Palomino Festival Featuring Country Stars Kacey Musgraves and Willie Nelson

With the Rose Bowl celebrating 100 years Goldenvoice and the Rose Bowl have come together to put on several music festivals at the Brookside Golf Club surrounding the Rose Bowl. In May Goldenvoice put on the Cruel World festival for two days headlined by Morrissey, Blondie, and Bauhaus and the following weekend came Just Like Heaven. Before Cruel World Goldenvoice put on Coachella and Stagecoach, the biggest Country festival of all. Just Like Heaven was just a one day festival which had a stellar lineup of Franz Ferdinand, M.I.A., Interpol, Modest Mouse, and The Shins. Now the latest festival to take place was Palomino Festival this weekend (7/9) featuring a Country music lineup headlined by Willie Nelson, Kacey Musgraves, and Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit.

The day began with Logan Ledger at 12 P.M. Among the two stages (Pancho and Lefty) there were 19 acts in total. The stages were named after Nelson's song "Pancho and Lefty." Unlike major music festivals, this one had little walking between the two stages and as one stage ended the other began without any overlapping times allowing the audience to catch every single act, but of course some fans camped out in front of one stage or the other until their favorite act came on. The evening acts were Turnpike Troubadours, Orville Peck, Old Crow Medicine show and after it became dark it was Nelson, Isbell and the final act was Musgraves. There were many great performances throughout the day, but prior to the closing acts it was easy to see some of the fan favorites were Zach Bryan, Peck, and Old Crow Medicine Show.

Musgraves is certainly one of the biggest country stars today and by the age of 30 had already won six Grammys, seven CMA Awards, and four ACM Awards along with 17 other awards including ones from Billboard Women in Music, Apple Music, People, Taste of Country, and an iHeartRadio Music Award with Harry Styles. At the age of 20 Musgraves had opened for Loretta Lynn and Lady Antebellum in 2012 followed by Little Big Town and Kenny Chesney and had her first headline tour in 2013. The following year Musgraves opened for Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, and Katy Perry. Over the next four years Musgraves was the opening act for George Strait, Little Big Town, and Harry Styles. I discovered Musgraves when she played the Grammys way back in 2014 with a neon cactus stage prop and wore light up boots.

Musgraves second Oh What a World: Tour included two nights at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, CA. After nearly two years off after the Covid-19 Pandemic, Musgraves embarked on her first arena tour earlier this year in January Star- Crossed: Unveiled which included stops at Chicago’s United Center, NYC’s Madison Square Garden, Dallas’ American Airlines Arena, and the final stop of the U.S. tour was the the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles (formerly Staples Center). Musgraves has released five albums, four of which went to number one on the Billboard U.S. Country chart and has 12 charting singles on the U.S. Country Songs chart.

Musgraves band is guitarist Drew Taubenfeld, guitarist Benjamin Jaffe, guitarist/banjo Jon Sosin, bassist Tarron Crayton, drummer Rob Humphreys, and keyboardists John Whitt and Derek Cobbs. Musgraves began with “star-crossed” and had a flaming heart behind her. Her 14-song set also included “Lonely Weekend,” “High Horse,” Willie Nelson’s “On the Road,” again with none other than Nelson himself followed by Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.” The final two songs were “Rainbow and Slow Burn.” Like Coldplay, light up wristbands were given out and Musgraves threw a few out into the audience.

The next Rose Bowl and Goldenvoice festival will be This Ain’t No Picnic over August 27th and 28th with The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Phoebe Bridgers, and Le Tigre.

Kacey Musgraves Setlist: