The highs and lows of Country Thunder Arizona 2023

Country Thunder Arizona got back up and running at Canyon Moon Ranch near Florence with an all-star lineup topped by some of country's biggest names — Jon Pardi, Luke Bryan, Cody Johnson and one of Arizona's most enduring gifts to country radio, Dierks Bentley.

Those headlining artists were the marquee names the folks behind the annual festival were banking on to draw thousands of country fans back to the ranch. But the highlights have always run deeper than the top of the bill at Country Thunder.

We were out at the festival all weekend weighing in on the highs and lows, from the best of those headlining sets to tomorrow's marquee names.

These are the things we liked the most (and least) at Country Thunder Arizona 2023.

'This is what made me who I am': Dierks Bentley came home to rule Country Thunder Arizona

High: Dierks Bentley's Arizona homecoming

There’s always a bit of a homecoming vibe in the air when the formerly local Dierks Bentley takes the stage at Country Thunder Arizona as a headliner.

Next year marks 30 years since Bentley and his father loaded up the family truck so the aspiring country star could try his luck in Nashville.

And we all know how that turned out. He went on to become one of the most successful country artists of his generation, sending 18 songs to No. 1 on Billboard’s country charts.

After opening the show with two songs from his recently released 10th album “Gravel & Gold,” he told one of the weekend’s largest, most enthusiastic crowds, “It’s a big deal to be closing out Country Thunder in my home state of Arizona. This is what made me who I am.”

— Ed Masley

Live from Florence: The latest from Country Thunder Arizona 2023

High: Cody Johnson (assuming you’re ready for 'real' country music)

Cody Johnson’s hype man had something he needed to know before the man could take the stage.

“Are you ready for real country music?”

It’s an important distinction Johnson loves to make.

He’s a hard-twanging honky-tonk man who rode bulls on the rodeo circuit before giving real country music a try.

After more than a decade of slugging it out in the real country trenches, he’s managed to work his way up to the headlining spot at a major country music festival in Arizona, having built a dedicated grass-roots following — the CoJo Nation — largely on the strength of his commitment to keeping it real in an age of imitation cowboys.

His performance Saturday at Country Thunder did not disappoint, setting the tone with such crowd-pleasing staples as “Let’s Build a Fire,” “Y’all People” and “Longer Than She Did.”

Johnson's set was hardcore country, played on pedal steel guitar and fiddle, Johnson shouting out asides that spoke to his aesthetic.

“Do you still listen to George Jones?” he asked, after referencing the Possum in the second of “Dance You Home.”

You do not want to get that answer wrong in Johnson’s presence.

Did he do a lot of speechifying? Yes, he did, including one impassioned diatribe about freedom and patriotism and how we all need to “stop watching the news" because, as he assured us, "it’s all lies.” But most of what he said about his passion for the music only added to the sense that you were in the presence of a true believer.

Midway through his set, there was a lengthy monologue about the struggles he encountered on the road to Country Thunder.

"I couldn't get a record deal because they said I had to take my cowboy hat off," he sneered before appealing to CoJo Nation with "How many of you would agree with me tonight that country music hasn't sounded like country music in the last 10 years?" quickly adding, "I feel the same way."

It was a masterful bit of political theater, ending with a solemn vow.

"As long as I'm alive, you will always get real country music from me."

— Ed Masley

Homegrown: The most Arizona things we saw at Country Thunder 2023, from Dierks Bentley to Kurt Warner

High: The (Randall) King of Country Music, also real

The spirit of real country music was alive and well at Country Thunder Saturday, where several hours before Cody Johnson took the stage to testify, a young man by the name of Randall King opened his set with a song that had me thinking he could be the next Dwight Yoakam. Then he told us, “I grew up on old-school country music.”

