Railbird superlatives: Who gave the best performances at the 2025 festival

Following a distinctly Kentucky and Appalachian flavor in its first four years, Railbird Festival pivoted to a more pop-country lineup in 2025 — at least with its headliners — to mixed results.

While crowds appeared slightly down from the festival’s peak of nearly 45,000 daily attendees last year, the daytime entertainment within the infield of The Red Mile was arguably the best in the festival’s five-year history with names like The Red Clay Strays, Wyatt Flores, Sierra Ferrell and Jesse Welles balancing the mainstream audience drawn in by Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll, Shaboozey and Bailey Zimmerman.

The outcome was a fun, but distinctly different vibe around the festival compared to years past, when Railbird featured at least one Kentuckian in a headlining or secondary slot.

In 2019 and 2023 that was Tyler Childers; in 2021 My Morning Jacket and in 2024 Chris Stapleton. Although they weren’t headlining, Kentuckians still featured on the lineup this year, with Louisville’s Mama Said String Band and Bendigo Fletcher, Central Kentucky rockers Mojo Thunder and Hawesville’s Ole 60 all holding space on the bill.

From Kentuckians to arena-sized country acts and everything in between, here’s the best acts I saw at Railbird.

Lainey Wilson

Country music’s most successful woman this decade (so far) has been Lainey Wilson, and at her headlining debut at Railbird on Saturday, it was easy to see why the Louisiana native has taken the genre by storm.

From the show opening “Keeping Up With The Jones,” she took command of the stage, strutting from end to end in her signature bell bottoms as she worked the crowd like she was back acting on the set of “Yellowstone.”

Wilson tackled several cuts featured on the hit series like “Smell Like Smoke” and “Hold My Halo,” along with many of her eight chart-topping songs including her first No. 1, “Things A Man Oughta Know” and “4X4XU,” the latter of which was co-written with Kentucky-born songwriters Aaron Raitiere and Jon Decious.

The just-released “Somewhere Over Laredo” that became Wilson’s biggest first-day streaming hit with over 1.16 million streams in its first 24 hours also made an appearance in her set.

Shaboozey

Pop-country’s biggest breakthrough act in the past 12 months has been Shaboozey, who proved he’s much more than a one-trick pony with a Saturday evening set that featured the anthem “Last Of My Kind,” the live debut of “Fire And Gasoline” and a duet with Ferrell on their collaborative song “Hail Mary.”

Despite those highlights, the set’s biggest moment came with the closing “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” 2024’s biggest charting song on country radio that helped to blast the singer’s career into the stratosphere.

The Red Clay Strays

After packing well over 20,000 people under The Burl stage’s canopy during their Railbird debut last year, The Red Clay Strays received an upgrade to the festival’s main Limestone Stage this year, a point lead singer Brandon Coleman was quick to acknowledge on Sunday evening.

“This is incredible. We played Railbird last year and y’all showed up. This year you really showed up,” he said.

Fresh off their Academy Of Country Music Awards win for New Vocal Duo or Group of the Year, The Strays shined in their new digs with a rock, blues and gospel filled set that served as a sonic cleanse for everyone within earshot.

From songs like “Stone’s Throw” to “Wondering Why” and “No One Else Like Me,” Coleman and company gave a rocking Sunday sermon that felt like a cross between Elvis and Lynyrd Skynyrd, two southern music icons they one day may find themselves among.

Wyatt Flores

Not many young country artists have had a bigger year than rising red-dirt star Wyatt Flores, who reinforced his rapid ascent with a riveting Railbird set on Saturday afternoon.

The 23-year-old Oklahoman tore through several songs from 2024’s breakthrough album “Welcome To The Plains” like “Stillwater” and “Oh Susannah” along with mixing in covers of The Fray’s 2005 pop hit “How To Save A Life” and Sturgill Simpson’s “You Can Have The Crown.”

But the show’s biggest standout moment came when Flores performed a gender reveal for a couple in the front row following a rendition of “Welcome To The Plains” that, for a brief second, took him out of his element.

“This is crazy. ****, I’m shaking,” laughed Flores as he struggled to open an envelope containing the news. “We got a girl on the way!”

