Billy Strings celebrated the release of So Much for Goodbyes by performing the entire album and live debuting 12 of its songs during the opening night of his two-day Ionia Freak Fair in Michigan.
The 16-song album, written or co-written by Strings with collaborators including Jan Fabricius, Pat McLaughlin and Tim O’Brien, arrived the same day as the Friday (8/28) show. After opening with the previously performed “I’m One of Those” and “Burn the Other End,” he introduced songs including “Carry Us Home,” “Lay Me Down,” “Lucid Daydream” and “Live to Tell” before a hometown crowd of approximately 35,000.
Strings played 29 songs across two sets, mixed in seven covers and welcomed Lindsay Lou, Alwyn Robinson, Mark Lavengood and Leftover Salmon. The night also included a tribute to Dolly Parton with “The Last Thing on My Mind,” and Strings demonstrated the festival’s stylistic reach by joining Canadian death-metal band Cryptopsy for “Open Face Surgery.”