Morgan Wallen, the Beach Boys and the best, worst and weirdest of Stagecoach Day 3

INDIO — 

Stagecoach is a wrap for 2024. After three days of music at the increasingly dusty Empire Polo Club — including earlier performances by Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, Post Malone and Jelly Roll — the annual country festival came to a close Sunday night with a set by the genre’s biggest star, Morgan Wallen. The Times’ Mikael Wood and Vanessa Franko were there for that and much of what preceded it (and they have the windblown hair to prove it). Here’s a rundown of the highlights and lowlights of Day 3.

Morgan Wallen

Wallen found success thanks in large part to his intuitive understanding of the information exchange between country and hip-hop: the way a singer’s delivery can approximate a rapper’s flow, the way an acoustic guitar can sit atop a programmed beat, the way a gold chain can nestle into the V of an open-necked denim shirt.

Yet what made the 30-year-old Tennessee native a juggernaut — a stadium-filling live act whose “One Thing at a Time” was 2023’s biggest album of any genre — is his ability to find the emotional truth in a piece of music. Standing onstage late Sunday in front of a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands, Wallen recalled how he wrote his song “Chasin’ You” just a few months after moving to Nashville in 2015. Then he sang it as though none of the material comforts he’d accrued since then had done a thing to quell the yearning of a guy “heading west to anywhere out of this nowhere town.”

Over two hours or so, Wallen — and let’s not pretend that his ascent didn’t also involve the unsavory racial politics of cancel-culture martyrdom — bounced around Stagecoach’s Mane Stage, pyrotechnics exploding around him, in time to the slick trap-country songs with which he dominates streaming services. But the heart of his set was an acoustic sequence he did on a smaller secondary stage positioned in the middle of the field: a wrenching “Cover Me Up”; “Thought You Should Know,” about all the ways a son can disappoint a mother; and “Sand in My Boots,” for which he accompanied himself on piano like the loneliest saloon singer in Panama City Beach.

Stagecoach being Stagecoach, Wallen brought out guests including his pals Hardy (for “He Went to Jared”), Bailey Zimmerman (“Up Down”) and Ernest (“Cowgirls”) as well as Eric Church, who seemed eager to redeem himself after his brainy — and quite coolly received — Friday-night gig with a down-the-middle take on “Man Made a Bar.” He also welcomed Post Malone to join him to premiere a rowdy duet, “I Had Some Help,” they’ve been teasing lately on social media. — Mikael Wood

Fun, fun, fun with the Beach Boys

The thing I love most about Stagecoach is that you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a set at the Palomino Stage with songs embedded into our collective DNA. I’m talking Jerry Lee Lewis, John Fogerty, ZZ Top, Tom Jones, the Doobie Brothers, Bryan Adams, etc. This year, the Beach Boys led thousands in a sing-along.

It started before the self-dubbed “America’s band” took the stage, when fans sang along with the montage of classic clips of the Beach Boys performing or being referenced in pop culture, including “50 First Dates” and “Good Morning, Vietnam.”

Yes, it was the Beach Boys with Mike Love and Bruce Johnston (no Al Jardine nor Brian Wilson), but it was also the Beach Boys with actor/author/great hair icon John Stamos. He played at least four instruments — guitar, drums, congas and tambourine — in addition to taking over lead vocals on “Forever” during sunset .

It’s easy to forget just how many hits the Beach Boys have, and in an hour and 15-minute set, they still couldn’t get to all of them. Highlights included “God Only Knows,” “Little Honda,” “I Get Around,” “Sloop John B,” “California Girls” and “Good Vibrations.”

We also got “Long Tall Texan,” a nod to the fact that we were in fact at a country festival, and, in something I did not have on my Stagecoach bingo card, a surprisingly delightful cover of the Ramones’ “Rockaway Beach.”

The oddest moment was the star-studded dance party to “Barbara Ann” near the end of the set that included Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath — who also guested on a couple of songs — Guy Fieri and Lana Del Rey, among other friends and family members onstage.

Speaking of Fieri, as someone who spent an afternoon making Greek food with Stamos when we talked about his memoir, this was a missed opportunity for them to pair up for a demo at Guy’s Stagecoach Smokehouse!

— Vanessa Franko

Best stage outfit: the red-fringed bodysuit worn by the War and Treaty’s Tanya Trotter

Backstage, Trotter told me her style inspiration for the look was Diana Ross. — M.W.

