Turnpike Troubadours & Kacey Musgraves Earn Rodeo Houston Premiers
The release of the Rodeo Houston main stage lineup is always a highly-anticipated event in Texas and beyond, and this year Oklahoma’s Turnpike Troubadours have earned an opportunity to play on arguably the biggest stage in Texas, and native Texan Kacey Musgraves has been selected to open the rodeo in 2019. It’s the first time performing at the event for both acts, and they’ll be playing a lineup that includes massive pop “country” names like Luke Bryan and Kane Brown, legacy artists like George Strait and Brooks & Dunn, and names from the pop world like Camila Cabello and Cardi B, all of whom will take center stage at NRG Stadium from late February into mid March.
The release of 2019’s Rodeo Houston lineup came with a stutter step. The lineup was first leaked about a week ago online, with the Rodeo playing coy as to whether the lineup spread on social media was legit or not. They officially announced the 2019 lineup on Thursday (1-3) evening, confirming Musgraves will open February 25th, and the Turnpike Troubadours will play on Saturday, March 2nd. Turnpike earning a weekend slot is even more advantageous for the band.
Along with one of the few 2019 appearances from “King” George Strait, and the aforementioned Brooks & Dunn performance, also notable from the 2019 Houston Rodeo lineup is Chris Stapleton playing March 14th, Cody Johnson playing the stage once again on March 15th, Brad Paisley playing March 16th, and Luke Combs will get his shot on March 6th. Also during the final performance of the season by George Strait on March 17th, Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett will be his special guests.
Once again the Rodeo Houston lineup favors big national names as opposed to putting more emphasis on Texas and regional acts that would do better to represent the distinct musical flavor of the Lone Star State. But with the Turnpike Troubadours playing as honorary Texans, Cody Johnson on the bill from nearby Huntsville, George Strait, Robert Earl Keen, and Lyle Lovett ending the year, and Texas native Kacey Musgraves starting the year off, it’s a step in the right direction for 2019.
Houston Rodeo 2019 Lineup:
- Monday, February 25 – Kacey Musgraves
- Tuesday, February 26 – Prince Royce
- Wednesday, February 27 – Brooks & Dunn
- Thursday, February 28 – Luke Bryan
- Friday, March 1 – Cardi B – Black Heritage Day
- Saturday, March 2nd – Turnpike Troubadours
- Sunday, March 3rd – Panic! at the Disco
- Monday, March 4 – Old Dominion
- Tuesday, March 5 – Camila Cabello
- Wednesday, March 6 – Luke Combs
- Thursday, March 7 – Tim McGraw
- Friday, March 8 – Zedd
- Saturday, March 9 – Kane Brown
- Sunday, March 10 – Los Tigres Del Notre – Go Tejano Day
- Monday, March 11 – Zac Brown Band
- Tuesday, March 12 – Kings of Leon
- Wednesday, March 13 – Santana
- Thursday, March 14 – Chris Stapleton
- Friday, March 15 – Cody Johnson
- Saturday, March 16 – Brad Paisley
- Sunday, March 17 – George Strait w/ Lyle Lovett & Robert Earl Keen
January 3, 2019 @ 6:47 pm
Will it help them write better, or worse?
January 4, 2019 @ 5:58 am
Hard to write much better than Kacey, but if anyone can do it, it’s Kacey.
January 4, 2019 @ 1:51 pm
Let’s have a look:
Bursting with empathy, I’m feeling everything
The weight of the world on my shoulders
Hope my tears don’t freak you out
They’re just kinda coming out
I’m lost in lyrical wonder, alright.
January 4, 2019 @ 6:29 pm
To be fair, I’m not sure any of us would write beautiful lines under the influence of LSD.
January 5, 2019 @ 12:20 pm
Let me please have a list of your 3 favorite songwriters. In fact, name the 3 most poetic ones. Thanks in advance.
January 5, 2019 @ 12:56 pm
Merle Haggard
Joni Mitchell
Sage Guyton
Poetic in different ways. There are many more. Get out of the pop world and open your ears.
January 5, 2019 @ 6:32 pm
1: Schoenberg
“and must I now begin to doubt? who’s never doubted all these years? my heart is stone but still it trembles”
“by the witness of the martyr, by the passion and the blood, I have saved your soul from darkness, I have bought your soul for God”
“you find just one friend in lifetime, on your word I can always depend.
where would I be without you as a friend?”
