Zach Bryan Launches 2023 Tour at Two Step Inn Fest
Follow Saving Country Music on Instagram for real time coverage from Two Step Inn.
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This weekend’s Two Step Inn Festival in Georgetown, TX (just north of Austin) is a big test for the true appeal of country artists not regularly found on corporate radio. Could you really throw a major festival with upwards of half a hundred thousand folks and have Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers headline? The fact that the festival sold out almost immediately answered that question rather quickly. If anything, there are too many fans, and not enough space for them.
Not only is the Two Step Inn the first festival to have arguably the #1 and #2 biggest artists in independent country headlining. It’s also unique because both Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers are commencing their highly-anticipated 2023 tours at the fest. Granted, Childers has played a few European shows and a theater gig in New Orleans to get warmed up. But for Zach Bryan, Saturday night (4-15) was the big start to his tour where he’s attempting to take it to Ticketmaster.
Zach Bryan’s popularity just continues to grow exponentially. Hell, he probably could have headlined Coachella in California this weekend. Yet even though the population of Zach Bryan fans continues to swell, the passion of those fans has not waned or been diluted whatsoever. Even though he’s released nearly half a hundred songs over the last year, fans from 14 to 60 are still singing every single word, to every single song, like a singer/songwriter version of Beatlemania.
Zach Bryan continues to pad his recent but prolific catalog, but he plays 17 songs at a festival and every one of them seems so vital to his career. Of course he played signature songs that helped launch his meteoric rise like “Godspeed,” “Condemned,” and “Heading South,” more recent hits like “Oklahoma Smokeshow” and “Something in the Orange”—the latter that continues to creep up the country radio charts.
But he also threw in a few wild cards, namely “Dawns” that he recorded with Maggie Rogers as a one-off earlier this year. Zach said he didn’t know if it was exactly appropriate for a country festival, but he wanted to play it anyway, and it was the first time he’d featured it live. Zach also played “Flying or Crying” because it references his fellow Two Step Inn headliner Tyler Childers, who will cap off Sunday night. And then later in the set he welcomed regular tour partner and recent Big Loud Records signee Charles Wesley Godwin to the stage.
“I wrote a song and he sang it better than I did,” Zach said about Godwin before they paired up on a rendition of “Jamie.” The two also appeared together earlier in the day during Charles Wesley Godwin’s Two Step Inn set set singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
Charles Wesley Godwin, and multiple players for Godwin’s backing band The Allegheny High also took the stage after the encore to help Zach and his band perform perhaps the most epic rendition of the song “Revival” that has ever been performed. At one point there were a good 15-16 people on stage, including a couple of random folks (maybe fan club guys?) who sang a few lines, Joe Rogan was spotted in the wings, as well as Godwin’s guitar player Al Torrence, while steel guitar player/multi-instrumentalist Read Connolly played the entire set with Zach Bryan.
Right after the final note was struck, an unexpected fireworks show erupted for behind the stage, underscoring how much Georgetown, TX has committed to making Two Step Inn a memorable event.
What we’re witnessing right now with Zach Bryan is something future generations will look back upon with envy—how we got to see Zach Bryan in his heyday when everything was new, fresh, and exciting. Country music is whatever country fans are listening to in a given era. And right now, they’re listening to Zach Bryan, even though they continue to have to seek out his music as opposed to it finding them through mass media.
And now that Zach Bryan has reached levels we’ve never seen from any artist not of Music Row’s creation from any era, the only question left is, “Where does it go from here?”
Set List:
1. Open The Gate
2. Godspeed
3. From Austin
4. Quittin’ Time
5. Highway Boys
6. Heading South
7. The Good I’ll Do
8. Heavy Eyes
9. Dawns
10. Oklahoma Smokeshow
11. Something in the Orange
12. Flying or Crying
13. Snow
14. Condemned
15. Jamie (with Charles Wesley Godwin)
16. Burn, Burn, Burn
Encore:
17. Revival (with Charles Wesley Godwin and The Allegheny High)
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All photos Kyle “Trigger” Coroneos
April 16, 2023 @ 10:01 am
More positive articles like this. Let’s do two straight weeks in this vein. Then throw in one “panties in a bunch” story before 3 solid weeks of positivity. Thats my challenge to SCM.
