After sitting in with Bob Dylan at the end of his stint on Willie Nelson‘s Outlaw Music Festival and then warming up with Primus at Grand Rapids’ Van Andel Arena on Wednesday, Billy Strings returned to the venue on Friday to launch his summer tour with the first of two sold-out shows in his home state of Michigan.
“We play lots of gigs and we don’t get to come here enough and we get to missing you guys,” Strings told the crowd, reflecting on his roots in nearby Muir, MI. “Thank you all so much for choosing to spend your evening with us and to come out to hear some music; that really means the world to us,” he added, showing his humble appreciation. The hometown hero went on to reminisce about fishing in Ionia County, playing at intimate local venues like Skelletones, The Mixtape, and The DAAC, and “picking up records from Vertigo [Music], which is still there.”
After recently sharing the stage with a wide-ranging cast of music legends, the tour opener saw Strings return to his natural element—accompanied by his trusty bandmates Billy Failing, Royal Masat, Jarrod Walker, and Alex Hargreaves—and set the pace for a psychedelic maelstrom of a run.
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The setlist drew largely from Strings’ 2021 album Renewal, starting with the opening sequence of “The Fire On My Tongue” and “Hide and Seek”. An adventurous pairing of two cover songs, Bad Livers‘ “Lumpy, Beanpole, & Dirt” and Jimi Hendrix‘s “Love Or Confusion”, was a highlight of the first set, which finished with the band gathered around a single mic for “Freedom”, “Close By”, “Sally Johnson”, and “Richard Petty”. “We just want you to hear these instruments all wooden-like,” Strings said with a grin.
Forging an intimate connection with the crowd, Strings stepped into the spotlight solo in the second set for a clawhammer banjo rendition of “Georgia Buck” (complete with a cheeky intro tease of Slayer‘s “Raining Blood”), and guitar-only takes on “Cocaine Blues” (played for the first time in nearly a year) and “Salt Creek”, which hadn’t been performed since October 2023.
A fiery rendition of “Heartbeat Of America” fueled the set’s home stretch, and the main show closed with fan favorite “Dust In A Baggie”. The band then returned for a two-song encore—“Wait a Minute” and “Roll On Buddy, Roll On”—which brought the evening to a satisfying conclusion while leaving fans ready for round two.
Click below to check out fan-shot videos from night one of Billy Strings at Van Andel Arena.
Tickets for tonight’s show are already sold out, but you can try your luck on the secondary market or stream the tour via nugs.
Billy Strings – “The Fire On My Tongue”, “Hide and Seek” – 5/30/25
Setlist [via Billy Base]: Billy Strings | Van Andel Arena | Grand Rapids, MI | 5/30/25
Set 1: The Fire On My Tongue, Hide and Seek, Pyramid Country, My Love Come Rolling Down, Lumpy, Beanpole, & Dirt, Love Or Confusion, Away From The Mire, Freedom [1], Close By [1], Sally Johnson [1], Richard Petty [2]
Set 2: In the Clear, Everything’s The Same, West Dakota Rose, Georgia Buck [3][4], Cocaine Blues [5][6], Salt Creek [5][7], Home, Red Daisy, Hellbender, In The Morning Light, Greenville Trestle High, Heartbeat Of America, Dust In A Baggie
Encore: Wait a Minute, Roll On Buddy, Roll On
Setlist Notes:
[1] Full band around single mic
[2] Full band (minus Alex) around single mic
[3] Billy Strings solo on clawhammer banjo
[4] “Raining Blood” (Slayer) intro tease
[5] Billy Strings solo on guitar
[6] Last Time Played 2024-08-03 | 58 show gap
[7] Last Time Played 2023-10-01 | 119 show gap