By that point, we already knew what he’d grown up on. You could feel those old school country roots informing nearly every nuance of the man’s performance. He even cited Roger Miller as a role model to introduce a highlight of his latest album, "Shot Glass" — “Roger, Miller Lite and Me" — in the course of a crowd-pleasing set that included a tribute to the country music of the ‘90s, from “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” to “That Ain’t My Truck” and “Friends in Low Places."

As King explained the Garth Brooks cover: "George Strait is the King of Country Music, right? But the King of '90s Country will always be Garth Brooks."

It's hard to say where that leaves Roger Miller. As for King, though, he is definitely someone we would all do well to keep an eye on.

— Ed Masley

Low: Is there an echo in here (in here, in here)?

Cody Johnson’s set was truly wonderful, but there were times in his performance where the snare was clearly ricocheting off a surface somewhere on the ranch and bouncing back toward the stage with a lengthy delay, an extremely distracting annoyance that probably couldn’t be helped. The good news, it either didn’t last that long or I got used to it. Also, there’s a chance you only heard that awful slap-back if you happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

— Ed Masley

High: Hailey Whitters stole our hearts

A lot of country singers like to talk as though they grew up in a small Midwestern town with a population of approximately 731. But Hailey Whitters did. And it has clearly shaped the artist she’s became.

She opened her performance Saturday at Country Thunder with a heartfelt ode to “rich dirt growin’ up tomatoes” and her latest album is an introspective masterstroke inspired by her small town roots in Shueyville, Iowa.

That album, “Raised,” supplied a number of the better songs in Whitters’ set. There was one about being a little more "Messed-up Mary than Plain Jane" and another with a chorus hook of “They ain't left, they ain't right/They’re just left right in the middle of America.”

She waxed nostalgic on the boys back home to set up "Boys Back Home," whose title characters she says will "pull you out of a ditch or a bar, and they won’t be caught dead in no electric car."

And her spirited cover of John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Small Town” felt more like a celebration of the folks back home in Shueyville, Iowa, than a desperate attempt to get the crowd invested in her set (the way most covers in those afternoon sets have come across).

She also covered Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood and John Denver’s “Country Roads” (of course), but those songs also felt like natural extensions of her music and her personality.

Her fiddle-driven sound was more legitimately country than most sets we’ve seen so far this year.

Much like Ashley McBryde on Friday, Whitters came across as not just likeable, but real. And she ended on a high note, singing “Everything She Ain’t,” her well-earned breakthrough single, with a joy that can’t be faked.

— Ed Masley

Low: What was ADOT thinking?!

You know what road a lot of people take to get to Country Thunder Arizona? If you guessed the I-10 East through Phoenix, well, you might not work for ADOT, because ADOT chose the weekend of the biggest music festival in Arizona — in a year full of 52 weekends — to close the road so many of us use to get there. Not just those of us who live in central Phoenix, but the folks from all points west of Phoenix. As you may have guessed (again, unless you work at ADOT), this led to a pretty gnarly bottleneck as you got to the point where the highway stopped, diverting cars onto the 202 East.

— Ed Masley

High: Luke Bryan gets his country on

Luke Bryan clearly loves to keep the party people smiling. But it's always nice to see him lose the lampshade long enough to reconnect with what it was that made him want to be a country singer in the first place. Friday night at Country Thunder, that meant dusting off a handful of old country songs, from Ronnie Milsap's "(There's) No Gettin' Over Me" to Conway Twitty's version of the Pointer Sisters' "Slow Hand" and the Brooks and Dunn hit "Neon Moon." He clearly loves that portion of the set, which only made it that much more engaging.

— Ed Masley

High: Ashley McBryde, a future country legend in the making

Ashley McBryde is a future country legend in the making. As Luke Bryan joked about her awe-inspiring lead-in to his own headlining set at Country Thunder Friday night in Arizona, "You can bet your sweet ass on this; I will not sound as good as her." And sure enough …

McBryde has got a great voice, to be sure. And yet, her gift is more in how she uses what she has to draw you into what she's singing, from the darkly comic "Brenda Put Your Bra On" to "Light on in the Kitchen," where a mother lets her daughter know she'll always be there if she needs someone to listen, and "Sparrow," a bittersweet song about wanting to fly while waiting on the wind to take you home to see the folks you left behind.

