have the top two songs on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as a solo artist. Then on the U.S. Country Radio chart, he’s also the first artist to occupy the top two spots as well.

This week (4/27/26), “Sleepless in a Hotel Room” remained #1 for its third week, drawing a hefty 32.3 million audience impressions throughout the week. And Ironically, Luke actually blocked himself from scoring his 21st #1 and simultaneously tied his own record.

His other surging single, “Days Like These” rose from #4 to #2 this week, which makes Luke the proud owner of the #1 and #2 songs on country radio this week. This makes Luke the only artist in the history of the chart to occupy the top two with two songs as a lead artist…again.

The last time we saw this news was back in September of 2023 when “Love You Anyway” and “Fast Car” also reached #1 and #2 simultaneously on Billboard.

Luke also made history on country music’s other radio chart, Mediabase. In direct contrast to Billboard’s Country Airplay, this week, “Days Like These” rose to #1 on the chart with “Sleepless in a Hotel Room” falling to #2. In turn, he also became the first artist on Mediabase’s chart to occupy the #1 and #2 spot simultaneously in a single week with two solo, non-feature tracks.

.@lukecombs is officially the first artist in history to occupy the top two positions at US Country Radio (Mediabase) with solo songs:

#1 Days Like These
#2 Sleepless In A Hotel Room pic.twitter.com/xIz8cwkpqz

— U.S. Radio Updater (@USRadioUpdater) April 26, 2026

The record-breaking doesn’t stop there for Luke. On Saturday, he broke Ohio Stadium’s concert attendance record with 97,367 fans. The previous record was held by Pink Floyd with 75,245 fans in 1994.

Last year, “Rolling Stone” released their 250 Greatest Albums of All-Time. Guess how many country albums are on that list?  Only TEN.  Apparently, they think that country music only makes up 4% of the best music since the turn of the century?  To save you some scrolling, here are all ten country albums and where they placed:

#40…“Golden Hour” (2018)…by Kacey Musgraves

#43…“Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” (2014)…by Sturgill Simpson

#48…“Platinum” (2014)…by Miranda Lambert

#79…“Southeastern” (2013)…by Jason Isbell

#103…“Traveller” (2015)…by Chris Stapleton

#121…“Chief” (2011)…by Eric Church

#126…“Cowboy Carter” (2024)…by Beyoncé…and this joke needs to stop. Because this is not a country album.

#130…“By the Way, I Forgive You” (2018)…by Brandi Carlile

#207…“Hero” (2016)…by Maren Morris

#247…“Purgatory” (2017)…Tyler Childers

Some quick thoughts here. “Traveller” not making the Top 100 is laughable…and no Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, George Strait, Ella Langley or Lainey Wilson? Seriously. Whoever the hell put this shit list together left out a lot of great country artists.

People really showed up in Lubbock m, Texas for King George Strait.

I read that 133,000 attended Jones AT&T Stadium on Friday and Saturday night for George’s little two night residency in Lubbock. Traffic jams started in Snyder, Texas, which is about an hour 15 minutes away from Lubbock too. People in Texas don’t mess around when comes to seeing King George in concert. He’s real Texas royalty to us Texans.

One man in attendance at Jones AT&T Stadium was having a damn good time and he was actually getting paid to be there. The best part was his dancing skills were caught on camera.

He was easy to spot too. Considering he was wearing a bright yellow shirt like most of the other staff was.

Stagecoach Festival 2026 went down this past weekend. Well, most of it did. 

Riley Green and Journey’s sets were canceled on Saturday due to high winds. And Lainey Wilson’s headlining set was delayed but still went off without a hitch. She was even nice enough to let Riley come out during her set to perform since his set got canceled.

Here are the biggest stories:

1. At least Riley wasn’t shut out for good. Lainey brought him onstage during her set…and he sang “I Wish Grandpas Never Died”.

Duckman back in the desert @RileyGreenMusic

Watch the @amazonmusic livestream, only on @primevideo and @twitchhttps://t.co/oVtHIARbM6 pic.twitter.com/yh9R8vSvav

— Stagecoach Festival (@Stagecoach) April 26, 2026

2. Cody Johnson sang with Boyz II Men.

3. Noah Cyrus brought out her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus.

4. Sydney Sweeney sang some karaoke with Diplo.

5. Ella Langley did her duet “I Can’t Love You Anymore” for the first time solo. And she said Morgan Wallen couldn’t be there because he’s on “dad duty” this weekend.

6. And instead of Riley Green, you’ll never believe who sang opposite Ella for her song “You Look Like You Love Me”…it was Theo Von. He did Riley’s spoken word verses.  And even sang a bit too.

.@ellalangleymsic 🤝 @TheoVon pic.twitter.com/JbrHxldCE8

— Stagecoach Festival (@Stagecoach) April 25, 2026

7. And last night, Post Malone was the headliner…with Brooks & Dunn and Hootie & the Blowfish supporting.

It was a big weekend in Georgia.

Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan first graced Sanford Stadium back in 2013 as part of Jason’s “Night Train Tour”, which actually marked the one and only concert to ever be held at the stadium. Jason and Luke teamed up again to play Sanford Stadium at the University of Georgia this past Saturday on April 25th, 2026.

The Georgia natives showed up with an all-star line-up, which also included current Zach Top, Lauren Alaina, DJ Rock and the man himself Dee Jay Silver. Needless to say…it was a beautiful homecoming for Jason and Luke.

Of course they couldn’t decide who was going to go onstage first. So, they decided who that was going to be with a coin toss. And the opening video before their walkout showed their conversation about that and the coin toss that decided who was playing first.

It’s a moment like this that makes me fully understand why artists invest in teleprompters…because I’d forget lyrics onstage too. Let’s be real.

Morgan Wallen’s 2026 “Still The Problem Tour” is well underway. The stadiums are being filled and the walkouts are happening. There are roughly 30 songs on this man’s set list every night too. So, I’m not surprised that this happened.

Morgan forgot some of the lyrics to “This Bar”. Luckily the audience was singing along loud enough for him to literally just quit singing. Which is probably better than mumbling through it. But since everyone has a camera in their hand, his forgotten lyrics were caught in real time.

Hell…people are forever miss hearing lyrics and making up their own lyrics daily. Mainly because a lot of people don’t really know the lyrics to a lot songs themselves…and there’s proof of that on the internet too. We’ve all seen and heard them. Don’t act like you haven’t witnessed it yourself.

Dustin Lynch and Chase Rice stopped the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheater on Wednesday April 22, 2026 for a special night.

A portion of the ticket proceeds are going to support the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. And a big thank you to fine people at Coors Banquet and for everything they do for firefighters and their families. Pete Coors (who happens to be a personal hero of mine) was even in attendance and with a Coors Light in hand. Obviously.

Chase Rice poured his heart out on that stage. And hearing songs from his last four albums, starting with “I Hate Cowboys & And All Dogs Go To Hell” was simply perfect. These last four albums and music from Chase are straight up country at its finest from him.

It was a show fit for Colorado. Especially knowing how a lot of the music from this man’s last four albums were born in Colorado. Chase’s cover of Garth Brooks’ “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)” was flawless and sounded like heaven at Red Rocks on Wednesday night too.