Under the Big Sky 2025: Wynonna Keeps It Real and More Best Things We Saw in the Rockies

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key TakeawaysWynonna Judd delivered a singalong set at Under the Big Sky festival's closing night. - Credit: Felicia Garcia*

For its sixth installment, Under the Big Sky Festival in Whitefish, Montana, boasted one of its most potent lineups yet: Tyler Childers, Wynonna Judd, Mumford & Sons, the Red Clay Strays, Shane Smith & the Saints, Luke Grimes, Whitey Morgan & the 78s, Hailey Whitters, Kelsey Waldon, Wyatt Flores, and more all descended on the mountain town just an hour’s drive from the Canadian border.

Located on a 400-acre working ranch owned by Under the Big Sky Festival founder Johnny Shockey, the festival is stunning in its beauty and proximity to rugged nature. It’s also proving its reputation as an expertly curated weekend of music. Here’s the best things we saw.

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The Red Clay StraysJust two years ago, Alabama country-rock band Red Clay Strays were somewhat unknown and way down on the UTBS lineup, playing an early set and small late-night showcase to a few hundred folks. Skip ahead to 2025, and the Strays are now one of the hottest bands in the country. On Friday night, the Strays took the Great Northern Stage as headliners in front of an estimated audience of 20,000.

“We just refused to quit,” Strays lead singer Brandon Coleman tells Rolling Stone. “And it doesn’t have to be something that you read in a fairytale or see in a movie. If you put your mind to it, trust God, and work hard, it can happen for you, too.”

“If you’re lookin’ for a prophet/I tell ya I ain’t,” Coleman howled during “Disaster.” “But I know when it’s gonna rain.”

“I’ve very picky on what songs I sing, because the message of the song is what emotion is coming out,” Coleman says. “I’ve got to be able to be behind [the song] and just know that when I die, this is what I’m leaving in the world — and you got to be proud of that.”

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Shane Smith and the SaintsComing up on their 15th anniversary next year, Austin-based Shane Smith & the Saints haven’t taken any of their long, arduous, yet bountiful journey for granted. If anything, Smith’s resolve to push ahead comes directly from always doing what he wanted, sonically.

“We’ve created this misfit sound,” Smith says. “And when you’re down in the valleys and in the shadows of it all, it’s kind of hard not to question, ‘Are we doing this right or not?’ I’m thankful we stuck to our guns, and the audience we’ve created is a really special one.”

Smith has played UTBS before. He views their return as a litmus test for how much they’ve grown their fan base. “It’s just one foot in front of the other over years and years,” Smith says. “We never did it a traditional way.”

Town MountainMaking their UTBS debut, Town Mountain kicked up the western prairie dust with honky-tonk swagger. The ragtag Asheville, North Carolina, ensemble is marking its 20th year together with a barnstorming summer tour throughout the Rocky Mountains and greater Northwest United States.

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“See the lines in the levee/what’s a poor country boy supposed to do?” guitarist Robert Greer sang in “Lines in the Levee.” “See the lines in the levee/muddy water pushing through.”

“This is a labor of love,” Greer says of the group’s history. “It’s the love of performance and making a connection through music. Keeping the band on the road is no easy task, and doing it for 20 years defies all logic.”

HoundmouthMaybe on paper having indie-rockers Houndmouth play UTBS seemed a little bit out of left field. But the Indiana act ripped through its hour-long appearance. The massive crowd at the Big Mountain Stage — sporting cowboy hats, shiny belt buckles, and polished boots — hollered during “Darlin’” and “McKenzie.” But it was the “Sedona” closer that triggered the audience to bounce and sing in unison.

“Well, hey little Hollywood/you’re gone, but you’re not forgot,” lead singer Matt Myers bellowed. “You got the cash, but your credit’s no good/you flipped the script, and you shot the plot.”

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“We are country adjacent. [Houndmouth] is grounded in country and the blues,” Myers says of the band’s origins. “It’s just enough foot in the door to have a good time and be in my comfort zone.”Kelsey WaldonWith her new album Every Ghost making waves across the Americana/country realms, Kentucky singer-songwriter Kelsey Waldon rolled into UTBS Sunday afternoon and proved exactly why.

“I think as long as you have a true fan-base, you can keep going —this is the only thing I want to do,” Waldon says of her musical journey thus far. At UTBS, she delivered a soaring take on Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard’s “Ramblin’ Woman.” “I feel like I’ve been working for a long time to dial it in. Maybe I just don’t care anymore, maybe I’m just not afraid anymore,” she says. “Everything feels so natural.”Whitey Morgan & the 78sWith a stunning sunset fading behind the Rocky Mountains late Sunday, Whitey Morgan & the 78s bulldozed across the Big Mountain Stage.

A pillar of the 21st century outlaw-country scene, Morgan is the gold standard of a sound that was first conjured by the likes of Waylon Jennings and Billy Joe Shaver decades ago. In a nod to his heroes, Morgan finished the set with a raw rendition of Jennings’ seminal number “Waymore’s Blues.”

“It’s all about the backbeat, with Waylon in particular. And then, when you add Billy Joe, you get the lyrics, you get the storytelling,” Morgan says of outlaw country. “And it just doesn’t get any better.”

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Wynonna JuddThe most poignant moment of UTBS came with the appearance of Wynonna Judd on Sunday evening. Gracing the Great Northern Stage with a slew of her timeless hits, Judd showcased why she’s country music royalty, and has been for over four decades.

“The songs still resonate with [the audience] because they know I’m giving my truth,” Judd tells Rolling Stone. “My fans grew up with me. I was the backdrop of everyday life for them —through divorce and death and life and babies and everything in-between —and they just resonate to me.”

Judd herself has been through a lot in recent years, which made her set in front of tens of thousandsparticularly moving, especially when fans sang along to classics like the Judds’ “Mama He’s Crazy.”

“My passion is poetry, and the poetry of the common man is what country music is,” Judd says. “It’s real life, real stories, about real people in the real world. And I try hard to keep it as real as I can find it.”

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