Music

Hunched over a paper plate piled with oysters and snow crab legs, I realized I hadn’t worn a shirt now in two days. The sun was setting on day two of the first-ever Sand in My Boots festival, hosted on the beach of Gulf Shores, Alabama—part of the stretch of Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast sometimes referred to as the “Redneck Riviera.” Since 2010, this weekend in May has been reserved for the Hangout Music Festival, a more generalized three-day beach bash whose previous headliners included Travis Scott, The Weeknd and Lana Del Rey. But this time was something different: a complete takeover curated by Morgan Wallen, the 32-year-old country superstar whose 37-track fourth album, I’m The Problem, dropped on the fest’s opening day.

Borrowing its name from the opening song on Wallen’s first blockbuster (2021’s Dangerous: The Double Album, the first album in history to spend at least 100 weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard 200), Sand in My Boots arrives as the high-water mark of the artist-curated festival. You could call the lineup that Wallen hand-picked “country-oriented,” though its details might surprise an old-school genre purist. Just past the three-day fest’s headliners (the newly roots-y Post Malone, country stalwarts Brooks & Dunn and Wallen himself) are an array of acts which suggest that, at a moment when country music’s bigger than it’s been in decades, its once strict boundaries are more porous than ever. Among rising country stars like Bailey Zimmerman and Ella Langley are a slew of rappers—some newer (like BigXthaPlug), some veterans (2 Chainz and Memphis icons Three 6 Mafia), though nearly all of them are Southern. Then there’s a handful of indie rock bands (The War on Drugs, Wild Nothing, Future Islands) which might seem comically random, were it not for the fact that Wallen’s been a champion of them for years.

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“When the idea of Sand in My Boots started becoming a reality, it was extremely important to me to build a festival of artists that I enjoy and listen to regularly,” Wallen told Billboard by email last week. “We didn’t come up with this idea trying to fill a gap, but I believe that is what we have done. We created a festival that was centered around my country culture and that just so happens to include a variety of sounds.” Whatever you want to call the Sand in My Boots vibe, all 40,000 tickets sold out in less than two hours last October. (Three-day G.A. passes started at $549, while VIP packages ranged upwards of $5,000, and private luxury cabanas by the main stage were even steeper.)

I’d arrived in Alabama’s gulf coast on Thursday afternoon, whispering “Get me to God’s country!” to the alarmingly small plane that would take me from Houston to Mobile, followed by a 2.5-hour drive to Gulf Shores. And Gulf Shores is, indeed, God’s country, if on the fourth day, God invented Zyn, the fifth day, Michelob Ultra, and on the sixth day, he declared, “Let there be scantily clad women walking barefoot in the street!” (Just across from the fest’s shuttle depot is a historic landmark: the world’s smallest Hooters restaurant.) Sand in My Boots’ two stages sit at either end of a pristine stretch of white sand beachfront along a body of water whose name no one can seem to agree on: while the festival’s website offers the opportunity to “cool off in the Gulf of Mexico between sets,” several dozen t-shirts and trucker hats I spy on attendees throughout the weekend proudly proclaim “GULF OF AMERICA SINCE 2025.”

Though I’m a fan of country music, both old-school and new, I also happen to be a Midwestern woman whose wardrobe is mostly black. This means that not only did I stick out like a sore thumb among the sea of body glitter, mesh cover-ups, star-spangled bikinis, ruffled mini-skirts, Hawaiian shirts, baseball jerseys, abundant camouflage, and yes, cowboy boots, I also cultivated the worst sunburn of my life within roughly 40 minutes of my arrival on day one. (“The sun reflects off the sand and makes it even worse!” explained a shirtless man in a mustache and a trucker hat that read “COUNTRY MUSIC TITTIES & BEER,” wincing at the two-tone paint job of my tan lines.)

