New music from Billy Strings may be on the way in short order. It certainly seems that way, at least, as Strings has debuted four new originals during his concerts the past two nights. Rumors have been flying around that Strings has been in the studio, and based on how his spring tour has started, it seems those rumors may be true. On Thursday, the kickoff of Strings’ spring 2026 tour and night 1 of a 3-night run in St. Augustine, FL, Strings debuted a new unreleased song titled “Night Fishing” towards the end of the first set. Then, to start his encore later in the evening, Strings’ honored the late legend Ronnie Bowman by playing another unreleased original song they had written together called “Something To Look Forward To.” The St. Augustine Amphitheatre has become a fan-favorite tour stop over the years for Strings’ fan-base, and while expectations are always high coming into this weekend, and especially to start a new tour, Strings exceeded them each night. Leaving his fans reeling in the wake of a killer setlist and the debut of two new songs on night 1, the best band in bluegrass picked right back up where they left off on night 2 and finished strong Saturday night to end the 3-show run. To close out the second set on Friday, Strings was back to performing unreleased music, debuting a new track called “Wilted Flowers” live for the first time. And towards the end of the second set on Saturday, he ripped into another unreleased track titled “Love Among the Tombstones,” marking the fourth unreleased track performed for the first time this weekend. What a time to be a Billy Strings fan. Check out the performances here: “Love Among the Tombstones” “Night Fishing” “Something To Look Forward To” You can’t beat a Billy Strings show. Billy Strings Tour Dates: 4/8 – Benchmark International Arena – Tampa, FL 4/10-4/11 – Enmarket Arena – Savannah, GA 4/14 – First Horizon Coliseum – Greensboro, NC 4/17-4/18 – John Paul Jones Arena – Charlottesville, VA 4/22 – Charleston Coliseum – Charleston, WV 4/24-4/26 – Fishers Event Center – Fishers, IN 7/4 – Willie Nelson’s 4th of July Picnic @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater – Austin, TX 7/14 – Berglund Center – Roanoke, VA 7/17-7/18 – Portsmouth Pavilion – Portsmouth, VA 7/21-7/22 – Agganis Arena – Boston, MA 7/24-7/25 – Cross Insurance Arena – Portland, ME 7/28 – PeoplesBank Arena – Hartford, CT 7/31-8/1 – Bethel Woods Center for the Arts – Bethel, NY 8/28-8/29 – Ionia Freak Fair @ Ionia County Fairgrounds – Ionia, MI 9/18-9/19 – Ball Arena – Denver, CO 9/20 – Paramount Theatre – Denver, CO 9/25 – The Orpheum Theatre – Los Angeles, CA 9/26 – Kia Forum – Inglewood, CA 9/28 – Pechanga Arena – San Diego, CA 10/2-10/3 – Oakland Arena – Oakland, CA 10/6 – Matthew Knight Arena – Euguene, OR 10/9-10/10 – Angel of the Winds Arena – Everett, WA 10/23-10/24 – The Orion Amphitheater – Huntsville, AL 10/30-10/31 – CFG Bank Arena – Baltimore, MD 12/4 – Saenger Theatre – New Orleans, LA 12/5 – Smoothie King Center – New Orleans, LA 12/9 – Smart Financial Centre – Sugar Land, TX 12/11 – Dickies Arena – Fort Worth, TXThe post Billy Strings Continue To Debut New Music On Tour, Performs Unreleased “Wilted Flowers” & “Love Among The Tombstones” In St. Augustine first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Eric Church shined during his hometown show in Charlotte, North Carolina. Chief is currently wrapping up his Free the Machine Tour dates for 2026. He’s actually only got two shows left, with a Jacksonville, Florida concert at VyStar Veteran Memorial Arena on April 10 and his final stop on the tour being April 11 in Tampa, Florida (at Benchmark International Arena). Last week, Church put on two shows in the Carolinas, and his April 4 tour date was incredibly special, because it acted as a hometown concert for the “Record Year” singer. Ashley McBryde, who has been performing in support of Church along the Free the Machine Tour, was even overwhelmed by the Charlotte concert and crowd: “Hearing Eric Church sing ‘Carolina’ in his hometown gave me all the feels that driving through Arkansas does. What a special night we all had together. Charlotte you’ve got a piece of my heart!” View this post on Instagram And the high-energy, hometown show also featured a staple of an Eric Church concert. If you go to see the Chief, there’s going to be a couple of songs that you are almost guaranteed to hear. Like other superstars, he’s going to play the hits for the people that paid their hard-earned money to come out and see him. That’s why Church will always have songs like “Springsteen” and “Drink in my Hand” in his setlist, and another fan-favorite, “Talladega,” almost always makes for a memorable moment. That’s because it’s become a bit of a tradition over the years for someone in the crowd to bring along a Dale Earnhardt No. 3 flag. When the time calls for it (A.K.A. when he breaks into “Talladega”), the country star seeks out the flag and has it passed up to the stage