April 16, 2023 @ 11:49 am
95% of the content on here is positive. There were a couple of negative articles on Friday, and I can understand how that can make a false impression that it’s a direction of the website or something more than just a coincidence.
April 16, 2023 @ 10:20 am
Just look at these photos – which are terrific Trig. These guys are playing to 50K people. T-shirts, Levi’s and broken in boots. Looks like the same clothes they had on after changing the oil in their old pickup that afternoon. I fucking love it! No ego, no bs….just a bunch of regular guys who happen to be incredibly talented musicians. This is why I love independent country music right here.
April 16, 2023 @ 11:56 am
I was going to mention something about this in the review, but it felt a little extraneous. But yes, Zach’s entire band looked like they were dressed 5 minutes before showtime in a bag of clothes dropped off at a Goodwill 5 minutes before.
April 16, 2023 @ 1:12 pm
I’m sure Charley Crockett has some extra clothes he could lend them. I saw a dedicated van slap full of stage duds parked next to his tour bus last time I saw him live.
April 16, 2023 @ 1:13 pm
The guy playing the lap steel and keyboard looks like he just got out of jail. Just escaped from jail, actually. They don’t let you keep the orange jumpsuit.
April 16, 2023 @ 11:05 am
Such a good show, so stoked to be there. All fucking night revival!
April 16, 2023 @ 12:28 pm
Sorry for shoe-horning into this story…
Trig you see this? Any chance this is not just a one off?
Be great to have Charlie back.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CqVSl2vOcxo/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
April 16, 2023 @ 12:43 pm
Yes, I saw this and have been trying to reach out to her. If there is something to report I hope to be reporting it soon.
April 17, 2023 @ 2:30 pm
Hope this is a sign of things to come from Charlie Marie. Her first full length album was a no skip album for me.
April 16, 2023 @ 1:15 pm
But how did his meeting with Travis Tritt go? That’s what ppl really want to know.
April 16, 2023 @ 1:46 pm
I hope that they came to the agreement that a any Belgian company that would brew cheap beer with rice has committed an unforgivable sin, and have switched to drinking Trappistes Rochefort 10, Westmalle Trappist Tripel, St. Bernardus ABT 12, Orval, etc.
April 16, 2023 @ 2:00 pm
Exactly. Everything now is culture war and politics. What is music except a forum for these things?
Zach tweeted last night, “Travis Tritt and me talked for an hour and a half last night, eye to eye. It was nice to meet an old legend.
We disagree on some things and agree on some things and it seems the world did not end. My dad almost cried at his set can everyone stop being so weird.”
April 16, 2023 @ 5:41 pm
“Zach tweeted last night, “Travis Tritt and me talked for an hour and a half last night, eye to eye. It was nice to meet an old legend.
We disagree on some things and agree on some things and it seems the world did not end.”
“We disagree on some things and agree on some things … ”
You ALMOST got it right, Zach…
But instead of saying we had a great time – you virtue signaled that – “We disagree on some things and agree on some things … ”
Not impressed.
Not even a little
April 16, 2023 @ 7:42 pm
Yupp. It doesn’t change how I view Zach because he hasn’t completely thrown himself into the political fray yet. However he is in that popular middle ground that is always for the current safe popular thing.
April 17, 2023 @ 5:36 am
Huh. I had no idea that “we agree and disagree on some things” is now “virtue signaling”.
Holy hell, the internet had rotted the brains of a lot of people…
April 17, 2023 @ 6:06 am
I thought that was the norm for most of us in the real world. Not so much in internet lands. I guess now if you can actually understand different perspectives and respect difference of opinion without having a fit and trying to force your own perspective, you hear that you’re trying to play both sides, playing it safe, have no real convictions, etc. It’s maddening.