‘Yellowstone’ x Stagecoach

The hit TV series “Yellowstone” (and its spinoffs) had a pop-up at Stagecoach for a second year, complete with photo ops with a facade of the Dutton Ranch, cast meet-and-greets, cornhole, a large bar and rustic seating, including logs around an unlit campfire setup where I watched a woman stumble on Sunday afternoon (Stagecoach gonna Stagecoach).

I waited in a short line Sunday afternoon to get access to the “Yellowstone” merch area inside the tent. A large number of items, including Stagecoach-branded “Yellowstone” T-shirts and a heavy quilted Yellowstone coat, didn’t include prices, perhaps because merchandise was moving quickly.

However, here’s what a selection of “Yellowstone”-branded items would set you back:

T-shirt: $32

Sweatshirt: $50

Golf polo: $85

Denim jacket: $190

I also spotted a leather purse available for $280, but was unclear of its connection to the show. While plenty of fans forked over plastic for souvenirs, I opted for the free “Yellowstone” x Stagecoach bandanna that staff members handed out around the tent. — V.F.

Loudest chant of ‘U-S-A!’: Hardy’s set

It came as the songwriter-turned-artist sang “God’s Country,” the 2019 hit he penned for Blake Shelton, and it was intense. — M.W.

An overdue Stagecoach debut

It’s hard to believe that Stagecoach, which has booked pretty much every major country act this side of Dolly Parton since its inception in 2007, hadn’t welcomed Clint Black on its stages until this year.

Black made an appearance at Stagecoach Smokehouse for a surreal cooking demo with Fieri and Diplo on Saturday afternoon, and he performed on the Palomino Stage on Sunday.

Set highlights included “Never Knew Love,” which he performed with daughter Lily Pearl Black, and “Killin’ Time,” which featured guest Drake Milligan. — V.F.

Stagecoach’s new party scene

There’s an entire economy built around the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival that has no official ties to it. The marketing events that happen outside of the festival grounds promote everything from liquor, clothing, cars and more to the festival-goers, celebrities and influencers at hand. Those events often feature pop-up experiences, pool parties, secret performances and celebrity sightings.

Now, Stagecoach has started attracting an increasing number of brands for events outside the gates of the Empire Polo Club. Early Sunday afternoon, cowboys cooled off in plunge tubs, festival-goers lounged around the pool and a brave few took a mechanical bull for a spin in the backyard of a private estate in Bermuda Dunes, a few miles away from the festival grounds.

The event was the Recovery Rodeo, put on by cold-plunge tub company Plunge, craft nonalcoholic brewery Best Day Brewing, clothing outfitter Seager and portable speaker maker Turtlebox.

Nery Solano, vice president of marketing for Plunge, said the company has been doing events around Coachella for the past three years and decided after last year’s festivals to add Stagecoach to the mix.

“It was kind of a bet back then. We feel like the energy’s going in this direction. This year, it really paid off. We feel like it hit, it really came together and the zeitgeist felt like it moved in this direction too,” he said.

Solano said the brands came together and purposely wanted an event where alcohol wasn’t the focus.

“It’s Day 3, people are kind of slowing down a little bit. Give them a place to relax, have fun together, really wake back up and have a great last day,” he said.

Other Stagecoach-adjacent events during the weekend included Friday night’s Midnight Cowboy after-party with luxury tequila Patrón El Alto and Saturday night’s Route 42 festival sponsored in part by competing luxury tequila Don Julio 1942.

Those events and the Recovery Rodeo all had a common denominator: Shaboozey, the “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” hitmaker who is featured on Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter.” In addition to the party circuit, Shaboozey also dropped by Stagecoach proper for a short set at the Bud Light Backyard stage Sunday afternoon.

Given Stagecoach’s popularity and fan base, do not be surprised by a Stagecoach branding boom. — V.F.

Best spot for a second chance — and lawn games

The Bud Light Backyard tent was one of the stranger spots of Stagecoach. It was part branded activation with photo ops and yard games (more corn hole, anyone?), part dance hall and part music club.

The latter is the most interesting part of the space, since most of the artists who stopped by played other sets. It was a way to get closer to artists such as the War & Treaty, Maddie & Tae and Brittney Spencer.

Given Stagecoach’s track record of artists playing early in the day going on to be huge stars, it was worth getting there in advance for performances to avoid the long lines in the sun. — V.F.