Wilco — 3 July 2026, Irving, TX (The Pavilion At Toyota Music Factory) [Outlaw Music Festival; Day 1 of 12]

Like they did the previous summer, Jeff and Co. signed on to perform at three dates of the traveling Outlaw Music Festival headlined by Willie Nelson and Family. While those 2025 shows featuring Wilco took place in the Northeast, this year’s engagements would all take place in Texas and, in fact, kick off the entire 12-date run, beginning with tonight’s opener in the Dallas suburb of Irving.

Wilco, of course, is no stranger to The Pavilion At Toyota Music Factory, née Irving Music Factory, a pretty soulless 4,000-seat indoor theater operated by Live Nation that becomes an outdoor(ish) amphitheater when seven huge doors open up at the back to expose a grass lawn and double the capacity to 8,000. The band has headlined three indoor shows at the venue since 2017, and somehow I’ve attended all three. But for as stale as the atmosphere can be indoors, the opening of the doors helped to a certain extent, at least allowing some natural light and fresh air in (though also some of the scorching Texas heat).

With Bob Dylan not participating in Outlaw this year, Wilco was actually second to Nelson on the bill of this particular show and got a one-hour set time (as did Sheryl Crow, who preceded Jeff and Co.) Obviously an hour isn’t very much when Wilco has been playing nearly three-hour shows on its “Evening With…” tour, but to its credit, the band played a pretty interesting festival setlist right from the outset.

Opening with Christ For President certainly was a bit of a cheeky move with an audience that skewed older and probably contained more than few MAGA types. Another daring decision, perhaps, was to completely skip Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in a festival setting. How many bands would totally skip their most popular album when faced with a crowd of mostly casual or non-fans? And then there was the choice to play a new song — Losing Traction — during an abbreviated set. Obviously this is taking things in a vacuum, but I wonder what some of the folks who aren’t as familiar with Wilco made of the lyric “I was only depressed when I still gave a fuck” from Losing Traction.

Contrast all of that with Crow, for example, who played just about all of her biggest hits, though to her credit she also played a new song that addressed our current political climate. (Saying she mostly played the hits is not meant as a criticism, by the way, just an observation).

As you might imagine in a one-hour set, Jeff’s visits to Banter Corner were pretty limited. He saved most of his proselytizing for the end of Kingpin, as he has been doing recently. “How can I give my love to you when I don’t know what to do?” Jeff spoke-sang and then attempted to answer his own query. “That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for a long time, and I’m gonna tell you the answer real quick,” he said. “You don’t have to know what the fuck you’re doing to give your love away. You just give it away. Give it away. … Be kind, it’s not hard.”

With that sentiment, and after an entertaining guitar duel by Pat and Nels which I must admit was quite enjoyable to hear through the venue’s powerful PA system, Wilco made way for the headlining act in Nelson, who was flanked by sons Lukas and Micah as well as his regular band, including harmonica player Mickey Raphael.

But it wouldn’t be the last time Jeff and Co. would be seen on stage for the evening. As they did last year at the Outlaw shows they did, they (well, most of them) came back to help with Willie’s usual finale medley of Will The Circle Be Unbroken and I’ll Fly Away. It’s a longstanding tradition for friends and family to join the 93-year-old legend at the end of a festival set for a big ensemble singalong.

Last year, though, I guess Wilco was maybe the only other band on the bill who could or would come back out or who weren’t already playing with Nelson — Dylan and Lucinda Williams were the other main acts on the Outlaw shows Wilco played last year — so it was a little jarring (in a good way) to see so many other artists out there at the end this time around, including Crow, Margo Price, Stephen Wilson Jr. and Lily Meola and members of their bands. But hey, that’s the fun of these things, isn’t it? As a certain cannabis-loving, bandanna-sporting nonagenarian troubadour once wrote many moons ago, “The life I love is making music with my friends.”

Here was the complete setlist for Wilco, as played (didn’t see a printed setlist, so can’t say if there were any changes/omissions):

1. Christ For President

2. Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

3. Handshake Drugs

4. If I Ever Was A Child

5. Cruel Country

6. Forget The Flowers

7. Impossible Germany

8. new song-Losing Traction

9. California Stars

10. Walken

11. Kingpin