Summerfest Preview: July 9, 2017

Here's your guide to the acts playing at Summerfest on July 9, 2017. Scroll down for the full lineup.

Outlaw Music Festival
Featuring Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and Sheryl Crow
American Family Insurance Amphitheater
2 p.m.

Quite possibly the biggest spectacle of all of Summerfest’s American FamilyInsurance Amphitheater shows, the festival’s closing night concert is one ofthose “if you’ve never seen them before, now’s your chance” kind of bills.Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and their respective bands will lead a show billed asthe “Outlaw Music Festival,” joined by a wealth of younger talent includingSheryl Crow, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Nathaniel Rateliff & The NightSweats, Margo Price and Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real. At least one ofthose artists has new music to promote: Nelson released his latest album, God’sProblem Child, in April.

Nelson is something of a mainstay at Summerfest—he performed at the festival’sBMO Harris Pavilion just last year—while Dylan will be returning after aneight-year absence. His last performance at the Big Gig was in 2009, when hewas once again joined by Nelson. Sheryl Crow has also played the festivalbefore, and while she might seem like kind of an odd man out on the lineup (it’sdoubtful that anybody has ever called the “Soak Up the Sun” singer an “outlaw”),she’s a pretty sensational live performer whose rootsier material doesn’talways get the credit it deserves. She can give her older peers on the bill arun for their money. (Evan Rytlewski)

The Shins
BMO Harris Pavilion
9:45 p.m.

Of all the bands that brought the previously underground sounds of indie-rockinto the mainstream in the ’00s, few did it better or more distinctively thanThe Shins. While the band’s hooky pop songs won’t actually change anybody’slife—as Natalie Portman famously promised in the greatest eye-roll moment ofmany in Zach Braff’s Garden State—it’salways been a treasure to listen to, as comforting in its own way as a warmblanket and a cup of soup. Singer-songwriter James Mercer has a rare knack forconverting anxious thoughts into moments of wonder.

Since Mercer gutted the core of the band’s lineup following 2007’s Wincing the Night Away, the band hasbeen a solo project in all but name only, but he’s continued to make somefantastic records. 2012’s Port of Morrowwas filled with light, purposeful rock songs, and this year’s Heartworms is even better, a collectionof rich, luxurious psychedelic pop that consciously nods to the group’s beloved2001 debut album Oh, Inverted World—which,not coincidentally, was the last time Mercer attempted to self-record an album.Heartworms may not be the must-ownmasterpiece that those first couple of Shins albums were, but any record thisassured, this inventive and this effortlessly tuneful is worth celebrating.(Evan Rytlewski)

Blackberry Smoke
Briggs & Stratton
Big Backyard
9:45 p.m.

Blackberry Smoke might be more accustomed to playing rowdy clubs than largervenues such as the U.K.’s O2 Academy and Summerfest, but after 17 years andfive full-length studio albums—including last year’s critically acclaimed Like An Arrow—this authentic Southernrock band from Atlanta is finally bringing its robust blend of outlaw countryand rock to the masses. For starters, think Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Black Crowes, theMarshall Tucker Band and the Zac Brown Band.

Listen for set highlight “Sunrise in Texas,” a song on the new album that’sbeen part of the band’s live repertoire for a decade. As further evidence ofBlackberry Smoke’s mainstream status, the band recently attached its name to AshevilleBrewing Company’s Like an Arrow “blackberry infused” wheat ale. A portion of allsales benefit the SHARE Military Initiative at Shepherd Center in Atlanta toraise resources and awareness for injured post-9/11 war veterans undergoingtreatment for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. “We donot take care of our veterans,” Blackberry Smoke drummer Brit Turner said whenthe beer debuted. “It is our duty as citizens and humans to fix this, no matterwhat.” (Michael Popke)