What Lainey Wilson did after the wind briefly shut down Stagecoach

Lainey Wilson didn’t seem too worried about the high winds that temporarily shut down Stagecoach on Saturday night.

Headlining the festival’s main stage after an hour-long delay — during which fans were ordered to evacuate Indio’s Empire Polo Club before being allowed back in — Wilson looked out at the crowd in front of her and said of the unplanned break: “I hope y’all sat in your cars and drank some tequila.”

The whoops across the field suggested that might’ve been what happened.

Only the third woman to headline Stagecoach in the past five years, Wilson offered a tight, punchy showcase of the riff-heavy country-rock that’s made her one of Nashville’s biggest stars (after a decade-long come-up in which she’s said she lived in a camper trailer).

“Can’t Sit Still” and “Wildflowers and Wild Horses” were swaggering and Stones-y; “Country’s Cool Again” rode a funky down-home groove. To fill the big stage — it evoked a kind of desert oasis with a glittering horseshoe and a couple of prop cacti — Wilson brought along a horn section and background singers who turned “Dreamcatcher” into a psychedelic roots-soul fantasia.

Not long into the show, Wilson welcomed Little Big Town and Riley Green for an appealingly sloppy rendition — complete with drinks in plastic cups — of Merle Haggard’s “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink.” Then she let Green, whose scheduled performance was scotched because of the wind, stick around to do his “I Wish Grandpas Never Died.” (Also called off Saturday was Journey’s set on the Mustang stage.)

Wilson’s only other guest was the little girl she ushered onstage and pronounced “cowgirl of the night” during “Things a Man Oughta Know.” After that came the singer’s dreamiest hit, “Somewhere Over Laredo,” and an especially sultry take on “Watermelon Moonshine,” the nostalgia-drunk love song from 2023 that’s probably still her finest moment.

Lainey Wilson performs.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)