Photo Credit: Stevo Rood

Last night, April 15, Billy Strings pulled into Charlottesville, Va. for the ninth performance in his spring tour. Maintaining the momentum of the run so far–which has brought highlights like a bust-out fusion of Bill Monroe’s “Old Dangerfield” and Phish’s “Sand” in Tampa, Fla. and covers of Widespread Panic and Bob Dylan in Savannah, Ga.–the bluegrass forerunner showed his reverence for the classics on Tuesday night by dusting off covers of John Hartford and Bill Monroe, teasing a Grateful Dead classic and debuting the Delmore Brothers’ standard “She Left Me Standing on the Mountain.”

Strings set off his show in a blaze of quick picking with the traditional outlaw ballad “John Hardy,” then subtly built into a more progressive sound with his own Highway Prayers instrumental “Malfunction Junction,” which bracingly sputters and stalls between surges of classic grass interplay and spaced-out atmospheric sections. After launching a medley with “In the Clear,” Billy passed the microphone over to Billy Failing for the banjoist’s 2016 original “So Many Miles,” then kept on rolling through longtime staples like “Everything’s the Same” and “Wargasm.”

As he pulled into the final movement of the first set, Strings gave the crowd a shot of adrenaline with his first-ever cover of the Delmore Brothers’ lovelorn 1946 recording, then added another touch of nuanced fan service by dropping an extended tease of the Dead’s “Scarlet Begonias” into Monroe’s “Shenandoah Breakdown.” With a bridge into his enchanting Renewal standout “Secrets,” Strings closed out the first frame with a bang.

Strings returned to the stage for the second set wielding his baritone banjo, with Failing in turn cycling over to the guitar. Together with fiddler Hargreaves, bassist Royal Masat and mandolinist Jarrod Walker, they ripped into “Leadfoot” and John Hrtford’s “No End of Love,” performed for the first time since November 2021. Back on their typical instruments, the band powered through a heavily segued litany of fan favorites like “On the Line,” “Train 45” and “Dealing Despair” before sharing Monroe’s “Lonesome Moonlight Waltz,” last played in September 2023. After wrapping the set with “Meet Me at the creek, Strings and his ensemble returned for an encore of “The Beginning of the End” and “Roll On Buddy, Roll On.”

Strings will return to the stage tomorrow, April 17 for a series Cary, N.C.’s Koka Booth Amphitheatre. Find tickets and more information on the band’s full 2025 live itinerary at billystrings.com.

Billy Strings
Koka Booth Amphitheatre – Cary, N.C.
4/15/25
Set I: John Hardy, Malfunction Junction, In the Clear > So Many Miles* Everything’s The Same, Slipstream, Wargasm, Wait a Minute, She Left Me Standing on the Mountain#, This Old World, Escanaba, Shenandoah Breakdown^ Secrets
Set II: Leadfoot%,No End Of Love%+, Think Of What You’ve Done, Blues Stay Away From Me > On The Line > Train 45, It Ain’t Before > Dealing Despair, Lonesome Moonlight Waltz&, Show Me The Door, Must Be Seven, My Love Come Rolling Down > Meet Me At The Creek
Encore: The Beginning of the End, Roll On Buddy, Roll On
Notes:
* Billy Failing on lead vocals
# FTP – Delmore Brothers
^ “Scarlet Begonias” (Grateful Dead) tease
% Billy Strings on his Masterton ML-1: Missing Link Béla Fleck Baritone Banjo & Billy Failing on Guitar
+ Last Time Played 2021-11-21 | 306 show gap
& Last Time Played 2023-09-27 | 110 show gap