After more than a dozen shows, a two-day music festival*, one child’s birth, a #1 album, and a couple BillyBase outages, Billy Strings‘ 2024 fall tour came to a close on Saturday in Austin. Following Friday’s all-cover performance at the intimate 2,750-capacity ACL Live at the Moody Theater, Strings and his band wrapped the tour with an all-original show at the 16,223-capacity Moody Center.
Even before Friday’s celebration of traditional bluegrass, Strings’ deep knowledge and appreciation for the genre’s roots was well documented. The guitarist includes near-nightly tributes to Doc Watson, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, or John Hartford as he continues drawing fresh blood into the time-honored bluegrass traditions. While Billy’s respect and admiration for those who came before him is remarkable and garners the respect of the old guard, what has helped make him a chart-topping, Grammy-winning, globe-trotting musical phenomenon is the unique and youthful energy he brings to his original compositions. That’s what was put on full display on Saturday.
Coming out of the gate with a hot “The Fire on My Tongue”, Strings reminded fans he didn’t get to where he is all by himself, as banjoist Billy Failing charged to the front of the pack on the lean eight-minute opener. Quick hits “Know it All” and “Be Your Man” came and went before the eerie ballad of “Seven Weeks in County” got the time and space to stretch out. Strings’ clean, unadulterated runs up his acoustic guitar soon gave way to distorted, psychedelic sustained notes that previewed in a matter of minutes Billy’s dynamic range of playing. Together with Royal Masat‘s slinking basslines and Alex Hargreaves‘ polished fiddle runs, the ensuing improvisation developed a shimmering texture for the first major jam of the night.
Billy Strings — “The Fire On My Tongue” > “Know It All” [Pro-Shot] — 12/14/24
Billy Strings — “Seven Weeks In County” — 12/14/24
[Video: Steam Powered Aerodyne]
Throughout the show Strings hopped around his four original studio albums, giving the bulk of the workload to this year’s Highway Prayers double album. The genre-fluid feel of Highway Prayers songs “Seney Stretch”, “Leaning on a Travelin’ Song”, “Don’t Be Calling Me (at 4AM)”, and beautiful show-closer “Gild the Lily” highlighted Strings’ maturity as a songwriter, unafraid to adventure further and further outside the rigid boundaries of traditional bluegrass. Home tracks “Must Be Seven”, “Away From the Mire”, and “Long Forgotten Dream” recalled Billy’s 2019 breakthrough and the ensuing stylistic crossroads it put him at. At a healthy 23 minutes, the title track to his 2017 full-length studio debut Turmoil & Tinfoil unequivocally encapsulated Billy and his band’s generational live talent which has built them a Grateful Dead-like following, and of course first set closer “Dust in a Baggie” brought it all back to the song that put Strings on the map a deceptively long eight years ago.
Billy Strings — “Turmoil & Tinfoil” — 12/14/24
[Video: Old Home Blake]
Looking back over the weekend, Billy Strings’ tour-closing run in Austin can be seen as a single performance broken up into two parts. On Friday, Strings paid tribute to the songs and traditions of those who came before him. Then on Saturday, Billy showed the music world what he intends to do with the genre. Given the tradition of bluegrass musicians like Del McCoury, David Grisman, Sam Bush, Peter Rowan, and many others to play well into their 70s and 80s, the future looks bright for 32-year-old Billy Strings and the impact he can have on the New Testament of bluegrass.
Billy Strings will close out the year with another three-night New Year’s run in New Orleans. Find tickets on Ticketmaster or try your luck on StubHub and CashOrTrade. Watch Saturday’s concert and stream Billy’s entire tour on nugs.net. Not a nugs subscriber yet? Sign up here to access these and other subscriber-exclusive livestreams in addition to an extensive catalog of live concert recordings. [Editor’s Note: Live For Live Music is a nugs affiliate. Ordering your nugs subscription or purchasing a download/Billy Strings livestream via the links on this page helps support our coverage of the world of live music. Thank you for reading!]
Setlist: Billy Strings | Moody Center | Austin, TX | 12/16/24
Set One: The Fire on My Tongue > Know It All, Be Your Man, Seven Weeks in County, Happy Hollow, Seney Stretch, My Alice, Bronzeback > Must Be Seven > Hide and Seek, Dust in a Baggie
Set Two: California Sober, Cabin Song, Away From the Mire, Long Forgotten Dream, Leaning on a Travelin’ Song, Don’t Be Calling Me (at 4am), Charlie’s Birthday Breakdown, In the Morning Light, In the Clear, Turmoil and Tinfoil, Red Daisy
Encore: Gild the Lily