Nevertheless, White Claw in hand, I set out to investigate the beachfront offerings between the stages, where a foam party was going off behind the Monster Energy Beach Club. Farther along, a man with a mustache and a microphone stood outside a makeshift chapel labeled “Love Somebody Lane,” soliciting passerbys: “Anybody wanna get married? It’s free!” (It’s more of a photo opp than a legally binding matter, he explained when I asked further: “Hell, we don’t even ask for their last names!”) All the festival grounds’ offerings are loosely Morgan Wallen-themed, from the 7 Summers Sandbar to the Up Down Cap n’ Gown (where you can collect a gift, should you have chosen Sand in My Boots over your graduation ceremony) to the booths hawking a zero sugar ice tea brand “crafted by Morgan Wallen,” to the “Field & Stream 1871 Club” pop-up, where you can subscribe to the magazine Wallen bought with Eric Church last year.

Just after twilight on night one, a throng of girls in t-shirts printed “MORGY HARDY POSTY” were buzzing around the sandy margins of the main stage, where Hardy was preparing to perform. You either know the Mississippi native from his solo material, which often draws from rock and nu-metal despite its outlaw themes, or from the endless stream of hits he’s co-written for other artists under his full name, Michael Hardy. (You’ll find his name throughout the credits of Wallen’s discography, from 2017’s “Up Down” to I’m the Problem.) Emerging onstage barefoot in camo shorts and a Death Row Records t-shirt, Hardy’s set epitomized the omnivorous sound of country today: thrashed out with a full rock band, songs like “Truck Bed” and “Psycho” felt more like mosh-pit fodder. Thematically, there was less ambiguity: “I believe America is the greatest country in the world,” he bellowed as an introduction to 2019’s “God’s Country.” “And if you don’t agree, go get a f–kin’ beer!”

On the other end of the beach, T-Pain’s set was starting; the 40-year-old former Auto-Tune maverick has been slowly but steadily embraced by country fans since his 2023 cover of “Tennessee Whiskey.” (In fact, as he shared with me last year, the Florida native lived in Nashville in the mid-2010s, ghostwriting songs for Luke Bryan, Toby Keith and Florida Georgia Line.) But having seen his set extensively, I re-upped my cocktail (a vodka/lemonade/iced tea concoction named after the golfer John Daly) and settled in for the headlining set from Post Malone, who made his official jump to country with last year’s F-1 Trillion, fulfilling the promise of a 2015 tweet: “WHEN I TURN 30 IM BECOMING A COUNTRY/FOLK SINGER.” A cynic might read the pivot as opportunistic, but so far, I’ve been charmed by Posty’s country crossover: he’s got the voice, demeanor and goodwill to fit seamlessly into the Nashville scene, where face tattoos are no longer frowned upon, thanks to Jelly Roll.

I might add that Post didn’t look half-bad in his boot-cut jeans and cut-off Cowboys jersey, strutting and shimmying down the runway through the crowd as he performed slightly rootsier versions of old hits (“White Iverson,” “Circles”) and twangier album cuts like “Wrong Ones” and “M-E-X-I-C-O.” “I came here tonight to play some sh-tty music and party a little bit while we do it!” he crowed, sitting down at one point to pull off his cowboy boots and pace the stage barefoot. Mostly, the 29-year-old just seemed happy to be there, hyping up his nine-piece band and thanking the audience profusely between every song. Beside me in the sand along stage left, a sunburnt six-year-old girl mouthed every word of “Losers” from her perch on her dad’s shoulders: “Last callers, last chancers, 9-to-5ers, truckers, dancers…”

My day-old sunburn was feeling borderline psychedelic on Saturday afternoon, but the idea of putting a shirt over my bikini just seemed wrong, particularly on a perfectly balmy 80 degree day. So I slathered on some sunscreen, chugged some water (plus a mysterious blue cocktail billed as “Electric Lemonade”) and made my way past rows of booths selling “Cowboy Nachos,” “Boot-Scootin’ Smoothies,” and discounted cans of Zyn (Sand in My Boots’ preferred nicotine delivery unit) towards the Dangerous Stage, where all of the day’s rappers were performing. First up was BigXthaPlug, the 27-year-old Dallas native with a booming voice and offensive lineman build who’s spent the past few years putting Texas rap back on the map. I was initially unsure how songs like “Mmhmm” and “Levels” would go over with an early afternoon crowd rocking t-shirts that read “SLAMMIN’ BUSCH & POUNDIN’ TUSH” and “EVERYTHING I LOVE IS ILLEGAL, OFFENSIVE, OR BRUNETTE” (plus one fellow who’d fashioned the box of a Twisted Tea 12-pack into a hat). But far more people than I expected rapped along to every word, not to mention lost their minds as X stripped off his shirt to the sounds of “All The Way (Don’t Let Me Down Easy),” his collab with Bailey Zimmerman that debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 last month.