2: Willie Nelson
“If this is what you refer to as love, then I’d rather you didn’t love me”
“No need to enter into lengthy dissertations, to make a long story short she’s gone”
3: Roger Miller
“If you think it’s lonely where you are tonight, then you oughta be here with me”
“I’m just sitting here crying in Salt Lake City, and if I keep crying I’ll have a salt lake of my own”
By comparison Kacey Musgraves is the lyrical equivalent of “set you up on the kitchin sink stick the pink yadda yadda yadda”
January 6, 2019 @ 6:26 am
Here’s a gem from Merle Haggard :
“I can’t go anywhere without your memory
In every window pane your face is all I see
This town’s not big enough to hold both you and me”
Wow, so poetic. What a master.
Some powerful words from Joni :
“He said, “I never had nothin’,
Nothin’ I could believe in
My girl killed our unborn child
Without even grievin’! ”
wow so moved.
Point being both Merle and Joni are great artists (both pretty pop, though) and anyone can make someone look like an amateur lyricist by pointing out a phrase here and there without and music or context. Congrats.
I’m not even going to get into how hilarious the other response was with Schoenberg’s examples. Yes, let’s have that battle now. Because that’s fair. Willie Nelson, the legend that he is, also has a truckload of awful songs and lyrics in his catalog.
Both of you old crotchety men just love to complain.
January 6, 2019 @ 8:14 am
Fuzz is not an old man. I think he’s college age. He seems to have this need to show us the all depth of the his knowledge and what an old soul he is. Schoenberg? Hilarious, indeed. I don’t even know who that is.
I’m no great Musgraves fan. I’ve come around to liking Golden Hour, but don’t quite love it. It’s a nice pop music listen and I don’t typically go for pop music. But these repetitive shots at her are boring. I get it.
You start a conversation you can’t even finish it.
You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything.
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.
Say something once, why say it again?
— Talking Heads
January 6, 2019 @ 8:17 am
At least Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard lyrics make sense.
You need a PhD in philosophy and a few years studying Buddhism and probably some stuff that Sturgill Simpson enjoys to make sense of some of Joni Mitchell’s songs
And yeah, she gave us Both Sides Now
which is one of the great gems of songwriting
but some of the other stuff she left behind is just sooooooooo out there.
Good songwriting is like great art.
It has to be recognizable as something in order to respect the talent of the artist
That’s why modern art is so bad
because there’s no way to gauge the technical ability of a painter if he just paints nonsense that can’t be recognized as something
January 6, 2019 @ 6:02 pm
Fair enough, BB. I picked the first lyrics that came up for Musgraves. And you cherry-picked some perfunctory lines from Merle. Fuzz tossed in some additions. It seems we all agree that one of the highest values for us is great writing. Yippee. Now let’s all focus on that, and forget the superficial fan-boy/girl bullshit. If you say something is quality, pony up the goods.
January 3, 2019 @ 6:50 pm
Don’t care for these lineups st all. Turnpike and George would be the only ones I would even watch. Where are the country females???
January 3, 2019 @ 7:05 pm
Ah hell, I’m going to be in Texas that weekend. Looks like I’m not loitering in San Antonio.
January 3, 2019 @ 7:08 pm
I guess I forgive the Turnpike Troubadours for cancelling that concert I had tickets to.
January 3, 2019 @ 7:28 pm
not all of us do..
January 3, 2019 @ 9:01 pm
Curious, what type of dog is in your avatar pic? Is it a corgi?
Also, how does one change their avatar on this site since one doesn’t sign up or make an account?
My avatar picture is of a smiling man of Asian decent. It’s not a photo of me btw. It just appears as a default on your website , Trig. Can anyone assist me / help me out?
January 3, 2019 @ 9:06 pm
https://en.gravatar.com/
January 4, 2019 @ 6:32 am
Yes, it is the picture I have uploaded to my gravatar account, which is associated with the email address I use here.
The dog is a husky mix who looks like a giant shiba inu. Or a Carolina dog.
January 3, 2019 @ 7:34 pm
At a big city rodeo, I Guess everybody shows up in a Escalade?
January 3, 2019 @ 8:13 pm
Santana’s still around? Jeez, maybe I’m not as old as I thought. Except I can’t figure out how to like Cardi B. Dag nab it, pass the Geritol.
January 4, 2019 @ 12:32 am
”Except I can’t figure out how to like Cardi B. Dag nab it, pass the Geritol.”
stop worrying . if you don’t like her you’ve already passed the pop music test , alta.
cardi b is a plant . she’s only in the business to weed out the kids who don’t know good music from a Luke Bryan song .she’s like an undercover narc . you aren’t supposed to like her ….unless you’re a 12 year old girl who thinks she likes her cuz her friends like her cuz they are all 12 year old girls who like her cuz their friends like her cuz they are all 12 year old girls who …..well …..you get the idea .
you don’t need geritol . we aren’t supposed to like the same things 12 year old girls likes.