Sierra Ferrell

One of the few who can claim to have had a bigger year than Flores is Sierra Ferrell, who captivated the Railbird crowd on Saturday less than four months removed from winning four Grammy Awards for her 2024 album “Trail Of Flowers.”

After beginning with the old-timey fiddle vibes of “I Could Drive You Crazy,” the West Virginia native tackled songs from two country music legends in Dolly Parton’s “Here I Am” and John Anderson’s “Years,” a tune she recorded as part of an Anderson tribute record in 2022.

Originals featured throughout the rest of Ferrell’s performance including “Bells Of Every Chapel,” “American Dreaming,” and “Dollar Bill Bar” that she made to feel like they were straight out of the Great American Songbook with a timeless voice that feels like a second coming of Alison Krauss.

However, it was a closing breakdown on her song “Fox Hunt” — which moved from an acoustic and foot-stomping fiddle ballad to one that saw her band swap gear for electric instruments including drums by its conclusion — where her whimsical and improvisational nature shined brightest.

The Castellows

Kicking off Sunday’s festivities were Georgia-based sister trio The Castellows. Together the group celebrated the May 30 release of their record “Homecoming” with rootsy songs like “Freeway,” “Sheltered” and “Cowboy Kind Of Love” that explore their home-schooled, southern upbringing.

Similar to Ferrell covering songs from Dolly Parton and John Anderson, The Castellows did the same with covers of Patty Loveless’ “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am” and Levon Helm’s “Hurricane,” winning the crowd over in the process. The only disappointing part of the set was that it was just 30 minutes.

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram

With Railbird going more country than ever in 2025, Mississippi-born blues guitarist and singer Christone “Kingfish” Ingram remained one of the festival’s big outliers.

He embraced that imbalance during a heated Sunday afternoon showing with a barrage of hot and heavy guitar licks that harken back to transformative pickers of old like Robert Johnson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and B.B. King.

Among rocking delta blues originals like “Midnight Heat” and “Empty Promises,” Grammy winner Kingfish also took his prolific picking to the crowd during a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House,” where his hot and heavy playing left many flabbergasted in its wake like only a true guitar god can do.

Noeline Hofmann

Two years ago, Noeline Hofmann made a 30-hour drive from her home in Alberta, Canada, to attend the first Railbird held at The Red Mile. This year, 21-year-old Noeline Hofmann returned for her debut performance from its Burl stage on Sunday.

The moment was full circle in many ways, with Railbird 2023 also marking her first time seeing Zach Bryan live. Hofman would later record a duet of her song “Purple Gas” with onBryan’s 2024 album “The Great American Bar Scene.”

With all that weighing heavy on Hofmann, she delivered and then some, mixing her north of the border originals like “Lightning In July (Prairie Fire)” and the aforementioned “Purple Gas” with covers of Johnny Cash’s “Big River” and Luke Bell’s “The Bullfighter” as she logged another round of Kentucky memories.

Ryan Bingham & The Texas Gentlemen

Between Lainey Wilson, Luke Grimes and Ryan Bingham, the Yellowstone’s cast of musician-actors were out in full force at Railbird.

While Wilson and Grimes took the stage Saturday, Bingham —who plays “Walker” on the show — didn’t make his appearance until Sunday. However, he and his backing band The Texas Gentlemen more than made up for it with a fiery set of red dirt twang that featured performances of songs like “Jingle And Go” and “Got Damn Blues.”

However, its most poignant moment came during a rendering of the heartfelt and harmonica driven “Southside Of Heaven” from 2007’s debut record Mescalito that planted the seeds of the long career he’s had since, both on stage and on set.

Ole 60

There wasn’t a bigger crowd at The Burl stage all weekend than there was on Sunday afternoon for Hawesville-based country rock band Ole 60, who smashed beers from the stage while the crowd sang back every word of songs like “Dust 2 Dust” and “Smoke & a Light” to them

Much like Hofmann, the Railbird debut was a monumental one for lead singer Jacob Young, who at one point got emotional recalling the band’s journey, which formed less than two years ago. The first festival he attended was Railbird, where he camped out at The Burl stage non-stop in 2023.

This story was originally published June 2, 2025 at 11:23 AM.