“Ooohh, I wanna see Three 6 Mafia!” shrieked a woman in stars-and-stripes booty shorts and a MAGA trucker hat to her husband, who was costumed in Hulk Hogan wrestling attire. It is almost unthinkable the extent to which the Memphis rap group have parlayed their hellish beats and eldritch lyrics into a wildly influential 35-year career, which has brought 48-year-old DJ Paul and 50-year-old Juicy J here to incite a beachfront riot. “Can we do a mosh pit?!” coaxed Juicy J to the stabs of 1997’s “Hit A Mothaf-cka.” “I ain’t never seen a mosh pit in the sand before,” noted DJ Paul above the fray, beginning a chant: “When I say ‘WEAK ASS,’ y’all say ‘BITCH!’” “We got anybody in here from jail? DUI last night, straight from jail?” he continued with a grin. “Anybody from the hospital? Anybody from rehab?”

Sand in My Boots Festival

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Across the beach, I caught the tail end of the set from Riley Green, the 36-year-old Alabama native whose baseball player-esque good looks and horny new single, “Worst Way,” have combined to make him the festival’s unofficial heartthrob. (“SAVE A HORSE, RIDE RILEY GREEN” read one passing tank top.) Green’s the Platonic ideal of an archetype my buddy has coined a term to describe: the GCB, short for Glam Country Boy, a type of guy you know well if you live in certain parts of the South or the Midwest. The GCB listens to country and a little bit of rap, wears a thin gold chain and often a mustache, possibly played minor league baseball; but his defining feature is the half-mullet my friend described as “that salad in the back.” (I tried to keep a tally of the festival’s GCB count, but the task was too exhaustive, and I quit after an hour.) Soon Green is joined by Ella Langley—another Alabama local who tore up the stage earlier that afternoon with nostalgic songs like “Weren’t for the Wind” and “Better Be Tough”—for their pair of duets, “You Look Like You Love Me” and “Don’t Mind If I Do.” But I had an appointment with “Super VIP” catering that I was not going to miss.

At the risk of sounding like a tremendously spoiled douchebag, the dining room for the ritziest tier of VIP attendees was the most elaborate I’ve witnessed in all my days as a reporter. Saturday night, the dinner buffet included a dozen salads, charcuterie, beef short ribs, porchetta, blackened cod and a tower of crab legs piled higher than me—and that’s before you hit the oyster bar. (It’s air-conditioned, don’t fret.) And that’s how I found myself sunburnt and shirtless, cracking open crab legs as if I were Rick Ross. “Life on the Redneck Riviera ain’t too bad,” I thought, washing down another oyster with a tequila soda.

I’d answered my own question as to whether the crowd would be too young to appreciate the evening’s headliner, Brooks & Dunn—what did kids these days know about “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”? But Sand in My Boots’ crowd skewed a bit older than your average music festival, and though a few youngsters streamed towards the exit as the Nashville duo (formed in 1988) took the stage, most of the crowd knew every word to 20-something-year-old songs like “Ain’t Nothing ‘bout You” and “Red Dirt Road.” On the shuttle back to my hotel (there’s no parking on the premises, but a steady stream of buses ran from the grounds all day), a pair of sun-dazed women arrive at an inspired idea: “Girl, should we get Waffle House?” “Ohhhh, f–k me up!”

