Outlaw Music Festival 2026 - August 28th, 2026

I saw the Outlaw Music Festival again at the Jones Beach Theater. It was way longer than 2024's show and had seven whole bands play in total.

My friend and I got there at the end of Particle Kid's set. From what I heard, the guitars were pretty blown-out and distorted and you couldn't really hear any of the other instruments. Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble was pretty good, and they played a few Grateful Dead songs at the end of their set.

Sheryl Crow took the stage and played through a set of her biggest hits like "If It Makes You Happy" and "All I Wanna Do." She sounded great. Her songs are pretty nostalgic to me as I remember hearing them a lot on the radio in the 2000s. Next up was The Avett Brothers. I went into their set not really a huge fan of their sound, but they put on a great show. They started off their set with a rendition of "Black Mountain Rag" and then when into their song "Left on Laura, Left on Lisa." They also played the classic "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" a little later in their set. My favorite song they played was "Talk On Indolence" which was their penultimate song before they closed things out with "I and Love and You." One cool thing that happened during their set was the moon rose right over the stage and looked awesome. I don't know if it was a full moon, but it looked pretty full.

After The Avett Brothers finished up, they took down the Outlaw Festival banner and set up a small Willie Nelson banner obstructing the stage. It stayed that way until it was time for his set. Willie Nelson came on, and a big American flag was draped over the backstage. It was so cool getting to see him perform after he couldn’t make it to the 2024 show. He was playing with his sons who helped out with singing and they sounded great together. He played through his biggest hits including "On the Road Again." He took turns singing each song with his son Jacob, who is behind Particle Kid. They played "Everything is Bullshit" together and finished it off with "Will the Circle Be Unbroken? / I'll Fly Away."

     

If It Makes You Happy



Soak Up the Sun



Talk On Indolence



Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die