By Brian Wise
Old Settler’s Festival, Austin, Texas – Friday, April 17 – Sunday, April 19, 2026
Across this one weekend, Austin offered a reggae festival right in town, a huge country music event in Georgetown 30 minutes to the north, and a bluegrass/Americana festival in the Hill Country to the south. Talk about a wealth of musical choice in one weekend!
Stephen Marley, Iration and Steel Pulse headlined the Austin Reggae Festival. Chris Stapleton, the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Randy Travis and Brooks & Dunn headed the Two Step Inn.
Then there was The Brothers Comatose, Railroad Earth, Shelby Means and Shinyribs featuring at the Old Settler’s Festival, an event that has undergone significant changes in recent years.
Like many festivals, Old Settler’s has clearly struggled to balance the artistic with the financial. In the past, it featured some great headliners and rising stars across the Americana spectrum: Alison Krauss, Delbert McClinton, Nickel Creek, Del McCoury Band, Ruthie Foster, Patty Griffin, Ralph Stanley, Terri Hendrix, Joan Osborne, Yonder Mountain String Band, Guy Clark and Béla Fleck. Last year’s event featured Sierra Hull, The Devil Makes Three and Watchhouse.
For 2026, the event moved back from a large site near Dale in the southeast to Camp Ben McCulloch in the southwest, where it had been housed for many years. In the past, the popular Salt Lick BBQ across the road offered space for the music stages, but now everything is confined to the camp – and there are many camper vans, Winnebagos and tents of all sizes. There are a few food and drink stalls but not nearly as many as in the past – and there are hardly any lines. Along with the downsizing of the location has come a downsizing of the musical line-up in terms of current ‘big-name’ headline acts.
The largely volunteer organisation that runs this non-profit event apparently wanted to reclaim the intimacy of earlier festivals. The first festival in 1987 had 600 people, and this year’s event at times looked to have about the same, although many people were camping, making it difficult to tell audience numbers. The fact that the festival is still going, 39 years after its genesis, is a triumph in itself.
We have enjoyed previous Old Settler’s festivals in both locations very much. Musically, the highlights range from a young Sarah Jarosz impressing everyone and returning a few years later as a genuine star, to Jeff Bridges — ‘The Dude’ himself — doing his country thing and facing a dozen or so fans in the front row dressed as his character from The Big Lebowski. Then there was the young Billy Strings, who impressed as a teenager and is now a superstar. These are just a few of the reasons for returning to Old Settler’s this year. Add to that the good vibes, the reasonably sized crowd and the chance to discover new music.
The Old Settler’s Festival has always provided discoveries, and this year’s event delivered more than most, largely because the line-up included many names with which we were unfamiliar. Not a bad thing, as one of the main joys of festival-going is the act of discovery.
The ‘new’ location utilises an indoor pavilion stage that seats several hundred, while others sit outside in camp chairs. There is also a larger main stage nearby, located on what looks like an old tennis court it only operates in the evening after the pavilion acts are finished. It’s less inviting but accommodates more people.
While campers arrive from Tuesday onwards, the music programme starts on Friday, and the afternoon had a definite bluegrass bent with Minnesotan duo Feeding Leroy, New Mexico’s Foggy Memory Boys, Northern California’s Two Runner (Paige Anderson and Emilie Rose) and Colorado quartet Magoo. All were impressive in their own way, but if you had to pick one act for future stardom, it would be Two Runner — a duo whose sound most resembles Sarah Jarosz, who has gone on to become a superstar in the genre both solo and as a member of I’m With Her. The evening acts on the main stage were the more country/Americana-leaning Lindsay Lou and San Francisco five-piece The Brothers Comatose, whom we have also seen in Australia in recent years.
While Friday’s weather was just about perfect, Saturday turned out to be the coldest I have experienced in Austin for as long as I can recall. Guess who wore shorts and a T-shirt and then had to drive 15 minutes to the nearest town — in this case Buda — to buy a sweater?
This meant I missed the first two acts but arrived back in time to see Warren Hood (son of revered Austin musician Champ Hood) with his quartet featuring Emily Gimble (granddaughter of legendary Texas fiddler Johnny Gimble). That is some heavy-duty heritage right there, and the music reflected it.
The very name Louisiana Surf Department suggests what the next act sounded like. “Swampedelic country tonk” is a good description (not mine), and they brought a lot of fun to a freezing afternoon. Indiana’s Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper brought us back to bluegrass and closed out the pavilion stage for the day.
By this point, a storm was threatening, and we retreated to Austin, fairly certain that the remaining acts — The Last Revel from Minneapolis and New Jersey’s Railroad Earth — would be cancelled. Apparently, the music was only delayed for an hour or so. Our loss — though had we stayed, I probably would have resembled an icicle. North of Austin, the Two Step Inn Festival was severely affected when its main act for the day couldn’t appear, and refunds were offered.
Sunday afternoon featured three acts in the pavilion, all of which were excellent. The weather improved as well, reaching 22°C by mid-afternoon. Veteran Billy Bright, mentor to Sarah Jarosz, and former colleague to Peter Rowan and Tony Rice, opened with some really fine playing, drawing a roaring response at the end of his hour-long set. Bright’s dazzling virtuosic playing was impressively matched by his band members.
Shelby Means, formerly with Molly Tuttle’s group Golden Highway, which we saw when we were last here, was given an hour-and-a-half set, by the end of which we felt she was well on her way to stardom. Highlights included a terrific cover of Lowell George’s ‘Willin’’ and, believe it or not, an excellent rendition of Lady Gaga’s ‘Million Reason’ (which, as Means explains, fits into the tradition of bluegrass musicians reinterpreting popular songs of the day). A truly impressive musician who seems destined for far bigger things.
Finally, one of my favourite Austin musicians, Kevin Russell, closed the festival with his band Shinyribs, the group he formed after the disbanding of the legendary Gourds (who we also saw here several times). Russell is a colourful and entertaining frontman (to say the least), mixing rock, country and soul into an intriguing blend. He seems to be channeling some mythical soul singer at times. I particularly like his song ‘I Got Your Medicine’, from the 2017 album of the same name, which allows his eight-piece band, including to backing vocalists, to really work out. Then again, Russell also performed Nick Gravenites’ song ‘Born In Chicago’ from Paul Butterfield Band’s debut album.
A fabulously enjoyable show and the perfect way to close what was an equally enjoyable festival.
Kudos to Old Settler’s for finding a way of surviving when so many other festivals have fallen by the wayside. Let’s hope it continues for many years to come.