A year ago, a new country music festival—FairWell Festival—sprouted up in the center of Oregon, attracting massive crowds to the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond over three blazing hot days in July. The lineup was strong for a first-year effort, but once inside, it became obvious that most people were there to see the second night’s headliner, folk-rock supernova Zach Bryan.
Last weekend, FairWell returned for its second year with a lineup that felt a little more balanced, headlined by bluegrass jammer Billy Strings on Friday, Americana band Caamp on Saturday, and pop-country star Kacey Musgraves on Sunday. All three clearly brought people in—Strings’ tie-dyed army was out in force Friday—but none were an absolutely dominant draw like Bryan was in 2023.
The beneficiary of this vibe shift was the festival itself, which felt a bit more relaxed, a bit less crowded and a bit more communal. It helped that organizers cleaned up some of last year’s issues, improving access and parking, providing more shade from the withering high-desert sun and adjusting stage locations to cut down on sound bleed. It was still too damn hot—Sunday was the hottest day in the history of the planet, after all (fun!)—but generally speaking, FairWell seemed to go a little more smoothly in year two.
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And then there was the music, which featured a diverse lineup—relatively speaking, for this genre, and kudos to organizers for that—of both established acts and up-and-comers from the world of country, bluegrass, Americana, folk and rock. Here are three acts that stood out:
Adeem the Artist
Adeem the Artist lives in Tennessee, identifies as non-binary and pansexual, and is one of the best folk-rock songwriters around. They spent an hour Friday afternoon winning over a small-but-friendly crowd of early arrivers with poetic songs about love, heartbreak, religion, prejudice, identity, and Southern culture, plus a rousing cover of one of John Prine’s best songs, “Lake Marie” and the most striking lipstick-and-sunglasses combo of the festival. If you have not heard Adeem’s two most recent albums—this year’s Anniversary and 2022’s White Trash Revelry—seek them out yesterday. They are wonderful from front to back.
S.G. Goodman
In a weekend full of acoustic guitars and country strummin’, Kentucky singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman delivered FairWell’s loudest roar on Saturday afternoon, just as the temperature was peaking into the triple digits. Playing through songs from Teeth Marks, her excellent album about queer life in the rural South, Goodman and her band—dressed head to toe in black—showed off their command of dynamics: Quiet at times but more often sounding like a heavy psych-rock act fronted by an old-time singer peeling the paint of some front porch in the Appalachian mountains. They totally ruled.
Black Opry Revue
Black Opry is a Nashville-based organization working to support and celebrate Black artists working in the country music industry, and the Black Opry Revue is a touring extension of the group. On Saturday, three of the Revue’s singer-songwriters—Lauren Napier, Rachel Maxann, and Jackie Gage—performed “in the round” style, trading off songs about unrequited love, environmental angst, fear, bravery and, in the words of Napier, “lost-in-the-desert wolf shit.” The festival’s cavernous main stage might’ve swallowed up three lesser artists, but Napier, Maxann, and Gage filled it with good humor, great songs and vibrant reminders of the Black Opry’s important mission.