By Fischer Genau EDITORIAL INTERN
Editor’s note: Outlaw Partners is the publisher of Explore Big Sky and is the producer of the Wildlands Festival.
Five hundred red solo cups, two dozen dethorned roses, and six green bananas. All of these items were requested by country megastar Dierks Bentley ahead of his headlining set on the final night of Wildlands Festival, a music fest that raised $303,000 for Montana conservation nonprofits and featured acts including Maren Morris, Wyatt Flores, and Lukas Nelson. But the over 3,000 thousand fans packing the Big Sky Events Arena would have to wait until the very end of Bentley’s set Saturday night to see the roses and bananas put to use.
After an hour-and-a-half long performance that included No. 1 country music hits “Drunk On A Plane” (which Dierks sang wearing a pilot’s hat and jacket), “What Was I Thinkin’,” “Beers On Me” (during which he threw cans of Bud Light to the audience) and “Somewhere on a Beach,” Dierks and his six-man band reclaimed the stage wearing shag mullets, leopard-print vests, parachute pants, and other retro attire for a triumphant encore as Hot Country Knights, his parody music side project.
The encore was a country music medley, each band member taking a turn on the mic while hopping, thrusting, and dancing all over the stage. Dierks flung roses to fans while playing, and he pulled a smushed green banana from his pants, signed it in sharpie and threw it into the front row before exiting the stage for good. His drummer, Steve Misamore, remained, taunting one of the stage techs who eventually carried him off to a cheering crowd.
It was an ecstatic finale to two days of music and a three-day celebration of Montana’s wild lands. Before Bentley’s set, Outlaw Partners CEO Eric Ladd presented $101,000 checks each to the Gallatin Valley Land Trust, Wild Montana and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the three nonprofits chosen as beneficiaries for this year’s Wildlands Festival.
“The reason we’re here tonight is to celebrate great music and community but also to give back to conservation to help protect this beautiful Montana landscape,” Ladd told the crowd.
“You helped raise over a quarter million dollars to help conserve Montana and Yellowstone Park,” Ladd said. “Let that soak in for a minute. Really, really special.”
The money raised will go towards various efforts to protect Montana’s natural lands, such as wildlife crossings and climate resiliency in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
“We are all here to appreciate the beauty and it’s all of our responsibility to protect it,” said Bethany Green, GVLT’s development manager, while accepting the check onstage. “You guys showed the heck up tonight, so thank you.”
Lukas Nelson also made a surprise appearance before the check presentation, telling the crowd he was at his gate at the airport when he decided to stay another night.
“It’s a great thing that y’all are doing,” Nelson said. “You’re having fun but you’re also supporting this beautiful land and it’s a very special thing.”
Nelson, Maren Morris get the show going
On Friday night, August sun pushed the mercury into the upper 80s as concert-goers filtered into the Big Sky Events Arena on Friday night. Around 6 p.m., Fader Magavin and the Risky Livers played the opening set for the Wildlands Festival.
“This heat really does a number on your brain cells,” joked Magavin, lead singer for the six-piece band from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, after a few songs on a stage spared only a few degrees by shade and a northwesterly evening breeze.
The sinking sun still burned hot through wispy cirrus clouds as the Risky Livers gave way to the next act: Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real.
Frequent Big Sky country-rockers, Nelson’s band started with slower-paced music, including a cover of “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, followed by a few words about the magic of Big Sky and love song about Montana.
The orange sun neared the horizon and Nelson’s band upped the tempo and energy to get the crowd moving. The arena sang along to “Find Yourself,” one of the band’s most popular songs, and Nelson showed off his high-ranging vocals in the song’s outro.
The band bowed and the crowd roared its approval. Energy hung in the cool air as dusk promised the headline act: Maren Morris.
After 30 minutes, the 34-year-old superstar strutted through violet-tinted fog onto center stage.
By her third song, “Girl,” many crowd members drew their smartphones to record video as they sang along.
“How we doin’ Big Sky? This is such a beautiful festival. I’ve never done this one,” Morris said, before complimenting her bass-guitarist, Big Sky resident Annie Clements. “Annie, thank you, you’re hot… If it’s your hometown show, it’s our hometown show. Is that cool? Can we claim Big Sky as our own?”
After a few tunes, the band played a new song which Morris said they’d never done for an audience: “this is how a woman leaves.”
About halfway through her two-hour set, Morris told a chapter of her life story, the inspiration for her song, “Circles Around This Town.”
Morris said she moved from Arlington, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee to follow a dream which included failed tryouts on a variety of television talent competitions.
“And I remember being so thankful that they all said no to me, because it took me time for to, like, just sort of suck. And move to Nashville, learn how to write songs, figure out who I am as a person without, like, the lens of public opinion or fame… go through years of change and building something from the ground up.”
She said even when you achieve your dream, that dream keeps changing and you’ll never find the top of the mountain you’re climbing.
“Just enjoy the journey. I know that sounds so Hallmark but it’s true,” Morris said.
Her set list ranged from R&B to country to pop—including the 2018 megahit, “The Middle,” which she featured as vocalist. The crowd sang along to “My Church” and “The Bones,” and heard songs of her new EP, “Intermission,” released earlier that day.
When the halogen lights flicked on and fans cleared the arena, the music of Maren Morris echoed in their heads with three acts yet to come.
Saturday’s check presentation followed energetic performances by Nashville, Tennessee’s Side Piece and Wyatt Flores, the 23-year-old bard from Oklahoma. Early in his set, Flores asked the audience, “How many of y’all don’t know who I am?” While quick to admit to his newcomer status, the nonetheless acclaimed country singer by the end he had won them over. Flores and his band played his hit single “Please Don’t Go” as well as several songs from his 2024 album “Half Life,” and after his second-to-last song, chants of “WYATT!” were echoing across the arena.
Flores told the crowd he’d surprised his parents with a new farm truck just two days earlier—they operate a ranch in Stillwater, Oklahoma—and said he wouldn’t have reached success without them.
“I could hang my hat tomorrow,” Flores said. “That was one of the things that I’ve always wanted to do, and I gotta say thank you to y’all because that doesn’t happen without y’all. I wish y’all could see the smile on their faces.”
There were a lot of smiling faces in the crowd as Dierks Bentley left the stage and Saturday night came to a close.
As if on cue, fat droplets of rain began to fall, giving the parched ground a much-needed drink and marking the end of the fourth-ever Wildlands Festival.
This story includes reporting by Jack Reaney.
