Sam Riggs and His Flaming Guitar, Larry Joe Taylor Fest, 2017

Photo: Screen shot via Twitter
Photo: Screen shot via Twitter

***UPDATE: Sam Riggs Crew Lied to Larry Joe Taylor Fest About Flaming Guitar, Sam Riggs Was Kicked Out of Festival

See, don’t feel excluded. Being a Texas music fan can be embarrassing too. And after all the work people have done to plead with folks to not look at Larry Joe Taylor Fest as a drunken dudebro convention in a field no less.

“But Trig, Larry Joe Taylor Fest is actually really cool. So much magic happens around the campfires and there’s great performances on stage!”

Yeah, don’t tell me that. Tell that to Sam Riggs. Apparently it’s his show now.

Sam Riggs wants you to pay attention to his music dammit, so during his set at the Larry Joe Taylor Festival Wednesday night (4-26), he sent up smoke signals to Cole Swindell’s booking agents in Nashville that he deserves to be considered for an opening tour slot. And where there’s smoke, there’s fire, specifically Sam setting an acoustic guitar ablaze before smashing it on stage.

I don’t think Waylon done it this way. Or Sturgill.

Larry Joe Taylor Festival–the Texas music gathering just outside of Stephenville, TX whose crowds rival some of the biggest festivals in all of the country—has an impressive lineup this year as always, and among other highlights of the fest so far, we saw the re-emergence of Billy Joe Shaver after he recently spent some time in the hospital, along with other impressive performances according to the folks on the ground. The fest gets under way in earnest this weekend.

But enough about all of that, what about the guy waving a flaming guitar around and beating his chest like a lowland Gorilla? Yes, that’s Sam Riggs. Don’t feel the need to navigate to Spotify and check his music out. Just save your time. But he got your attention, didn’t he?

The saddest part about the episode is possibly that lighting the guitar on fire and then smashing it might not be the most embarrassing part. It may not be that he did it in a backwards, flat-billed baseball cap. Really, the saddest part about the entire entrée of unfortunate decisions is that he did it all while wearing a Blink-182 T-shirt. I mean, we’re not even talking Green Day here people. Are we really at the point in music history where a band like Blink-182 is Gen X nostalgia? It remained a better music world when Blinksters were silent, and resigned to their fandom being a guilty pleasure.

Seriously Texas music scenesters, it might be time to think about a little scene control, and I’m not talking about jumping The Ranch‘s case for playing a little ZZ Top. I really don’t know if even Florida Georgia Line or Brantley Gilbert would do something like this.

Anyway, I hope Sam Riggs and his Yeti Cooler endorsement all the best. As they say, no pub is bad pub, right? So you’re welcome, Sam.

 

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