Billy Strings polished off a two-night, two-city swing through Montana on Saturday with a hot show in Missoula highlighted by a 25-minute pairing of “Fire Line” and “Reuben’s Train”. The concert at the 7,500-seat Adams Center on the University of Montana campus marked Strings’ first show in Missoula since playing on West Main Street for the free 2018 River City Roots Festival.
Following Friday’s barn-burner in Bozeman, Strings, Billy Failing, Jarrod Walker, Royal Masat, and Alex Hargreaves came to Missoula well warmed up. An opening “Seven Weeks in County” didn’t hesitate to flirt with country-tinged psychedelia, while the following instrumental “Dusty Miller” allowed everyone a chance to chime in with ’round the horn bluegrass jamming and kicked off a three-song movement through “While I’m Waiting Here” and “Train, Train”. By the time Strings got to the latter locomotive number—the first of two that evening—the raucous playing inspired by the classic rock version from Blackfoot was nearly unrecognizable from the band who was pickin’ some Bill Monroe only minutes earlier.
Billy Strings — “Seven Weeks in County”, “Dusty Miller” (Traditional) > “While I’m Waiting Here” — 8/16/25
Billy Strings — “Train, Train” (Shorty Medlocke) — 8/16/25
[Video: jesse driscoll Music]
The latter half of the first set also saw Strings go deep on his own instrumental “Thirst Mutilator”. Over an efficient ten minutes, Billy descended from traditional bluegrass to brain-bouncing improvisation by way of the elasticity from an envelope guitar filter, reminiscent of Jerry Garcia on Grateful Dead classics “Estimated Prophet” and “Fire on the Mountain”. Similarly, Strings brought to mind the guitar work of Trey Anastasio with echoed, descending arpegios like those Trey frequented with Phish in 2021–2022. Building up into an effects-fueled blastoff, Billy burst out the other side not into a swirling vortex of pedals and knobs, but back to his raw acoustic sound (then just a little more heavily distorted pedal work).
Billy Strings — “Thirst Mutilator” > “Dealing Despair” — 8/16/25
[Video: jesse driscoll Music]
Billy Strings and his band returned for the second set with more of the same magic, leading off with “Fire Line”. Clocking in at 15 minutes, this stands as one of the longer versions of the Renewal track, with Saturday’s version owing a good deal of its longevity to Alex’s fiddle as the jam glided across its glossy tone for the first few minutes. Billy’s strings eventually came swirling around Alex’s as the guitarist bounced his sound from one speaker to another, ultimately taking over the jam for some tension-and-release jamming that touched on Tool‘s “Vicarious”.
As the bookending intro/outro riff of “Fire Line” faded out, the wheels didn’t quite stop turning as dreamy instrumental ambience patiently gathered steam into “Reuben’s Train”. Everything came back around here, with the band returning to a traditional sound highlighted by Jarrod’s mandolin and some old-fashioned rapid-fire picking from Billy.
Billy Strings — “Fire Line” — 8/16/25
[Video: MrTopdogger]
Billy Strings — “Reuben’s Train” (Traditional) — 8/16/25
[Video: jesse driscoll Music]
The 25-minute “Fire Line” > “Reuben’s Train” was only the beginning of Billy Strings’ second set. Following the earnestness of “Enough to Leave” and “Everything’s the Same”, a pair of Highway Prayers plugs on “Seney Stretch” and “Don’t Be Calling Me (at 4 AM)”, and the psychedelic stomp of “Heartbeat of America”, Strings and company ran the rest of the gas out of the tank with a non-stop, five-song sequence that lasted nearly the entire rest of the set.
Eric Von Schmidt‘s “My Love Come Rolling Down” set things off, before instrumental “Pyramid Country” embarked on a mind-bending sequence through “Spinning” and Black Sabbath‘s “Planet Caravan”, ultimately arriving at Béla Fleck‘s “Tentacle Dragon (Revenge Of The)”. Coincidentally, Strings followed the Fleck cover by picking up his Masterton ML-1: Missing Link banjo designed by the world-renowned banjo master, closing the set with “Leadfoot” before sending the crowd home chuckling with the dirty limmerick encore “Salty Dog Blues”.
Billy Strings — “Spinning” > “Planet Caravan” (Black Sabbath) — 8/16/25
[Video: MrTopdogger]
Billy Strings — “Planet Caravan” (Black Sabbath) > “Tentacle Dragon (Revenge Of The)” (Béla Fleck) — 8/16/25
[Video: jesse driscoll Music]
Up next for Billy is a pair of sold-out shows at the 990-capacity Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, BC this week, followed by two more shows in Washington and Oregon. Find tickets and tour dates here or on his website. The entire tour is also available to stream live and on demand via nugs. [Editor’s note: Live For Live Music is a nugs affiliate. Ordering your subscription via the links on this page helps to support our work covering the world of live music. Thank you for reading!]
Setlist: Billy Strings | Adams Center | Missoula, MT | 8/16/25
Set One: Seven Weeks in County, Dusty Miller (Traditional) > While I’m Waiting Here > Train, Train (Shorty Medlocke), In The Morning Light, In the Clear > Bye Bye Blues (Fred Hamm and His Orchestra) [1], The Lonesome River (The Stanley Brothers) [2], Richard Petty [3], Stratosphere Blues / I Believe in You [4], Thirst Mutilator > Dealing Despair, Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down (Traditional)
Set Two: Fire Line [5] > Reuben’s Train (Traditional), Enough To Leave, Everything’s The Same, Seney Stretch, Don’t Be Calling Me (at 4 AM), Heartbeat Of America, My Love Come Rolling Down (Eric Von Schmidt) > Pyramid Country > Spinning [6] > Planet Caravan (Black Sabbath) > Tentacle Dragon (Revenge Of The) (Béla Fleck), Leadfoot [7]
Encore: Salty Dog Blues
[1] Last Time Played 2020-02-28 | 452 show gap
[2] Full band around single mic
[3] Full band (minus Alex) around single mic
[4] 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
[5] “Vicarious” (Tool) tease
[6] Last Time Played 2024-12-12 | 57 show gap
[7] Billy Strings on his Masterton ML-1: Missing Link Béla Fleck Baritone Banjo & Billy Failing on Guitar
Train songs: 2