She set the tone with a raucous rendition of "Made for This," a country-rock anthem about how, if you want to make a go of it in music, you've "gotta be made for this."

McBryde is clearly made for this (and then some). You could see it in the smile that rarely left her face in a performance so infused with joy, it was beyond contagious.

And her comic timing made it all the more engaging. "I started playing bars when I was 19," she revealed. "I told my mother they weren't bars and told the bars I wasn't 19."

— Ed Masley

Low: We could always use more country outliers

Midland and Ashley McBryde have been real treats — in part because they're just that good, but also for the way their whole aesthetic effortlessly stood out from the pack. It's the same way Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives felt like they'd been beamed in from another planet in 2019.

In a perfect world, there would be at least one act a day that filled that role (while also sounding nothing like the act that filled that role the day before they got there). Country music is a big umbrella. Why not challenge expectations while you're waiting on the fans who only care about the headliner to come in from the campgrounds?

— Ed Masley

High: Kurt Warner spotted at Country Thunder

After a long journey to get into the festival and find will call, I was ready to get inside and start reporting on the action. Lucky for me, the action began before I even received my wristband. I listened as excited Country Thunder music fans standing in line around me exchanged hushed whispers as they tried to determine if the man ahead of them in line was Kurt Warner, former Arizona Cardinals player and distinguished NFL Hall of Famer.

For any Arizona Cardinals fan, the sight of Kurt Warner is a thrilling one. Warner was instrumental in what was arguably the Cardinals' most exciting season to date. Groups waiting in line whispered to one another, stealing glances at the 6-foot-2 football player until one man approached him to ask the big question. Warner smiled and shook the man’s hand as the two shared a quick conversation. Then, the former NFL player collected his wristbands and went on his way, marking a high for anyone standing in the sunny ticket line on Friday afternoon.

— Sydney Carruth

Low: Siena deserved more

Most of the Country Thunder crowd was glued to the main stage to watch Nate Smith perform at 5 p.m., leaving Siena on the second stage to sing her debut single "Sass" to a crowd of fewer than 10 people. The desert-born and Nashville-based artist has shared stages with the likes of Rodney Adkins and the Rascall Flats. Watching the talented artist perform as the golden-hour sun cast a halo around her bleach-blonde hair was a low for me. Not for her set, but for the lack of festival-goers who were there to witness it.

With big names occupying the main stage, the crowds for second-stage performers are often small. This was the case for Siena, but for those who were there to witness it, it was an energetic and fun performance. Near the end of the set, a group filed onto the dance floor and began twirling around as Siena sang. The artist waved at them and they smiled. That made this Country Thunder low a little less so.

— Sydney Carruth

Country Thunder Arizona 2023: Here's the complete lineup and live music schedule

High: Mackenzie Carpenter's cover of 'Neon Moon'

Mackenzie Carpenter had couples and singles alike swaying to her cover of Brooks & Dunn’s "Neon Moon" in the warm afternoon air.

“Are y’all drinking yet?” she asked the crowd with a laugh, and was met immediately with an enthusiastic cheer. The Georgia native’s band then began playing the familiar chords of "Neon Moon," a familiar country music anthem for any cowboy or cowgirl who has lost their one and only.

In a precious moment, couples swung their partners round and round while singles swayed and sang along to the familiar chorus.

The sun didn’t go down on Carpenter’s side of town as she followed the heartbreak anthem with her spin on Cyndi Lauper’s "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," called "Country Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." The crowd was moving as she belted out a cover of Whitney Houston’s "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."

An energetic set complete with anthems for the lovers and the loners alike, Carpenter’s performance and bright blue cowboy boots made for an undeniable mid-day high.

