According to Dierks Bentley, the MVP of Stagecoach Day Two, there are three Bs that make a music festival: Bikinis, Boots and Beer. An addendum might include Bros, Bandanas and Badass T-shirts. Also Bands, I guess. And Brands. And possibly Bodyguard for cowboy-hat-wearing Ashton Kutcher, the Lone Star spotted on the loose, being pursued by girls in said Bikinis.
So yeah, the basic uniform for Stagecoach for the 14-25 set is, for girls, cowboy boots, cutoff jean shorts and a bikini top (sometimes bandana print or an actual bandana), cowboy hat optional but recommended. For dudes, it’s either American flag print shorts and no shirt or regular shorts and America-themed t-shirt, including my personal favorite (spotted several times) which has a picture of the United States and reads, “Two Time World War Champs.” My other personal favorite T-shirt, more indicative of the chill older crowd just there to soak up the music, was a “Life Is Good” shirt with a tractor on it.
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Worth reiterating from day one of Stagecoach is that there are a ton of people with gray hair who are absolutely chill as fuck. If you want a good festival to go to with your parents, Stagechill is the one (this is true even if “you” are six years old: there’s a whole children’s hangout tent adorably called the “Half Pint Hootenany”). But if you want to go to a festival where you can also just bro out and not be judged for wearing a cowboy hat and drink beer and wear American flag print and not have to deal with hipsters or people who watch concerts with their arms crossed instead of singing along, Ragecoach is also ideal for that. You will definitely not see hipsters, and you better fucking sing along.
Non-Hipsters, aka “Normals”
This last point is one of the great things about country music: The songs are made to be sing-along anthems. At the end of the first day, a guy on the walk out was getting pissed off at people for not wanting to sing Johnny Cash songs with him. I’ve already been called out multiple times on the shuttle ride for not singing along to songs on the radio. For the Certified Hits from Mane Stage (see, it’s like a Main Stage, but horse-themed) artists like Phil Vassar, Dierks Bentley and Lady Antebellum, everybody knows the words and everybody goes apeshit.
In the core Raging demographic at the front of the general admission area, this enthusiasm was also the case for interstitial songs from Taio Cruz, Katy Perry and the Black Eyed Peas—a firm reminder that while Stagecoach is adamantly country, the genre isn’t exactly cordoned off from the pop mainstream, especially in Southern California. The day’s headliners, Lady Antebellum, are pretty big pop stars (trust me, even if you don’t fuck with country, you’ve heard “Need You Now”). Jana Kramer, formerly an actress on One Tree Hill, got a big response for covering Katy Perry and Foster the People. A promising artist with an electric, sultry stage presence even with 200 feet of unoccupied premium seating between her and the crowd, Kramer’s afternoon performance of tense, lovelorn singles “Why Ya Wanna” and “Whiskey” was a highlight (full disclosure: we are not related).
That said, the vibe was slightly different at the Old School Countryholics Real Country Shit Stage (formerly the Chill Celebrity Side Project Stage, formerly the Palomino Stage, formerly the Coachella Sahara Stage), where Justin Townes Earle showed up dressed in a white pinstripe suit like it was a Texas Sunday in 1935 and played an endearing set that perfectly married classic country and modern folk with songs like “Mama’s Eyes” and “Harlem River Blues.” Later, Brooklyn’s The Lone Bellow lived up their name by harmonize-shouting their way through original songs like “Bleeding Out,” winning over a laid-back audience mostly enjoying the tent’s shade. And then Dwight Yoakam and his sequined-vest-wearing band came through to tear down the stage for one of the largest crowds it drew all weekend (a crowd that included both Ashton Kutcher and, by his own report, Dierks Bentley, whose set overlapped slightly) with songs like Yoakam’s iconic “Honky Tonk Man.”
One of the cool things about Stagecoach—as opposed to many more alternative rock-leaning festivals—is that many of the smaller print names on the bill are old school legends and throwback artists that primarily appeal to the older segment of the audience. It’s pretty much possible, should you choose, to assemble a Stagecoach schedule that barely involves hearing a song that sounds like it was recorded before 1980. But if you want to hear songs that are actually on the radio, as opposed to “viral hits” that are just really big on Hypemachine, you can do that too.
Relevant Tractor
Holding down the radio star portion of the day were Dierks Bentley and Lady Antebellum, who are both pretty fucking huge. This was apparent not only from the amount of bro-ing out and hat-waving happening during their sets but also from the fact that, when Dierks came out during Lady A’s set to do an unrehearsed and kind of awkward duet of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire,” they made fun of each others’ skinny jeans. At a festival where the only skinny jeans in sight were on some of the photographers covering it (although shouts out to Phil Vassar’s bro pianist with the red pants and backwards hat, who might have just camped out after Coachella), that kind of fashion choice is a pretty pop-star move. Point being: everyone knew all the words to basically all the songs that both artists did.
Lady Antebellum came out on some serious rock star shit, posing in front of a dramatically flashing three-color light-up screen (there are three lead members, their thing is three-part harmonies, etc.), to play their new single, “Downtown,” which may or may not be about oral sex. Lady Antebellum are earnest to a point that can veer into cheesiness, especially in the case of lead signer Charles Kelley. He was particularly awkward handling a question about fellow lead singer Hillary Scott’s quite visible pregnancy, referring to himself as a future dad-ager before clarifying that he was not the father (that honor would go to Scott’s husband, Chris Tyrell, who is the backing band’s drummer). But, look, if your thing is to be sincere and excited, it can be hard to turn it off. And Lady A is super sincere, which is what made performances of their massive hits “Our Kind of Love,” “I Run To You” and “Need You Now” so perfect for closing the night at a festival so big on group sing-alongs.
The best performance of the night, though, was Dierks Bentley’s, in the penultimate slot. Bentley comes across as super down-to-earth and incredibly comfortable onstage, the perfect blend for a setting big on spectacle and tight technical performances but still all about the people. Dierks, as his enthusiasm for the three Bs and insistence that Stagecoach is “the coolest thing” might suggest, is very much about the people. So much that he pulled a fan up onstage and TAUGHT HER HOW TO PLAY HIS GUITAR (the way it works, based on his five-second lesson, is that you make a strumming motion). He also kept running over to put his arm around the sign language interpreter, he ended the show by signing a guitar and handing it to a fan and he spent the longest time introducing his band of any artist at the festival.
The band introduction is one of the coolest country traditions due to the way it democratizes credit for the performance, and almost every artist playing this weekend made sure to highlight the talents of the backing band. However, Bentley made it an art form, giving the story of each band member and making jokes about their childhood pictures (one dude had “the original Justin Bieber” haircut, FYI). Basically, Dierks Bentley rules, and I haven’t even mentioned how he wished for everyone in the audience would “get lucky” from listening to slow jam “Come A Little Closer” or how amped everybody got to sing “Home,” which, naturally, is about America. They got fucking amped. Because at Ragecoach, everybody there is kind of in the Band, drinking Beer, wearing Boots and Bikinis.