so he can proudly display it during the song. It’s a simple-yet-always-effective moment, and there’s just something about Church singing “Talladega” and holding up a Dale Earnhardt Sr. flag that never gets old. When it happened at his Charlotte concert last week, the crowd went wild, as you’ll be able to hear in this video below: @ashontheradio Is there really anything better than Eric Church in Carolina? #EricChurch #DaleEarnhardt #Charlotte@Eric Church @Spectrum Center ♬ original sound – AshOnTheRadio Can I get a “Dale yeah?” What else can you really say other than Eric Church is a hell of a showman? It’s awesome that this “Talladega” and Dale Earnhardt moment is something that’s consistently featured in his shows, and the transition from flag to scarf that Chief always pulls off is just another, remarkable display of showmanship. It’s important that we keep the legends of our past alive, and Eric Church (a legend in his own right) is doing his part to keep the spirit of the late, great Dale Earnhardt Sr. front and center at his shows. It’s enough to give you goosebumps every time you see it, and the concert tradition has become intertwined with the hit song itself. “Talladega” by Eric Church The post Does It Get Much Better Than Eric Church Singing “Talladega” With A Dale Earnhardt Flag? first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Could he pull it off? Over the past couple weeks, we’ve seen Colby Acuff make an incredible Cinderella run in our Whiskey Riff Madness tournament, with the #16-seed knocking off #1-seed Chris Stapleton, #9-seed Dierks Bentley, #4-seed Red Clay Strays, #6-seed Whiskey Myers, and finally taking down fellow Cinderella story #15-seed Shane Smith & the Saints to reach the championship matchup. But in the final round, Colby found himself facing one of the greatest bands in country music as he went up against the Turnpike Troubadours for the championship. So before we get to the winner, let’s take a look back at how we got here. For this year’s edition of our annual March Madness tournament, we took 64 artists from every corner of country music, from mainstream to Texas country to red dirt to Appalachia and everything in between, and we’re letting you vote for your favorite. We based the seeding on monthly Spotify listeners, which resulted in some fan favorites being seeded towards the bottom of the bracket. The mainstream country artists had a hard time this year, with voters clearly preferring Texas or Appalachia over Nashville: #1-seed Morgan Wallen fell to up-and-coming Texas native Hudson Westbrook in the Round of 32, and fellow #1-seed Luke Combs also made an early exit to #13-seed Sturgill Simpson in the Sweet Sixteen. The final #1-seed fell when Zach Bryan lost to #8-seed Zach Top in the Elite Eight, but then Zach went down in the next round to Texas-based Shane Smith & the Saints, leaving four independent artists battling it out. And for the championship, we were left with Turnpike Troubadours vs. Colby Acuff, two artists who I would venture to say share a lot of overlap in their fanbases. It was truly anybody’s game. Along the way, we’ve continued to set new records for the number of votes in our Whiskey Riff Madness tournament: We had over 68,000 votes in the Final Four, which absolutely blew the previous record of 20,000 votes out of the water – a record that had been set just two rounds earlier in this year’s Sweet Sixteen. Well spoiler alert, we set a new record in the championship round. We’ve been doing our annual Whiskey Riff Madness tournament for nearly a decade now, and it’s safe to say we’ve NEVER seen numbers like we saw in this round, which had over 110,000 votes cast in the past three days. And I know, you’re all ready to get to the champion. So without further ado, the winner of the 2026 Whiskey Riff Madness tournament is… Colby Acuff. I mean, was there ever any doubt? Colby jumped in early to rally his fanbase, waging a masterful meme campaign and never backing down, no matter who he was up against. View this post on Instagram And credit to his fanbase, they stepped up for him. I think it’s safe to say that Colby Acuff may have the most dedicated fans in country music at this point, because any time he put out the call we saw a massive surge of votes. At one point (maybe the only time he was down after the first round) Colby was behind by about 1,000 votes in the Final Four, but within an hour of Colby rallying his troops he had surged to take a 5,000 vote lead. Those are the kind of fans you want in your corner. So congratulations to Colby Acuff, who did indeed “DUNK THAT SHIT” and pulled off maybe the greatest upset of all time. It was David vs. Goliath, but with the heart of a lion and the help of CapCut and social media, Goliath never stood a chance. Never raise the white flag. The post WHISKEY RIFF MADNESS 2026: And The Winner Is… first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

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