Over the years, Nashville country has absorbed the aesthetics of lots of different out-of-favor pop genres like '70s singer-songwriter music and '80s hair metal. Now, country is coming for '90s alt-rock. At least, that's the impression that I get from the lineup for next year's Stagecoach Festival, the country mega-fest that comes to Indio, California's Empire Polo Club right after Coachella. Stagecoach always books non-country acts; this year's version, for example, had Lana Del Rey, Nelly, T-Pain, and Creed, among many others. But I think it's telling that next year's Stagecoach lineup prominently features a few past and future subjects of our Alternative Number Ones column, including Bush, Counting Crows, Third Eye Blind, and the Wallflowers.
Hootie & The Blowfish will also play the 2026 edition of Stagecoach. That's less of a surprise, though. I guess they're kind of a '90s alt-rock band, but frontman Darius Rucker has been a country star for years now. Anyway, this move makes sense, right? It's not like Coachella is going out of its way to book Bush and Counting Crows today.
This year's Stagecoach included a lot of acts, like Zach Bryan and Sturgill Simpson, that don't necessarily operate within the country mainstream. This year, though, they're going back to the basics. The headliners are Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson, and honorary country music insider/Coachella 2025 headliner Post Malone. Diplo is there, as always, and the late-night non-country program includes fellow party-starters Ludacris and Pitbull. Other acts on the bill that made me move my eyebrows just a tiny bit include Teddy Swims (who's also playing Coachella), BigXThaPlug, SG Goodman, Noah Cyrus, Billy Bob Thornton & The Boxmasters, and '90s country greats Brooks & Dunn, Wynonna Judd, and Lyle Lovett. I'm not going, but I bet it'll be pretty fun.