January 4, 2019 @ 5:59 am
You won’t catch me listening to Cardi B, but her demo is a lot broader than prepubescent girls, that’s for damn sure.
January 4, 2019 @ 1:13 pm
I wouldn’t disagree BB ….my point is that the ‘music’ of the Cardi B’s , the Nicki Minajs , Duo Lipa’s …and even T.S. etc…is long on image and trend and desperately short on talent and substance like more and more pop music . Young teens buys into it completely , for the above reasons…the rest of the ‘market’ is collateral damage and, I don’t believe , actual thinking or discerning adults .
Lipa ‘s recent single (” I Don’T Give A Fuck ”) and Mariah Carey’s ( ”Get The Fuck Out” ) should tell us all we need to know about who this music is targeted at.
January 4, 2019 @ 6:55 pm
It’s all sizzle and no steak. They go on talk shows to create these phony personas and phony controversies. Why not just let their music speak for itself. Imagine any of the contenders on any of the SCM lists acting like this.
January 4, 2019 @ 10:02 pm
I will say…I’ve heard covers of Duo Lipa that make me think we’re underrating her songwriting.
The music she makes is garbage, but there are solid bones.
January 3, 2019 @ 8:45 pm
Congrats to them !!! They should tour with Musgraves!!!
January 4, 2019 @ 7:39 am
Go on Tejano day if you really want to see a party inside NRG.
But for me… Stapleton, B&D, King George, McGraw and/or Paisley.
Wish ZZ Top was back… they can crush a one hour set.
January 4, 2019 @ 4:43 pm
Yo Trey, FYI: This is ZZ Top’s 50th year anniversary, 1969-2019. I hope they tour.
January 4, 2019 @ 10:45 pm
Wow. Didn’t realize that !!! I’m in …. !!!
January 5, 2019 @ 5:44 pm
They’ll be out there. Some dates in the US to kick off the year, including a residency in Las Vegas, then looks like in Europe this summer. I’ll bet more US dates get penciled in.
https://www.zztop.com/tour
One of my favorites, seen em a handful of times.
January 4, 2019 @ 7:00 pm
To give away my age, I saw ZZ Top when they were an unknown band backing up Ike and Tina Turner. You’re right, they were good. Hard to compete with Ike and Tina, though.
FWIW, I also saw Charley Daniels as a backup band for Harvey Mandel. Worst version of Orange Blossom Special imaginable. No talent whatsoever. Maybe he’s improved–I haven’t checked since then.
January 4, 2019 @ 9:22 am
This years lineup hazza lotta ‘Vegas’ innit. B&D, along w/Reba (no last name needed), have a residency at Caesars Palace. “King” George hazza residency at T-Mobile Arena w/LL & REK being the opening act. Santana hazza residency at House of Blues LV. And,you can catch Los Tigres Del Notre twice a year 30 mins south of LV in Primm,NV. (AKA Stateline)
I hadda point to this when I started. But,legal weed out here made me forget. Pizza? Anyone wanna pizza?
January 4, 2019 @ 10:33 am
From that list, Los Tigres Del Norte (they put on a great show and are absolute Norteño music legends) would be my first choice to see live, although the George Strait collab looks pretty interesting too.
January 5, 2019 @ 10:47 am
Call me a cynic but there’s a lot of pretty bad acts there
Luke Bryan
Kane Brown
Old Dominion
Zac Brown Band
Cardi B
and Kacey Musgraves
Putting Stapleton in there is sort of like putting a cherry on top of a shit sandwich.
It might look better but it’s still a lot of shit
January 5, 2019 @ 12:58 pm
Everyone can make a lot of beer runs and potty breaks.
Genius, I know. It’s ok, I’m a giver.
January 5, 2019 @ 5:39 pm
The downturn of Zac Brown Band over the past 6-8 years is disappointing. I get that they were never a pure traditional country band, but there are some real players there. Talents being totally wasted.
January 5, 2019 @ 6:35 pm
I actually enjoyed the one album they did at first, I have it, I paid for it. I’ll defend it as a good album.
But everything they’ve done since then has been a pile, for sure.
I mean, YES, they were honest about not being totally traditional, and if they confessed to it I’d forgive it if it were good.
The problem is that it was really bad
January 5, 2019 @ 8:46 pm
They went full Chris Gaines. Never go full Chris Gaines.
January 25, 2019 @ 3:00 pm
Kacey is at the top of her game. It took awhile but I’m glad that day is finally here.