April 16, 2023 @ 4:43 pm
A line was crossed when the transgender movement came after children. It used to be “don’t tell her she can only play with girl toys, she can play with trucks too. She’s just a tomboy.” Now in certain parts of the country if a girl shows tomboy attributes it means she needs to be prodded into believing she is a boy and needs puberty blockers. The Left has to misrepresent the Right’s outrage to construct a straw man they can jump up and down on. Yes the Right is engaging in some political theatre but LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE.
Dylan Mulvany is the face of a movement seeking to purposefully confuse children for the social and political clout of virtue signaling adults.
April 16, 2023 @ 5:23 pm
Let’s not go here please. There is a whole reason I’ve been avoiding this issue, and avoided this issue in this article in lieu of hundreds of thousands of clicks.
Thank you.
April 16, 2023 @ 7:38 pm
So only one side is allowed to respond to this issue? I’m responding to the Travis Tritt and Zach Bryan talking comment.
This is exactly my point. You are only allowing one viewpoint on this issue to be brought up so that it can easily and conveniently (but inaccurately) be re-framed.
April 16, 2023 @ 9:40 pm
We’re not having a fucking discussion about the dumbass Bud Light bottle, period. If we were, I would have written half a dozen articles about it already and probably made $4,000 to $5,000. But I didn’t, because it’s bullshit, and the exact kind of stuff I DON’T want to discuss here. People come to places like SCM to get away from that bullshit. The second reason I don’t want to discuss it is because YOU and other SCM commenters cannot fucking behave and discuss anything without descending into immature name calling and ad hominem attacks that then I have to answer for, and I lose readers because of.
April 17, 2023 @ 5:46 am
If you think that “only one side” is typically allowed to comment on this website, and that it the opposing viewpoint of your own, you are completely delusional.
SCM skews incredibly conservative anytime an artist who has some “political leanings” around him is written about. It’s gotten to the point where I, as a long time reader of this site, won’t read the comments on any article about Jason Isbell or Sturgill Simpson. The comments quickly devolve into a toxic cesspool of internet keyboard warriors. I guess Zach Bryan needs to be added to the list of artists to avoid comment sections on…
April 17, 2023 @ 2:59 pm
He blocked my prior comment. This happens often.
And refusing to correctly acknowledge the outrage of the trans issue being specifically the targeting of kids, is the virtue signaling. It blows my mind how many people refuse to acknowledge that is the whole freaking point. It’s about pushing it on children. It’s not about what adults want to do. Instead the other side twists what they think the outrage is about and then calls us transphobes, then gay haters, then they throw in us hating blacks too. These posts are common online and the rhetoric is tired and incorrect.
April 17, 2023 @ 7:22 am
It’s hilarious you think Dylan Mulvaney is the face of any movement. If she is, I don’t see what you’re complaining about. No one heard of her until Kid Rock’s geriatric ass took out an AR and conservatives made her famous through their whining.
April 17, 2023 @ 6:06 am
I only jumped in the comments here because I knew someone wouldn’t be able to help themselves and bring this up. Zach got one thing right for sure. People are weird.
April 16, 2023 @ 1:50 pm
This is probably going to be an unpopular take around here, but I find his permanent middle-finger to Nashville unfortunate and off-putting. Yes, he makes great music. Yes, he’s grown a monster fan base without Nashville’s help. But I don’t think you can deny that country radio’s acceptance of “Something in the Orange” — maybe not among the iHearts and Cumuluses but among the smaller regional chains and independent stations — has helped grow those numbers, since there are country fans whose only significant exposure to the music is what their local stations are playing.
Imagine how many more fans he’d have, songs and albums he’d sell, venues he’d pack if he found a Nashville label to call home that would respect his artistic vision, keep him away from the notorious hack producers, not force him into recording duets with Mitchell Tenpenny or Cole Swindell or crossover material of any kind, or going on the morning/late night talk show circuit other than as a pure performance-only guest rather than being subjected to inane small talk.
Is this possible given the overheated environment of corporate Nashville these days? Would the many fans who adore his stubborn, principled independence immediately brand him a sell-out and toss him aside if he even offered an olive branch, or even an olive twig, to Music City, let alone if he were to wind up doing his own thing on Sony or Big Machine with no pushback from management?
