Willie’s Luck Reunion Offers Stupid Good Lineup & Best Alternative to SXSW
The annual musical melee in mid-March in Austin, TX known as SXSW has become the preeminent music event of the entire year to avoid at all costs. You have to be some version of a musical masochist to want to slog through throngs of people and swim through a sea of brand placement that makes NASCAR look tame just to get 20 minutes of seeing your favorite band fighting through bad sound in some shitty venue as some hipster spills his Pabst down the back of your shirt. It doesn’t mean there isn’t some great music there to be heard and discovered, but it’s all the other headaches that are involved that make it an annual nightmare.
Starting around 2011 or so, if you hung around and talked to up-and-coming country and roots bands attending SXSW, you’d hear whispers about an invite-only event out at Willie Nelson’s ghost town outside of Austin called Luck, TX. Luck was originally constructed as part of the set of the movie The Red Headed Stranger released in 1986—a companion to Willie Nelson’s legendary album of the same name. The town was first called Willieville, and was erected to be a replica of the town of Driscoll, Montana. It sits near Willie’s golf course about 30 miles outside of Austin on a corner of Willie’s ranch. Though some of the buildings of Luck are made as facades, some are real structures, and the town regularly houses movie and video shoots, private events, and weddings in the town’s chapel.
READ: Willie Nelson’s “Luck, TX” Town Badly Damaged in Storm
The annual Luck event scheduled to coincide with SXSW was sort of hush hush for a while, even though the names they brought in to play it were killer. It was like a rave for cool country and roots artists, sans the glow sticks. Saving Country Music finally got to attend the event in 2014 when it was still called the Heartbreakers Banquet and it was probably the last year it kept any semblance of exclusivity, meaning the crowd wasn’t overwhelming, but you still had to wait in line for 45 minutes for a free shot of moonshine or some greasy fries from a food truck.
2015 was when the Luck shindig went public and became one of the most talked-about events of the greater SXSW experience. And this year promises to be even bigger. The organizers just released their three-stage lineup for the Friday, March 18th event. Along with headliners like Willie Nelson, Jenny Lewis, Billy Joe Shaver, John Moreland, and Jack Ingram, there will be a a song swap curated by the movie Heartworn Highways Revisited featuring Robert Ellis, T. Hardy Morris, Sam Outlaw, Shelly Colvin, Andrew Combs, and Jonny Fritz.
They’re still trying to keep some of the exclusivity of the event in tact by only releasing tickets at limited times and in limited quantities. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS as they say. Good luck getting them.
NOTE: There are additional and different names on the poster than what is on the lineup card at the moment (this is kind of normal for SXSW), so check both places, and expect things to change.
Luck Reunion Lineup
World Headquarters Stage:
- Willie Nelson & Family
- Jenny Lewis
- Lucius
- Blitzen Trapper
Doyle Bramhall II- Alberta Cross
- John Fullbright
- Amasa Hines
- Horse Thief
- The Black Lillies
- Heaven’s Jail
Revival Tent:
- Billy Joe Shaver
- John Moreland
- Parker Millsap
- Margo Price
- Joe Pug
- Lissie
- Matt Vasquez
- Ray Wylie Hubbard
- Aaron Lee Tasjan
- Indianola
Chapel Stage:
- Jack Ingram
- Erika Wennerstrom (Heartless Bastards)
- Ciaran Lavery
- Dylan LeBlanc
- Holly Macve
- Jonny Burke
- Rob Baird
- Daniel Romano
- Insects vs. Robots
- Lily Meola
February 24, 2016 @ 8:01 pm
That’s a sick line-up. I wish I could attend!
I just saw Wille is headlining a big event in Iowa, too – Hinterland.
For a couple weeks I’ve been having trouble accessing SCM. I keep getting redirected to Ad sites, then I have to close the browser to re-access the site (I just can’t back out). This is only occurring with SCM’s site. Is anyone else experiencing this issue?
