Post Malone Turns Stagecoach Into ’90s/’00s Night, and Miranda Lambert Gets ‘Fancy’-ful With Reba, on Fest’s Guest-Star-Studded Night 2

Beyoncé did not show up. Reba did. And it was enough. At least it was for the 70,000 in Indio watching the Stagecoach festival live, if not necessarily all of the probably hundreds of thousands more tuned in at home strictly in hopes of a Bey sighting. As single ladies doubling up, Miranda Lambert and Reba McEntire may not quite have broken the internet the way a “Cowboy Carter” cameo would have, but in the flesh, it felt like their climactic three-song duets segment sure broke Stagecoach.

And for his part, Post Malone did not need the help of any of the superstar artists whose albums he’s had featured appearances on to be a hit at Stagecoach. His penultimate set on the main stage Saturday was, as billed, a performance of all country covers (with a billboard on the way out to the festival site offering an 800 number where he was supposedly taking requests). He didn’t necessarily make any breaking news with his time on stage, unless good taste in Alan Jackson covers is news. But his emphasis on the 1990s/2000s hits of his childhood and youth (plus Tyler Childers, for good modern measure) would have captivated the crowd even without Dwight Yoakam, Brad Paisley and Sara Evans showing up to seal the deal.

“How’s he doing?” Paisley asked the crowd of 75,000 during his extended time on stage. “I think he’s made for this.”

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Posty’s opening song, Childers’ 2013 “Purgatory,” nearly counted as an oldie, albeit one that may not have been familiar to everyone in the crowd. With its chorus references to cocaine, some fans who don’t know Childers’ catalog may have wondered if this was an obscure number from the ’70s outlaw-country movement. But from there on, there would have been nothing for anyone with the slightest grounding in turn-of-the-century mainstream country to not recognize. Before he was finished, Malone touched on some of country’s corniest sentimental songs (George Strait’s “Check Yes or No,” Tim McGraw’ “Don’t Take the Girl”), some of its corniest but funniest (Paisley’s “I’m Gonna Miss Her,” Toby Keith’s “Who’s Your Daddy”), one of its most rocking (Vince Gill’s “One More Last Chance”) and one of its most reverent and sobering (Randy Travis’ “Three Wooden Crosses”).

Willie Nelson kept the “features” in his set to immediate family — as might have been guessed from the “Willie Nelson and Family” banner. It, too, was the source of some speculation about a Beyonce guest appearance, due to his recent appearance on “Cowboy Carter”… and because, you know, Beyonce casually sits in on other people’s acoustic-oriented sets so often. (Actually, sources insisted she was at Stagecoach undercover, to observe, just as she allegedly had snuck into Coachella earlier this month, but we’ll believe it when we… still don’t see it?)

Whoever was tuning into Nelson’s set on the festival’s Prime Video/Twitch livestream just for the possibility of hearing Beyonce sing “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboy Carters” got quite an inculcation into the most classic country of the last half-century. Hustling through 18 songs in just 45 minutes (if the closing instrumental of “I Saw the Light” during his final bows counts), Nelson established that, yes, OK, there are still living country superstars with even greater catalogs than Lambert’s. But for all the perennials like “Whiskey River” on view again — not to mention the still-underrated “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,” one of the greatest breakup songs ever written — the set’s highlight may have been the sound of Willie and Lukas sharing sublime family harmonies on Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe.”

Nelson has a hard time settling on reverence or irreverence — which is exactly as it should be, and as you’d hope — so the expected gospel finale of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “I’ll Fly Away” was sandwiched right between two songs that take the piss out of everything, “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” and “It’s Hard to Be Humble.” Nelson also brought out a few less mandatory songs from his early catalog, like “I Never Cared for You,” the least reciprocated song title in Stagecoach history.

With Post Malone and Nelson both dressing down for the occasion, Lambert had the clear lead in the day’s best-dressed competition, decked out in gorgeous, turquoise-accented Western-wear (with a hat that surely had to have been crazy-glued onto her head, given the wind gusts she understandably kept remarking on). She had some competition there, of course, with the always stylist Charley Crockett, one of the highlights Saturday in the Palomino tent, where he made the most of original songs from his just-released “$10 Cowboy” album that recall country’s golden era as surely as Nelson’s tunes from that actual period did.

Other highlights in Stagecoach’s hump day included an early-afternoon set from Tanner Adell, one of the featured artists on “Cowboy Carter,” establishing her own breakout potential; Maddie & Tae, getting their own set after getting the spotlight from Jelly Roll during his on Friday night; Asleep at the Wheel, bringing Ray Benson’s 50-plus venerable years of swing to the tent; and Leon Bridges, a welcome outlier from outside the genre — but a natural fit — as the day’s Palomino headliner. The Palomino was never more packed to overflowing than when “Yellowstone’s” Luke Grimes turned in a mid-afternoon set of material from his recent release (momentarily emptying Paramount+’s “Yellowstone” installation nearby), or for EDM carpetbagger Diplo’s after-hours set that allowed lingering festivalgoers to rave it up after Lambert’s rocking.

Could Beyoncé still show up on Sunday? Anything’s possible — except for that happening during Morgan Wallen’s headlining set, because we’re pretty sure that is not possible. But Sunday does promise performances from three more artists who appeared on the “Cowboy Carter” album: Shaboozey, Willie Jones and Brittney Spencer. Other draws for Sunday include the War and Treaty, Megan Moroney, Clint Black, Bailey Zimmerman, Pam Tillis, Ashley Cooke, the Beach Boys and an after-hours closing set from Wiz Khalifa.