Midland has been recalibrating. The Dripping Springs, Texas trio of Mark Wystrach, Jess Carson, and Cameron Duddy spent part of their career building a reputation for rhinestone-suited, steel-guitar traditionalism and part of 2024 releasing Barely Blue to an audience that wasn’t sure what to make of it. Stages, out this June on Blue Highway Records, is the correction: ten tracks produced by Trent Willmon, with material solicited from Dean Dillon, Josh Thompson, and Chris Stapleton. Saving Country Music, the genre’s most consistently rigorous critical outlet, rated it 8/10 and summarized it plainly: “Everything they got wrong on Barely Blue, they get right on this one.” That kind of critical turnaround tends to make for a live show with something to prove.
About the Show
The GRAMMY-nominated group — whose 5X Platinum “Drinkin’ Problem” reached No. 1 on Billboard Country Airplay and whose Let It Roll topped the Billboard Top Country Albums chart — arrives at The Vine Showroom on the middle night of a three-show northeast sweep, sandwiched between a December 17 date at Wind Creek Event Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and a December 19 date at College Street Music Hall in New Haven, Connecticut. No supporting act has been announced.
Stages draws its sound from what the band calls “Laurel Canyon country-rock, Texas outliers, and a shot of vintage Nashville,” a thread that Goldmine Magazine traced through Bakersfield, Texas’s iconic 1980s Western venues, and Nashville’s 1970s outlaw era. Goldmine described the album as “steeped in fiddle, pedal steel and honky-tonk soul, balancing barroom heartbreak with backbeat swagger.” Among its ten tracks: “Up In Texas” with Clint Black and “Drinkin’ Dark Whiskey,” co-written by Chris Stapleton. Cameron Duddy framed the album’s purpose plainly: “It’s a tribute to all the places where we’ve made our stand, but it’s also about all the phases and stages we’ve been through to get here.”
The band name, incidentally, derives from a Dwight Yoakam song, which tells you something about where their musical loyalties have always resided.
Venue & Logistics
The Vine Showroom at del Lago Resort & Casino sits on State Route 414 in Waterloo, on the western edge of the Finger Lakes. The room holds 1,400. Note the age restriction: attendance at any event at The Vine requires guests to be 21 or older; it is a casino policy and applies without exception. Show time is 8:00 p.m.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Tickets go on sale Friday, October 2. Buy tickets