The seagulls have grown bold on day three of the festival, flying so low above the food court as to incur screams from shirtless men in Busch Light cowboy hats. As for me, I figured “when in Rome” and joined the line for the Zyn pop-up, where those 21 and up can purchase packs of the Swedish nicotine pouches favored by cowboys for the low price of $1. “Our menthol flavor has a eucalyptus aftertaste,” a gorgeous saleswoman informed me. Just ahead of me in line was a couple who’d flown in from Calgary, Alberta, the man cowboy hatted and mustached and the woman dressed to the nines in red thigh-high cowboy boots. “You guys like country music in Canada?” I asked them, to which they replied, “Oh, yah!”

All the lineup’s indie rock bands have been relegated to the Dangerous Stage for the festival’s last day, so I headed across the beach, passing the outdoor showers where a half-dozen partygoers were quite literally washing the sand off their cowboy boots. I’d been interested to see the crowd for The War on Drugs, the Philly-based seven-piece band whose t-shirts Wallen has been known to rock. Numbers-wise, the crowd paled in comparison to the hip-hop acts who played the previous day, to the point where I could clearly make out Ernest covering Hank Williams Jr.’s “Family Tradition” from the main stage. Still, I could see a through-line between the band’s synthy heartland rock and a handful of my favorite Wallen songs—2023’s “One Thing at a Time,” or the recent “Genesis.”

After another absurdly lavish dinner (peel-and-eat shrimp, crab legs, oysters, Lyonnaise salad, chicken piccata) I post up at the main stage, where 25-year-old Bailey Zimmerman is bouncing around in jean shorts before a band whose members all looked vaguely like Skrillex, reminding the crowd: “God is good all the time!” Until 2019, the Southern Illinois native had never sung outside of drunk karaoke; he worked on a gas pipeline, then gained some fame on TikTok for his videos tricking out his GMC truck. When his first-ever song, 2020’s “Never Comin’ Home,” racked up a million TikTok views overnight, he quit his job the next day. Now, between hits like “Fall in Love” and “Religiously,” he coaxed the crowd to scream “I love you!” to his mom backstage.

But like most everybody else, I’m here for Morgan Wallen, whose set tonight will close the festival. So far he had refrained from popping out for duets with collaborators on the lineup (Post Malone, Hardy, Ernest), and I was curious how much his setlist would reflect the brand-new album, whose mood was decidedly more introspective and subdued than previous blockbusters like Dangerous and One Thing at a Time. As for the crowd that had gathered around stage left, morale was high; a group of girls who’d traveled from Kentucky generously passed around a couple boxed wines and a joint. Then the lights went down, the beach erupted with screams, and video showed Wallen in white shorts and a white long-sleeve, jogging out from backstage to the sounds of “Broadway Girls,” his 2022 collaboration with Lil Durk.

Wallen kept the banter brief, taking a moment to acknowledge the years it had taken for Sand in My Boots to come together, then launched into a pair of songs from One Thing at a Time before transitioning to a handful of I’m the Problem singles (the title track, plus “Love Somebody”) and a few new songs he’d yet to play live before: “Kick Myself,” “Don’t We,” “I’m A Little Crazy.” “I wanted to find the most classy way to talk a little sh-t,” he introduced the latter. (“I’m a little crazy, but the world’s insane,” goes the chorus.) As stage presence goes, I’ve certainly seen more dynamic performers; occasionally he’d pick up an acoustic guitar, more as a shield than anything. But his raspy Tennessee drawl sounded surprisingly great live, particularly on “Cover Me Up,” a Jason Isbell song he’s been covering for years, and on the festival’s namesake track, a ballad about a one-night stand on the beach: “Somethin’ bout the way she kissed me tells me she’d love Eastern Tennessee/But all I brought back with me was some sand in my boots.”

Wallen finished with a suite of early hits: “More Than My Hometown” and “Whiskey Glasses,” followed by an encore of the inescapable “Last Night” and his 2016 debut single “The Way I Talk.” Then the festival figurehead was off into the night, and so was I—back on the east-bound shuttle bus, where the driver allowed a group of drunk girls to blast Soulja Boy and Flo-Rida over the Bluetooth speakers. I didn’t have boots to speak of, so all I brought back with me was a raging sunburn and a couple packs of Zyn.