The first day of the inaugural Two Step Inn Festival was very hot and full of even hotter performances.
Put on by C3 Presents, the company behind ACL, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, and more of your favorite festivals. Two Step Inn is housed in Georgetown, Texas’s San Gabriel Park, and celebrates the genre the state lives and breathes on, country music…and also booked Diplo and T-Pain because why not.
My day started at noon once I had to circle the park to get my media wristband and once I was inside, the crowd situation at the Big River Main Stage wasn’t ideal either. Like ACL, attendees are allowed to bring chairs in and weren’t allowed to put them up past a certain point but there was no one to enforce that either, leading people to bring chairs all the way up to the barricade of the Giddy Up General Admission area which is another gripe I have. The crowd at the main stage was organized by having the “Big Hoss” super VIP general admission pit up front, then chairs for the “Saddle Up” VIPs stretching all the way back to the soundboard, then, finally, the “Giddy Up” General Admission crowd. The sightlines aren’t bad and the sound was also good but it was just kind of annoying.
I’m not here to continue ranting about the crowd and crowd setup though, this is a music festival after all. I started my day off with Nikki Lane who I’ve been dying to see for a while now and she absolutely killed it in the blazing noon sun. Getting to hear Highway Queen, First High, and Denin & Diamonds live was an absolute treat. Especially Denim & Diamonds, I probably made a fool of myself jumping up and down screaming the first half of the chorus. It’s just too good. After Nikki, I headed over to catch the last little bit of Ben Burgess’s set. Ben has improved a ton since the last time I saw him play but admittedly, that was his second show ever with a full band. His stage presence and his banter have improved, the band behind him is killer, and I absolutely have to commend him for wearing a long sleeve black shirt and black jeans for his performance.
Charles Wesley Godwin followed and my God what a barnburner this set was. Godwin wasted absolutely no time getting his set fired up. The second the clock hit 1:45 he started strumming the opening chords to Hardwood Floors and it immediately blew the roof off of the stage. His set was such an awesome time and he has such insane stage presence. His energy on stage while he ripped through songs like Family Ties just knocked my socks off. I was about to write in this article that Godwin’s set was the best one I had seen out of the first half of the day, then I saw Charlie Robison…
To give a little context to this one, Charlie Robison is one of the singer-songwriters in the Texas country music scene. He, along with his brother Bruce, and Jack Ingram, are a trio that made one of the best live albums in the scene called Unleashed, along with that, Robison has a laundry list of songs that are classics to the genre. However, in 2018, Robison was forced into retirement after surgery rendered him unable to sing. That’s why it was so surprising when at the end of last year, Robison started announcing shows and was announced to play at this festival. I’ve been looking forward to this set ever since the lineup dropped and man, it lived up to every expectation and even more. For starters, this set caught me by surprise because Robison was playing with a full band, not just acoustic like he’s been doing. Second, I feel like this was just some long con because Robison still sounds the same as he did on every song I grew up loving. The run of bangers at the end of his show was incredible, running from Barlight, which had the crowd rowdy as all get out, and closed out with El Cerrito Place then My Hometown which led giant singalongs and it was such an incredible way to close out. I won’t lie…I may have cried during My Hometown.
Diamond Rio was the sleeper hit of the day for me. I went to their set just to find a place to hang out and eat but they were also fantastic. Lead singer Marty Roe was super appreciative of the invitation and was just so cool on stage. Even battling sound issues, the band sounded great and they have so. many. hits. up their sleeves. I had so much fun seeing them. Speaking of unexpected fun, Shenandoah was also fantastic. I didn’t realize how many Shenandoah songs I knew until I was there in the crowd watching them. Along with that, lead singer Marty Raybon was super engaging and so much fun to watch on stage. One of the biggest compliments I can give to every artist who performed is that no one sounded bad. Even singers that have been doing this thing for 30 or 40 years still sounded just as good as they did on day one.
After a quick break for food and grabbing my bag out of the media lounge, I once again made a trip to the Big River stage to see Midland play a golden hour set and this is when the VIP section stuff started to genuinely piss me off. Once a decent amount of people actually filled up the crowd, the sightlines were awful, the only way to see artists was on a screen, and the people on their lawn chairs and blankets started getting really defensive and territorial. When they’re in this mood if you even so much as think about squeezing past them or should you end up in front of them because you followed the flow of thousands of people leaving a confined space, they will getting mad at you, more than likely they’ll throw their arms up and say something to the effect of “I don’t know why you can’t move out of the way. I don’t know why you can’t go around us.” Anyways, enough of that. Midland is always a ton of fun live even with the damper the crowd situation put on my mood. Their retro vibes have always played out super well live and hearing the song Mr. Lonely live will never, ever get old.
Then I saw T-Pain. Sorry guys, I had to. I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to see him again. This set was a ginormous party and I had no idea how many bangers he had under his belt. I know that’s been a big theme of the day but seriously, T-Pain might have one of the best chorus discographies in all of music. I was only at his set for 25-30 minutes but the number of bangers he played in that time was insane.
Zach Bryan closed out the first night of the festival and man, what can you really say? Zach’s rise and prominence sort of reminds me of how Robert Earl Keen’s was at the peak of his career in ways. He draws extremely loud and rowdy crowds of kids who actually appreciate great artistry and great songwriting and Bryan never shows anything but gratitude when he’s on stage. Whether he was questioning whether he should actually be headlining the fest’s Saturday night (the crowd that stretched out to the bottom of the hill the main stage was on top of would confirm that he should’ve) or repeatedly telling everyone “Thank you” for showing up and being as loud as they were, even when he’s the biggest current country artist on the planet not named Luke Combs or Morgan Wallen, he’s never let it get to his head.
However, the only time he ever brags or has a chip on his shoulder is when he’s talking about the band behind him who deserve every bit of it. They have a hard job having to bring full band arrangements to songs recorded with only Zach’s voice and an acoustic guitar but they kill it. Songs like Condemned, Godspeed, and especially Flyin’ or Cryin’ hit so much harder with the full band behind them. However, the highlight of the show was his closer, Revival. Bryan left the stage for an encore, was backstage for about five minutes, then started strumming the opening chords. The chorus of the song was absolute insanity and being in the middle of 30 thousand people yelling “BAPTIZE ME IN A BOTTLE OF BEAM AND PUT JOHNNY ON THE VINYL” is something that I think everyone should experience at least once.
My top three sets of the day were Charlie Robison, Zach Bryan, and T-Pain, in that order from best to wor least best. Charles Wesley Godwin also deserves an honorable mention because I think I’m obsessed with his music now. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about his set. I will be on-site with more coverage today!
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