February 25, 2016 @ 11:13 am
Hoptowntiger and everyone else,
I have received a few messages from folks saying that they are seeing pop ups or other type of spammy stuff coming from the website. It is hard to tell how many people this is as a percentage, but it’s probably less than 1% of the people coming to the site. We have EXHAUSTIVELY scanned, combed, tested, re-tested, and tested a 3rd time the site to make sure it has NOTHING to do with Saving Country Music, and I can GUARANTEE you there is absolutely NO pop ups, NO spam or Malware coming from this site. The reason I haven’t been posting as much over the last couple of days is because I have been devoting HOURS looking into this problem, and I want to assure everyone I take it very seriously. Also, regardless of what you’re seeing, I can assure you Saving Country Music serves NO popup ads or redirects.
What is going on is there is a Malware virus currently spreading on people’s devices that ONLY evidences itself when you go to certain smaller sites like Saving Country Music. That way you blame the site, and not your device, and make no effort to remove the Malware. It doesn’t matter if it seems like it is ONLY happening on this site, or even if you use a different device, browser, user, etc., because it can travel to all of your devices over cloud integration or wireless networks.
I know, but it’s ONLY coming up on SCM. I’ve heard this before. But trust me, it has NOTHING to do with this site. We have been currently trying to run down the name of this Malware and a fix, and if we find it we’ll let everyone know, but there is absolutely positively nothing we can do on our end to resolve this. We had this same exact issue with another Malware bug about 1 1/2 years ago.
There’s also people that think I’m lying to them and trying to justify all the popups I have put on the site. Obviously putting so many popups on a site that people can’t read it would be bad for business in the long run, even if it made me a few bucks in the short run. This is NOT coming from SCM.
If you go to any virus scanning site (http://scanurl.net/?u=www.savingcounrtymusic.com&uesb=Check+This+URL#results) , it will tell you that SCM is clean, and we’ve done our own extensive 36 hours scans three times now on the site. There’s nothing.
Sorry about this issue you are having, and if I find a fix, I will try to let everyone know about it. In the meantime, you may want to check your devices.
February 26, 2016 @ 5:57 am
Trig,
No way did I mean to incriminate SCM as the source of this issue; that’s why I was throwing it out the the community and no directly contacting you. I only visit about a dozen sites on my iPhone, so I was working with a small sample. The information you provided was very helpful and I spent all night on apple forums reading about adware removal. I think I may have found a solution (for IPhones), but let me test it for 24 hours before sharing it.
Thank you!
February 26, 2016 @ 7:03 am
Hey Hoptowntiger,
I’ve had a similar problem that I’ve noticed only when going to SCM. Like you, I tend to go to a small number of sites regularly with my phone and SCM is probably the least mainstream one of those. In my case, it looks like a phishing scam (iPhone 7 testers needed). I’ve tried a solution as well and we’ll see what happens.
February 27, 2016 @ 2:31 pm
We’ve traced the issue to a specific piece of Malware on people’s iPhones and other Apple devices, though it could be on other devices as well. Again, it has NOTHING to do with the site.
If you are seeing popups, the best thing to do is to download and run Malwarebytes on your device. Here is a link to the Apple/iPhone version:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/52105/malwarebytes-anti-malware
February 24, 2016 @ 8:51 pm
I don’t know, past years were much better than this. Other than Willie there’s about seven artists I’d be interested. hardly worth the trip out there or the hassle getting tix.
February 24, 2016 @ 9:30 pm
Give or take I’d be dealing with a 9 hour drive, so I’m definitely gonna need to pass on this one.
February 25, 2016 @ 5:39 am
Damn! That is good. I saw Blitzen Trapper open for Dawes a few years back. They kicked pretty good ass.
February 25, 2016 @ 6:04 am
Great to see Daniel Romano invited back. Maybe Mr. Mosey and Willie will get a chance to duet on a tune or two.
February 25, 2016 @ 7:06 am
Damn……that is a hell of a lineup! Billy Joe Shaver, The Black Lillies, Ray Wylie Hubbard, John Moreland, and of course, Willie!!!! I’d kill to see this. The best thing I have coming near me is Miranda Lambert, Kip Moore, and Brothers Osborne, which don’t get me wrong, I like all of them but still, to have THIS kind of show is something I dream of seeing someday.
On a side note, I need to check out Margo Price’s material. I know she has a new album coming out so I’ll be looking forward to that.
February 25, 2016 @ 9:40 am
Hell of a line up, and a fun location. Seeing Moreland on Sunday night and have not looked forward to a show this much in a long time.