A Western-themed festival this weekend at Dickies Arena and the Stockyards features a diverse mix of established artists and up-and-coming talent spanning both age and backgrounds — it’s not just a bunch of white guys, in other words — that reflects country music’s widespread appeal as well as its future. On Saturday, New Mexico-born, West Texas-bred, Grammy-winning C&W-influenced singer-songwriter Ryan Bingham will headline the Westside venue as part of The Great Western Festival, an all-day, all-ages event billed as “a meticulously curated celebration of Western culture.” Backed by the Texas Gentlemen, Bingham anchors a lineup that also includes Red Dirt favorites Shane Smith & The Saints, country legend Tanya Tucker, genre-blending songwriter/producer Shaboozey, and soulful desperado Louie TheSinger. There’s also a daytime bill of Fort Worth’s Vincent Neil Emerson and Cleburne-born Angel White with support from Brennen Leigh, Scott Balew, and Latin-music powerhouse the Cayuga All-Stars, so for all these artists alone, you’re getting your money’s worth from the ticket.
Yet The Great Western Festival is more than just music. In the way that Bingham was a bull rider before he picked up the guitar — he rode in the rodeo circuit in his teens and in college — the Great Western will showcase iconic parts of the West’s cattle-driving history in the Bull Ring Pavilion. Famed Mexican equestrian Tomas Garcilazo will perform the Pageantry of the Charro, Mexico’s iconic display of horsemanship, and the Indigenous Nations Dance Troupe will showcase a variety of inter-tribal dances. The pavilion promises to “come alive with a fusion of high-energy competition and age-old traditions,” so in addition to Garcilazo’s charrería, the indigenous dances, and a chuckwagon cookoff, there will be lots of bull-riding entertainment. Athletes from across the sport’s various associations will make an appearance “in an exhilarating Western showcase of skill and camaraderie.”
“Skill and camaraderie,” to me, suggest that The Great Western Festival is a modern update of the popular, vaudevillian Wild West shows that traveled the country in the back part of the 19th century, minus the trick-shooting and George Custer-worship. If you’ve ever watched a bull-riding event live or on TV, you do see the athletes hanging out with one another before and after runs, and I assume there is a lot of celebration and commiseration among the guys given the nature of a sport that involves hanging onto a large, horned, aggravated animal that very much wants to launch you off his back and into the dirt beneath his hooves.
One of the various bull-riding associations repped at the Great Western is a “freestyle bullfighting” league called Ultimate Bullfighters, and after watching a couple videos of that league’s athletes in action, I can say that the Bull Ring Pavilion-portion of The Great Western Festival will be as big a draw as any of the bands. What these guys do, at least as far as I understand it, is basically enter a ring with the meanest bulls alive and then deftly avoid getting gored and/or stomped to death while putting on a show as near to the rampaging monsters as possible. These bullfighters dance, step, and flip around their beefy antagonists like ninjas clad in cowboy getups. Every move is nailbiter, and every misstep can lead to a brutal ending. The sport is heavy on showmanship, as the athletes are judged on flair and personality in addition to death-defying acrobatics across the backs of bulls bred for their size, rage, and capacity for violence. It kind of makes it sound like pro wrestling but with much higher stakes.
Photo courtesy of Anna Axster.
If watching some dude leap around a bull until it gets him is a little scary for you or your young ones, there’s mutton-busting — kids riding and/or racing on the backs of sheep — and stick-horse racing, and like every festival, there’s a mercantile village. There are also pre- and after-festival concerts surrounding the event: On Friday, the great Lucinda Williams headlines Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall, with Kelsey Waldon opening, and on Sunday, the after-festival show at Tannahill’s features Hayes Carll and Band of Heathens. Whether your yen is for C&W or the working and athletic side of animal husbandry, The Great Western Festival has something for everyone.
The Great Western Festival
Sat w/Ryan Bingham, Shane Smith & The Saints, Tanya Tucker, Shaboozey, Louie TheSinger, Vincent Neil Emerson, Angel White, Brennen Leigh, Scott Balew, Cayuga All-Stars at Dickies Arena, 1911 Montgomery St, Fort Worth. 817-402-9000. • Fri w/Lucinda Williams, Kelsey Waldon and Sun w/Hayes Carll, Band of Heathens at Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall, 122 E Exchange Av, Ste 200,
Fort Worth. 817-900-9300. TheGreatWesternFestival.com.
