In the Desert, a Festival of Country and Its Kin
INDIO, Calif., May 7 — What does country music sound like in 2007? Well, around 3:15 on Sunday afternoon here in the California desert it sounded like a Chinese folk song struggling to be heard over a Guns N’ Roses medley.
That medley (“Paradise City” into “Sweet Child o’ Mine”) was the work of Jason Aldean, a rising star who has become a fixture on country radio. The Chinese folk song was the work of Abigail Washburn, a singer and banjo player who traces roots music across two continents. And the occasion was the inaugural Stagecoach country music festival, held on Saturday and Sunday.
Some five dozen acts played four stages on the fields of the Empire Polo Club, a location familiar to many noncountry fans. Stagecoach is a production of Goldenvoice, which produced the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival the previous weekend at the same site; Stagecoach is partly an attempt to squeeze more use (which is to say, money) out of the Coachella infrastructure. About 30,000 fans showed up each day: fewer than Coachella (which drew 50,000 to 60,000 a day), but more than enough to make this well-run weekend feel like a success.
The strong turnout was largely a testament to the drawing power of the four headlining acts. On Saturday night on the main stage the wily veterans Alan Jackson and George Strait played extraordinary sets, each drawing from his deep catalog of hits. And on Sunday night the top-selling duo Brooks & Dunn cranked out a string of elegant country-rock songs (including a lovely version of “Neon Moon”) before ceding the stage to the affable — and apparently tireless — young star Kenny Chesney, who must be one of America’s most popular singers in any genre.
The other three stages were full of cult acts, bluegrass virtuosos and cowboy storytellers; the performers included Kris Kristofferson, Neko Case, Garrison Keillor and many more. But not even Willie Nelson, appearing on the alt-country Palomino Stage, could draw a crowd to compete with the hit makers on the main one; no matter where you went, it was hard to escape the pull — or the thumping bass — of the main stage. Lots of people complain about it, but the Nashville system is still pretty good at finding and promoting credible stars and infectious songs. (Unlike many other genres, country music still sells well too.) Everywhere you looked this weekend, someone was singing along.
Unlike the usual Coachella crowd, this one was well equipped for a weekend outdoors: 2,200 recreation vehicles turned a nearby lot into a small and unusually festive temporary town; in front of the main stage folding chairs outnumbered cowboy hats, which is saying something. Instead of dashing from stage to stage, many fans simply picked a spot near the main stage and stayed put, happy to wait the seven hours, say, until Mr. Strait’s arrival. The crowd skewed older too: Coachella probably doesn’t draw this many parents, and it definitely doesn’t draw this many grandparents.
There were similarities too. Like the Coachella crowd, this one apparently believes that drinking beer is an effective substitute for sunblock. You could tell the time of day by examining the redness of fans’ torsos or, if you were willing to get that close, the glassiness of their eyes.
Between the big stage and the smaller ones it was possible to detect evidence of a continuing argument about the identity of country music. The small-stage acts generally went deep, emphasizing the genre’s history. The old-school bluegrass hero Del McCoury led his band through a cheerful, sprightly set then accepted requests; Emmylou Harris sang “Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby,” which she described as a cross between a field holler and a lullaby.
On Saturday Mr. Nelson sung Mr. Kristofferson’s classic ballad “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” or rather talked it, reciting the lyrics like a bartender listing what’s on tap. On Sunday Mr. Kristofferson took the song back, adding some melody (though not a lot) by growling the words instead. He also sang an updated version of “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down,” taking time to grumble about the Iraq war; that earned him some mild applause, though it might not have gone over so well on the main stage, where Brooks & Dunn brought down the house by bringing out some marines.
The combination of mainstream and nonmainstream acts is part of what sets Stagecoach apart from more established country music festivals: Country USA (in Wisconsin), CMA Music Festival (in Nashville, and formerly known as FanFair), MerleFest (in North Carolina), and many others. But sometimes this combination worked better in theory; judging from the turnout, your average Stagecoach attendee isn’t much interested in Ms. Case, who was (to be fair) up against Mr. Strait; despite her steel guitar player, she seemed out of place.
On the main stage, by contrast, many of the crowd favorites went wide instead of deep, de-emphasizing country music’s history in order to acknowledge its cultural associations. The popular duo Sugarland specializes in bubblegum rock with a Southern accent. Jennifer Nettles, the lead singer, recently won a Grammy for her appearance on Bon Jovi’s “Who Says You Can’t Go Home,” which was a No. 1 country hit. In a recent radio interview Ms. Nettles excitedly talked about meeting 50 Cent on Grammy night. These days country culture is often pop culture.
And the dominant sound of country music, as one after another main-stager proved, is upbeat Southern rock. Eric Church paid tribute to Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”; Gary Allan played his hit cover of Vertical Horizon’s post-grunge ballad “Best I Ever Had”; Mr. Chesney warmed up the crowd with AC/DC. Mr. Aldean’s current single is called “Johnny Cash,” but don’t be fooled: it’s a beefy rock song that name-checks a country legend (“Blastin’ out to Johnny Cash, heading for the highway”) without reviving his style.
No disrespect to the pickers and raconteurs in the tents, but this crowd probably would have preferred a rock ’n’ roll stage: say, Third Eye Blind, Poison and some reconstituted version of Lynyrd Skynyrd. By now, all that stuff — bar-friendly rock from across the decades — is part of country’s heritage too.
In that sense Mr. Jackson and Mr. Strait — Alanandgeorge, in Stagecoachese — were glorious exceptions to the rule: flexible traditionalists who get their country-radio spins the old-fashioned way. Mr. Strait’s set was a tour de force: He’s a stoic crowd-pleaser (his big gesture is a faint smile) who has regularly been sending songs up the country chart for about a quarter-century. From Western swing (a tribute to his surroundings) to rowdy honky-tonk to stately love songs (including the gorgeous “Amarillo by Morning,” a trucker’s lament) to radio staples (like “Wrapped,” which is on the charts now), Mr. Strait showed why country music fans don’t always have to choose between an old favorite and a current hit maker.
Mr. Jackson’s set was shorter but even more impressive. He’s sly enough to amuse frat boys and fogies alike (as he did with “Pop a Top,” a fizzy drinking song), subtly hinting to each constituency that he’s really one of them. His version of “Like Red on a Rose,” the title track from his excellent 2006 album, might have been the festival’s highlight: a slow-motion love song, ascending into the desert sky.
And yes, he did “Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” an early hit that makes a tongue-in-cheek case for country purism. (“I don’t feel like rocking, since my baby’s gone/So don’t rock the jukebox, play me a country song.”) It might have sounded like a rebuke to country’s current rock ’n’ roll fixation, except that it was preceded by a snippet of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.”
While Mr. Jackson found subtle ways to give people what they wanted, Mr. Chesney saw no need for subtlety. His Sunday night performance, which ended the festival, began with five easygoing, upbeat country-rock songs in a row, affirming the country-rock consensus he has helped create.
Festivals like Stagecoach strive to be singular, but part of what’s interesting about them is how typical they are: Get 30,000 country fans together and you’ll get a rough sense of what country music is like these days. Sure, the old mountain music still has a following, but it’s not hard to see why so many listeners (and the stars who aim to please them) want to hear the electric guitars turned up loud. As Mr. Chesney put it, “I’ve been livin’ in fast forward/Hillbilly rock star, out of control.” You can argue with just about every word in that couplet, but not “rock” or “star.”