April 16, 2023 @ 4:39 pm
You’re putting the cart before the horse here. The music industry wants “safe” “polished” and “lucrative.” Zach Bryan broke a lot of industry rules and succeeded anyway. He doesn’t need a label. His music spread thru word of mouth and the internet. No one needs a label to pull up someone’s music on Spotify. The whole Outlaw movement in country in the 70’s came from a handful of artists bucking the studio ways.
What is “real country” has never been static. It used to be that real country was 60’s and older country. Hell listen to some of the songs Hank JR put out in the mid to late 80’s on his albums. (If you want a real laugh listen to ‘Fat Friends’ by Hank Jr)
April 16, 2023 @ 7:21 pm
What’s the point? To hear himself on the radio? And make someone else money too? I think he’s doing just fine. That’s me only knowing a few of his songs. You can’t define someone else’s version of success. If this is what makes him happy then that’s all that matters. He just may have different dreams than you.
April 16, 2023 @ 4:55 pm
Just watched a recording of “Revival” from last night. It looked epic. I’m not a fan of big crowds, but that looked fun. Ohh – I love the fact that Zach and his band along with CWG appear to be regular down to earth individuals that could sit on my front porch and shoot the breeze.
April 16, 2023 @ 5:49 pm
On the Zach Bryan note, Trigger, I don’t know if you saw the recent nominations for the ACM Awards, but they did what the CMA Awards haven’t. Zach Bryan is nominated for Best New Artist!
April 16, 2023 @ 10:36 pm
I won’t be surprised to see Zach on Rogan sooner than later, or at the very least get a Rogan plug that will help too (not like he needs it)
April 17, 2023 @ 7:18 am
Wouldn’t be surprised if we see Zach Bryan on Rogan, perhaps this week, or even today (Monday). I didn’t see or hear about Rogan being at any of the other sets this weekend, or hanging out all weekend or anything. He might have been. But all indications are that he was there to see Zach. He’s a big fan of Childers too, but I did not see him anywhere for the Childers set, though he could have been.
April 17, 2023 @ 11:52 am
I’m already not on Spotify because of Rogaine. I’d rather Zach Bryan stay clear and he seems savvy enough to stay away. And my beef with him goes back before Neil Young’s. I hated it when Sturgill Simpson went on his show in 2015.
April 17, 2023 @ 5:21 pm
Even your buddy Kyle, the owner of this website, has debunked the “horse paste” lie.
Man, you’re a loser.
April 17, 2023 @ 5:53 pm
I was sounding the alarms about the Joe Rogan effect back in 2015. I remember commenting on here in 2019 that I’m sadly noticing Rogan Bros in their Jeeps with their tops off blaring “Whitehouse Road” driving around town.
Rogan draws an unsavory, trendy element to the scene.
April 17, 2023 @ 7:22 am
I was at this festival and considered myself a Zach Bryan “appreciator” but not a fan (as in, I enjoy and appreciate some of his music, but never found myself all that interested and don’t know all his songs). Seeing him live has changed my mind; I’ll be downloading his music giving it all a listen. He was awesome!
April 19, 2023 @ 6:18 am
Saw him live in Dublin, last night.
The crowd roared every word to every song, and Zach was grinning like a kid.
Felt like a religious…Revival.
April 19, 2023 @ 4:30 pm
Hi trigger!! Such an amazing article, I feel like I was there myself. I was wondering if you knew the name of the guy in the white cowboy hat? I would love to follow his career, but have no idea who he is… I guess it is a mysterious allure but would love to know! Thank you so so much and keep it up!!
April 19, 2023 @ 4:35 pm
If you’re talking about the guitarist in the Metallica tank top, unfortunately I do not know his name. Zach said that they had picked him up in either Montana or Wyoming, and he was a new member of the band, but when he mentioned his name, it just heard Charlie Brown’s teacher and have not seen him with Zach before. I’ll try to poke around a bit and see if I can’t get a name.