Stagecoach 2026: The Mustang stage brings rock nostalgia to country fest
While the Stagecoach country music festival isn’t losing its country essence anytime soon, the tide is shifting musically, and there’s no better example than the festival’s revived Mustang Stage.
Located near the festival’s Ferris wheel, the Mustang Stage hasn’t been part of the event since 2017, and this time around, its daily lineup is more rock 'n' roll than country.
The stage’s lineup for this year’s Stagecoach in Indio featured performances by Counting Crows, Bush, Third Eye Blind and the Wallflowers. Aside from the Red Clay Strays, who headlined the stage on Friday, there wasn’t much of a country presence on it the rest of the weekend.
Treaty Oak Revival and Hootie & the Blowfish, who are making their Stagecoach debut as a group, were among the other acts taking the Mustang Stage, but fans of those groups know their music leans more toward rock. Included among the lineup of rock acts was BigXThaPlug, a rapper and proud Texan, who released his country-rap fusion album, “I Hope You’re Happy,” last August.
The Mustang Stage feels fitting for the era of nostalgia that music and culture more broadly have been experiencing for over a decade. Music festivals such as When We Were Young has since emerged for emo and alternative fans before Warped Tour was more recently revived. The list of nostalgic fests seems to have grown in demand as well, with events such as Cruel World, Just Like Heaven, Darker Waves, Old School Love Fest and Sick New World in Las Vegas, which has provided a home for metalheads since the dissolution of Ozzfest and Mayhem Festival.
Notably, what’s been missing in the throwback festivals is an event for hard rock, and maybe Stagecoach could help fill that void with the kind of programming that this year’s Mustang Stage has welcomed. Stagecoach has incorporated rock acts over the last several years, including Goo Goo Dolls and Creed last year, the Beach Boys and Nickelback in 2024, and Bryan Adams and ZZ Top in 2023.
The new stage became the home to rock nostalgia this year, and fans at the country festival were receptive.
The Counting Crows took the stage on Friday and opened the night with a new single, “Spaceman in Tulsa,” first shared in February and set to appear on their latest album, “Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!,” which was released in May.
For those looking to hear more ’90s hits, the band also delivered with songs like “Mr. Jones” and “Omaha.” Frontman Adam Duritz eventually sat down at a piano and led the band in the extended versions of their somberish ballads “Round Here” and “A Long December.”
On Saturday, another ’90s band took the stage for a slightly heavier vibe that normally featured at Stagecoach. All the way from London, Bush captured the Mustang Stage with the opening tracks “Machinehead,” “The Land of Milk and Honey” and “Everything Zen.”
The band went on late into the evening, when the winds were at their strongest, but the group still drew a large crowd that banged their heads to their loud guitars and thunderous drums. It was almost the perfect pairing between Bush and the eerie weather.
As the band neared the end of their set, they pulled out their major hits, “Glycerine” and “Comedown,” which drew the loudest applause and cheers of their performance. Both turned into giant sing-alongs.
“I know ‘Glycerine’ because my parents would listen to it in the car when we’d drive around, so it reminds me of those times,” said Jordan Roothae of Banning. “I think it’s cool that there is some different music at this festival like this. I didn’t start listening to country until later because it felt like my parents’ music growing up, but I’ve grown to like it and make it my own, too, just like some of the older rock like this.”
Other fans, like Thomas Richardson and his wife, Loraine, who were at the Bush set and traveled from Oklahoma, said they prefer more of this music to the DJs at the festival, which they feel caters more to younger people.
“Classic rock to me makes more sense at country music festivals and with country artists,” Thomas Richardson said. “I grew up seeing David Lee Roth with Van Halen, but I don’t listen to newer rock bands anymore. Country is more of what we like now, but when rock comes on at a festival or the radio, we keep it on because we still like both.”
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This story was originally published April 26, 2026 at 2:23 PM.