— Sydney Carruth

High: 'Mr. Saturday Night' on a Thursday

Jon Pardi brought plenty of hits to the table as Thursday’s main attraction, from “Up All Night” (which included a snippet of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds”) to the quadruple-platinum back-to-back singles with “Boots” in the title.

But for all the charms of songs as strong as “Beer Can’t Fix” and “Heartache Medication,” there was nothing else in Pardi’s set that felt as timeless as the title track to his latest release, “Mr. Saturday Night.”

It’s just that good, a deeply soulful highlight of an album that could scarcely feel more like the turning of a clear artistic corner.

Several of the strongest songs in Pardi's set, in fact, were pulled from that same 2022 release, from "Raincheck" to "Smokin' a Doobie." And his latest hit to top the country airplay charts, "Last Night Lonely," hit harder live, if not as hard as his opening song — a Metallica cover that had to leave a lot of people wondering why he'd even want to start a set like that.

— Ed Masley

Low: That last two miles of traffic that seemed to last forever

State Road 79 was surprisingly clear on Thursday afternoon. The Price Road turnoff to the festival is where the traffic reared its ugly head. It was 1:55 p.m. when I was forced to come to a complete stop, having timed my arrival to be 90 minutes early for the first performer of the day.

The access road was a parking lot. Those last two miles before I got to where they were scanning tickets on phones lasted 45 minutes. And that was in the early afternoon.

I can't imagine how much longer people had to sit there dreaming of a restroom as the day wore on.

— Ed Masley

How to minimize the pain: With Country Thunder Arizona comes traffic

High: Could we just bottle everything about that Midland set?

Is it too early to say Midland played the greatest set we'll see this year at Country Thunder Arizona? Sure it is. But that's no reason not to say it. Not when you've just had your brain rewired by a set that felt like everything you could've asked a country band to be in 2023.

That extends from the opening salvo of two highlights from a new release that feels like it could be their finest hour to a triple-platinum breakthrough hit that Mark Wystrach told us made it possible to make music for a living. There was even

Wystrach is a graduate of Tucson's Salpointe Catholic High School and he could not stop making Arizona references, which definitely added to the charm of the performance.

But they didn't need that local flavor any more than they needed Jon Pardi to join them onstage for a spirited "Longneck Way To Go," a collaboration featured on both artists' latest albums.

Even their banter was brilliant. I think it was Wystrach who told the crowd, "You all are pretty docile, though," then deadpanned "That means quiet." Their taste in covers was impeccable, from an awe-inspiring cover of "Wichita Lineman," one of several Jimmy Webb songs that became career-defining singles for the late Glen Campbell, to "The Boys Are Back in Town" and Jerry Reed's "East Bound and Down."

— Ed Masley

Low: Seeing really good artists play to 30 people on the second stage

There's gotta be a better way to do the second stage. Why are those artists playing at the same time as much bigger artists playing at much louder volumes on the main stage?

You would almost have to hate the main stage act to go seek out the artists on that second stage tucked away, as it is, at the back of the festival ground behind the food court.

Why not bring the second stage in closer to the action and only program music on that stage in the breaks between the main stage acts, allowing them to play much shorter sets for more than maybe 30 people? Just a thought.

— Ed Masley

High: Tracy Byrd still holdin' heaven after 30 years

It's been 30 years since Tracy Byrd topped Billboard's country chart with "Holdin' Heaven," the oldest breakthrough single any act can claim on this year's Country Thunder Arizona bill. And his performance made a solid case for adding some nostalgia to the mix.

At 56, he still sounds great, inspiring smiles and singalongs to hits as big as "Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Famous," "Watermelon Crawl," "The First Step" and "The Keeper of the Flame" after setting the mood with a single whose chorus is “We’re from the country and we like it that way.”

He also did a really nice rendition of the Townes Van Zandt classic "Pancho and Lefty."

— Ed Masley

Country Thunder Arizona checklist: These are the 7 sets real music fans shouldn't miss

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Highs and lows of Country Thunder Arizona 2023 near Florence