Stagecoach 2024 pics & video: Post Malone, Lana Del Rey, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, more

Stagecoach, Coachella‘s country sibling festival, just wrapped up its 2024 edition at Indio, CA’s Empire Polo Club over the weekend (4/26-4/28); if you weren’t there, maybe you streamed it live. See pictures from the whole weekend below. One of the biggest takeaways from the fest was Friday headliner Eric Church‘s polarizing, gospel influenced set, complete with a backing choir, which drew both praise and criticism from those who caught it. Variety reports:

Rather than rock out, as many expected after Jelly Roll’s fast-paced preceding performance, Church — after about a 20-minute delay in starting the show — adopted a truly churchy aesthetic, seated on a stool in front of a giant stained-glass video wall and joined by a 16-member choir, fronted by the return of his longtime vocal accompanist, Joanna Cotton. This ethos was felt in covers of vaguely or overtly spiritual songs like Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” Edwin Hawkins’ “Oh Happy Day” and “This Little Light of Mine,” but Church mixed these up with distinctly secular and contemporary picks — throwing in snippets of Tupac and Snoop Dogg classics, a la “California Love” and “Gin and Juice,” to draw some kind of throughline between the sacred and the profane.

A press release sent on Saturday morning contained a statement from Church, which read, “This was the most difficult set I have ever attempted. I’ve always found that taking it back to where it started, back to chasing who Bob Seger loves, who Springsteen loves, who Willie Nelson loves, you chase it back to the origin. The origin of all that is still the purest form of it. And we don’t do that as much anymore. It felt good at this moment to go back, take a choir and do that. For me, it’s always been something with records, with performances, I’ve always been the one that’s like, ‘Let’s do something really, really strange and weird and take a chance.’ Sometimes it doesn’t work, but it’s okay if you’re living on that edge, because that edge, that cutting edge, is where all the new guys are going to gravitate to anyway. So if you can always challenge yourself that way, it always cuts sharper than any other edge.” Also on Friday, Lana Del Rey (fresh off of headlining two weekends of Coachella) came out during Paul Cauthen‘s set to join him for a rendition of “Unchained Melody.” “He decided he wanted me to do a nice slow one to finish it off,” Lana told the crowd. Watch video of that below. Post Malone did a guest-filled country covers set for his Saturday performance, including appearances from Dwight Yoakim for “Little Ways,” Sara Evans for “Suds in the Bucket,” and Brad Paisley for his song “I’m Gonna Miss Her,” Vince Gill’s “One More Last Chance,” and Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee.” Malone also took on Tyler Childers’ “Whitehouse Road,” Tim McGraw’s “Don’t Take the Girl,” Randy Travis’ “Three Wooden Crosses,” George Strait’s “Check Yes or No,” Toby Keith’s “Who’s Your Daddy,” and John Michael Montgomery’s “Be My Baby Tonight.” Watch video below. While he didn’t appear during Malone’s set on Saturday, Sunday night headliner Morgan Wallen brought him out to debut their as yet unreleased joint single “I Had Some Help.” Watch video of that below, as well. Wallen also brought out HARDY for “He Went to Jared,” ERNEST for “Cowgirls,” Eric Church for “Man Made a Bar,” and Bailey Zimmerman for “Up Down.” Wiz Khalifa closed out the weekend with his first ever Late Night at Palmonino set, where he brought out Benji and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte. Other Stagecoach 2024 artists included Jelly Roll (who brought out T Pain to pay tribute to Toby Keith with a rendition of “Should’ve Been a Cowboy”), Nickelback (who brought out Jelly Roll for “Rockstar” and HARDY for his song “SOLD OUT”), Diplo (who brought out Leon Bridges, Shaboozey, Elle King, and HARDY), Miranda Lambert (who had Reba McEntire join her for “Mama’s Broken Heart,” “Fancy,” and “Gunpowder & Lead”), The Beach Boys (who, while they are sans Brian Wilson, did bring out John Stamos and Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray), Brittney Spencer, Carin Leon, Charles Wesley Godwin, Charley Crockett, Drayton Farley, Hailey Whitters, Katie Pruitt, Lola Kirke, Vincent Neil Emerson, Willie Nelson, Wyatt Flores, and more.