7 Shows Worth the Drive: Live Music Near Bozeman, Livingston, and Big Sky This Summer
On July 1, Charley Crockett played a sold-out release show for CLOVIS in our backyard. If you were there, you know. If you weren't, you've probably heard about it from someone who was, and that's sort of the point of this post.
Summer in Paradise Valley moves fast. Two more nights on our calendar are already gone — Max McNown sold out July 14, and Charles Wesley Godwin sold out July 17 before the month even got going. What follows is what's left: seven shows you can still buy a ticket to, running from this Sunday through the end of August. All of them happen on our outdoor stage at 210 Railroad Lane in Emigrant, about 25 minutes south of Livingston on US-89 and under an hour from Bozeman. From Big Sky it's a longer drive. People make it anyway.
Lukas Nelson — Sunday, July 12
Willie's kid, but that stopped being the headline a long time ago. Lukas co-produced the music for A Star Is Born and has spent years as one of the most in-demand collaborators in American music. He's touring behind American Romance, a record produced by Shooter Jennings, and his live shows are the reason people who saw him once keep showing up. Tickets are $65. This one is days away, so decide fast.
Old Crow Medicine Show — Saturday, July 18
You know "Wagon Wheel" even if you think you don't. Old Crow started out busking in 1998, got discovered by Doc Watson, and worked their way to two Grammys and membership in the Grand Ole Opry. Their 2023 record Jubilee picked up another Grammy nomination. Madeline Hawthorne, who got her start playing Montana bars, opens. Tickets are $67.25, and given what happened with the last three big names on our calendar, we wouldn't sit on this one.
Asleep at the Wheel — Saturday, July 25
Ray Benson has been leading this Texas western swing institution for more than fifty years, and the band just put out its 32nd album, with guest spots from Billy Strings and Lyle Lovett. There aren't many acts left that can play this music the way it was played in dance halls seventy years ago. Tickets start at $50.40.
Sawyer Brown — Thursday, August 6
A Thursday show, and a good excuse to leave work early. Sawyer Brown won the very first season of Star Search, toured with Kenny Rogers, and has been putting on the same high-energy live show since 1984. Four decades in, Mark Miller still calls what they write "life songs." Tickets are $45.
Reckless Kelly with Cody Canada & The Departed — Saturday, August 15
The deal of the summer at $30 for a double bill. Willy and Cody Braun have fronted Reckless Kelly since 1996, picked up a Grammy along the way, and were named Outlaw Group of the Year at the 2024 Ameripolitan Awards. The band has said that after thirty years on the road they're pulling back the reins, so chances to see them are getting counted, not assumed. Cody Canada & The Departed open.
The SteelDrivers — Saturday, August 22
Here's a piece of trivia for the drive down: the SteelDrivers are the band Chris Stapleton sang for before anyone outside Nashville knew his name. The band kept going after he left and got better — a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 2015 and a recent Grammy-nominated record on Sun Records. Bluegrass with blues and soul underneath it. Tickets are $40.
Lettuce — Saturday, August 29
The season closer, and the wildcard. Lettuce is a six-piece funk outfit in the lineage of James Brown and Tower of Power, touring behind Cook. It's not country, and that's exactly why it works — an outdoor funk show under Emigrant Peak on the last Saturday of August is not something this valley gets every year. Tickets are $40.
The fine print, such as it is
Every show is all ages. Doors open at 6pm and music runs 7 to 11. One thing that catches people off guard: on concert days, the bar and restaurant close at 4pm so we can flip the place over, so plan your pre-show burger accordingly — or come down on a non-show day and get both. Midweek, there's still Rattlesnake Milk with Cole Chaney on July 15 and Benjamin Tod with Leon Majcen on July 16 if the weekend dates don't work for you. And if you're reading this the day we posted it, Josh Meloy plays tomorrow night, July 11, for $25. The full calendar lives on our events page, and if you're making a day of the drive down, we wrote up what else to do in Emigrant while you're here.
The Old Saloon has been standing since 1902. The shows change every summer. The math on this one is simple: seven left, and two of the last three sold out.