The Top 10 Artists to See at Bourbon & Beyond 2026

Louisville has long been a destination for music lovers, and since 2017, tens of thousands have descended on the city each fall for Bourbon & Beyond. The festival returns for its eighth non-consecutive year from September 24 to September 27, bringing scores of touring acts from the worlds of rock, country, Americana, indie, and soul to the Kentucky Exposition Center. Along with a stacked lineup, the destination music festival offers free access to Kentucky Kingdom Theme Park, a Fork & Flask culinary stage and pours from the state’s best distilleries to round out the weekend.

Bourbon & Beyond 2026’s headliners include A-list bands like Foo Fighters and Dave Matthews Band. Get your pass today at the festival website. 

Here’s a rundown of ten more acts to catch at the festival.

Kacey Musgraves

Texan singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves is perhaps the most critically acclaimed country artist of her generation, and certainly only one with a Grammy for Album of the Year, for her 2018 masterpiece Golden Hour. After a couple of more experimental releases that saw Musgraves tinkering with her sound and unpacking feelings from her divorce, her seventh album Middle of Nowhere, released in May, is a frank and funny return to form. Musgraves will bring a songbook to the Barrel Stage at 8:05 PM on Friday that includes her 2012 country radio breakthrough “Merry Go ‘Round” as well as her recent viral hit “Mexico Honey.”  

Counting Crows

Counting Crows sold over 20 million records in the 1990s with a lush, rootsy sound and frontman Adam Duritz’s eruditely vulnerable lyrics. The Berkeley-based band, playing the Oak Stage at 6:05 PM on Sunday, has continued writing great songs over the years, releasing their eighth album Butter  Miracle, The Complete Sweets! in 2025. And the recent HBO Max documentary Counting Crows: Have You Seen Me Lately? told the story of the band’s early years and fomented a wave of nostalgia for heartrending hits like “A Long December” and “Round Here.” 

S.G. Goodman

The Kentucky natives on the Bourbon & Beyond bill this year include Shelby Means, the Vickie Vaughn Band, and Hickman’s own S.G. Goodman, who takes the Revival Stage at 3:10 PM on Thursday. Goodman’s wry, poignant songs helped her win the Emerging Artist of the Year award at the 2023 Americana Music & Honors Awards, and her music has also earned the approval of several of Kentucky music’s living legends. My Morning Jacket’s Jim James produced Goodman’s 2020 debut album Old Time Feeling. Bonnie “Prince” Billy guested on her masterful third album, 2025’s Planting by the Signs, and Tyler Childers appeared this year’s expanded deluxe release, (Re)Planting by the Signs. 

Gary Clark Jr. 

Gary Clark Jr. grew up as a blues guitar prodigy in Texas, following in the footsteps of heroes like Stevie Ray Vaughan. Since releasing his major label debut Blak and Blu in 2012, Clark has won four Grammys and collaborated with everyone from Alicia Keys and Childish Gambino to Slash and Tom Morello. Clark plays on the Oak Stage on Thursday at 3:15 PM in support of his latest album, 2024’s JPEG Raw. 

The Red Clay Strays 

While most of Bourbon & Beyond’s headliners this year have been household names for a decade or three, Mobile, Alabama’s Red Clay Strays will be on the Barrel Stage at 8:05 PM on Saturday night, just a few years after their breakthrough. And while the band’s rustic southern rock sound is steeped in American musical traditions, they’ve gotten some help from modern platforms like TikTok, where the band’s 2022 song “Wondering Why” took off and is now triple platinum. The Red Clay Strays opened for the Rolling Stones in in 2024 and headlined a sold out show at Madison Square Garden in August. And the band’s third album Grateful, released in June, showcases the band’s instrumental chops on the guitar solo-heavy “Fool’s Gold” and their social conscience on the single “People Hatin’.” 

Buffalo Traffic Jam

Some Bourbon & Beyond performers’ careers have taken off just in the months since the festival’s lineup was announced in February, including country singer Stella Lefty and folk duo Buffalo Traffic Jam. Frankie Cassidy and Nathan Ross met as students at Montana State University, and played cover songs before they began writing songs like “Fool’s Gold,” the breakout hit from their full-length debut Pictures of You. Buffalo Traffic Jam are playing a string of sold out club dates in support of the album, released in July, on their way to Louisville, where they’ll hit the Oak Stage at 1:55 PM on Saturday. 

Cheap Trick

Cheap Trick formed in Rockford, Illinois in 1973, making them the longest-tenured band on the Bourbon & Beyond bill this year, performing on the Barrel Stage on Thursday at 2:25 PM. But they haven’t mellowed out or lost a step in the last five decades — the title of their latest album, 2025’s All Washed Up, is tongue-in-cheek, as is often the case with Cheap Trick. And their snappy fusion of hard rock and power pop has influenced countless bands, including festival headliners Foo Fighters. 

Durand Jones & The Indications

Indiana-based singer Durand Jones formed the Indications in 2012 when he began writing songs with drummer Aaron Frazer and guitarist Blake Rhein and bonding over a shared love of vintage soul 45s. After Jones released his first solo album in 2023, he reconvened the Indications for the band’s fourth album Flowers in 2025, introducing some more modern influences into their signature retro R&B sound. Jones and the Indications brought their acclaimed live show to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert last year, and they’ll be on the Oak Stage at 3:15 PM on Saturday. 

Goose

It might confuse a few people that two of the fastest rising American bands of the 2020s are named Goose and Geese. But just to clarify: the plural Geese is the arty Brooklyn indie rock quartet, while the singular Goose is the Connecticut quartet that has taken the jam band tradition of the Grateful Dead and Phish to a new generation with concerts regularly livestreamed online. Goose has continued to refine its melodic songwriting on the band’s sixth studio album Big Modern, released in June, but they’ll bring their spontaneous live chemistry to Bourbon & Beyond’s Barrel Stage at 5:50 on Thursday. 

Violent Femmes

Few bands epitomize the spirit of ‘80s college radio quite as perfectly as Violent Femmes. An acoustic band that married folk and avant garde influences to Gordan Gano’s darkly funny lyrics and anxious, reedy voice, Violent Femmes took wildly catchy songs from their Milwaukee street corner performances to their self-titled (and self-funded) 1983 debut, a sleeper hit that took nearly a decade to sell a million copies. Violent Femmes will bring their catalog of timeless songs like “Blister in the Sun” and “American Music” to the Revival Stage at 6:05 PM on Friday.