Beers. Bluegrass. Bears. If that’s all you knew about Asheville going into Billy Strings‘ first of four shows at the ExploreAsheville.com Arena on Tuesday (and how to find a ticket), you were in good company with the thousands of others who flocked to the North Carolina mountain town for another sold-out run in 2026.
After Strings’ sold-out six-show stay in February 2025 brought $15 million into the local economy, months after Hurricane Helene’s devastation, the Michigan-born bluegrass guitarist achieved near-Robin Hood status among many locals, some who had never even heard his music. One year later, the region still shows signs of distress, and FEMA money is slow to flow in after a hard-won legal battle against the current administration, which saw hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster relief grants as “wasteful and ineffective.” But amid those headlines and continuing rejuvenation efforts, Billy Strings’ bluegrass circus returned, bringing a boomtown rush of economic activity and a nuclear fallout of joy across Buncombe County.
One of the things that has made Billy Strings a generational talent (besides his guitarplaying) is his status as a cultural kaleidoscope. A poster boy for the death of the monoculture, the man born William Lee Apostol exists across societal boundaries: a fishing, skateboarding, bluegrass-playing, metal freak. Generations of fans can look at Billy Strings and see something of themselves, whether that’s loving the Grateful Dead or growing up playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (or both).
Related: The Many Faces Of The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir [Feature]
Like many Billy Strings live shows, that versatility was a focal point of the 2026 Asheville opener. The starting “Red Daisy” was the first of many traditional bluegrass numbers alongside Jimmie Skinner‘s “Doin’ My Time”, the second-set closing “Little Maggie”, and Reno & Smiley encore “I’m Gone, Long Gone”, performed around a single mic. There were also plenty of feel-y ballad numbers, like “While I’m Waiting Here”, “Be Your Man”, “I’m One of Those”, Jim Croce‘s “Age”, “Love and Regret”, and “10,000 Miles From a Friend”. The latter may not have resonated as deeply with me personally since I wasn’t even ten miles from my bed.
Billy Strings — “Red Daisy”, “Doin’ My Time” (Jimmie Skinner) — 2/10/26
With Billy, mandolinist Jarrod Walker, bassist Royal Masat, banjoist Billy Failing, and fiddler Alex Hargreaves showed their compositional prowess on instrumental tunes “Malfunction Junction”, Bill Emerson‘s “Home of the Red Fox”, and David Grisman‘s “Dawg’s Rag”. From up in section 222, it was a good night to be Jarrod-side Shephard-side as the mandolinist wove tangled webs between the tiny frets of his instrument. The more “traditional” songs ranged from old-timey to newgrass to hootin’ and hollerin’ smashgrass on Bad Livers‘ funky “Lumpy, Beanpole, & Dirt”, bounced along on Royal’s buzzy, fuzzy, thumpy (thrusty) bass solo.
Balancing out those traditional roots, the band turned deeply psychedelic on “Stratosphere Blues” and “Away From the Mire”. Though “Dust in a Baggie” remains his most popular solo song, “Away From the Mire” is the prototypical Billy Strings original, encapsulating his dual citizenship in worlds of psychedelia and bluegrass. This one never gets old, though admittedly I got distracted in the jam thinking about overalls. One can’t go to a Billy show and not find themselves in a moment of introspection, questioning whether they can pull off tie-dye overalls.
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In addition to his emotional balladry, reverence for bluegrass history, and affinity for heavy-metal guitar playing, folks seem to like it when Billy plays those songs that just keep on going and going. And there was plenty of that on Tuesday.
An early “While I’m Waiting Here” took off from a blissful, lofty major-key jam as Billy flipped the switch from trad flatpicking to the kind of electric guitar soloing you’d hear in the outro of an Eagles or Jackson Browne song. Immediately following that, instrumental fiddle tune “Home of the Red Fox” took a sharp detour from the hills of Appalachia into a wonky, minor-key jam by way of the other Billy’s dissonant banjo notes and Strings working out his wah wah pedal.
Eschewing some of the effects-fueled forays, Frank Wakefield‘s “End of the Rainbow” went pretty far on clean tones alone, leading to Jerry Garcia collaborator David Grisman’s “Dawg’s Rag”. In the second set, balancing out a run of ballads that preceded it, the eerie “Home” served as a launchpad for Strings’ heavily distorted, intimidating Tony Iommi-style solos over brooding minor vamps from the rest of the band. Though they weren’t the longest jams of the night, “Ruby” and the second set-closing “Little Maggie” capitalized on the palpable inertia reverberating throughout the concrete citadel and the 7,600-some-odd souls inside it, putting an emphatic punctuation on night one.
And, of course, it wouldn’t be a Billy Strings show without a train song. He obliged one on the first night, the instrumental “Train 45” stuck in the middle of a “One the Line” > “Ruby” sandwich.
Billy Strings week in Asheville can be whatever you want it to be: a frenzied marathon of reconnecting with friends old and new, a big moneymaker for your local business, an excuse to finally buy yourself those overalls, a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Billy Club.
Billy Strings continues his sold-out 2026 Asheville run tonight, Friday, and Saturday. If you don’t have tickets, you can stream the whole run on nugs, or hang out at the multitude of pre-, after-, and off-day events happening all over town. [Editor’s note: Live For Live Music is a nugs affiliate. Ordering your subscription or purchasing a download via the links on this page helps support our work covering the world of live music. Thanks for reading!]
Check out photos by Ashton Sikes, fan-shot videos by Doug Heck, and taper audio by Zmanatl from night one of the 2026 Billy Strings Asheville run.
Billy Strings — “End Of The Rainbow” (Frank Wakefield) — 2/10/26
Billy Strings — ExploreAsheville.com Arena — Asheville, NC — 2/10/26 — Full Audio
Setlist [via BillyBase]: Billy Strings | ExploreAsheville.com Arena | Asheville, NC | 2/10/26
Set One: Red Daisy, Doin’ My Time (Jimmie Skinner), While I’m Waiting Here, Home of the Red Fox (Bill Emerson) > Secrets, Be Your Man, End of the Rainbow (Frank Wakefield) > Dawg’s Rag (David Grisman), Stratosphere Blues / I Believe in You [1], Lumpy, Beanpole, & Dirt (Bad Livers) [2], Cabin Song
Set Two: I’m One of Those, Age (Jim Croce), Happy Hollow, Love and Regret, Home, On the Line > Train 45 > Ruby (Cousin Emmy), Away From the Mire, 10,000 Miles From a Friend, Malfunction Junction > Little Maggie (Traditional)
Encore: Richard Petty [3], I’m Gone, Long Gone (Reno & Smiley) [4] [5]
[1] Billy Strings on a Martin Grand J-28E, Royal Masat on a Nord Stage 3 88-Key Keyboard & Billy Failing on Masterton ML-1: Missing Link Béla Fleck Baritone Banjo
[2] “Some coffee, bud, and crosswords puzzles too” lyric change
[3] Full band (minus Alex) around single mic
[4] Full band around single mic
[5] Last Time Played 2025-06-14 | 52 show gap
Train songs: 1
