Sturgill Simpson Debuts Melancholy New Music at Outside Lands Festival

Sturgill Simpson is, once again, in the midst of an intriguing creative restart. The ambitious country/psych-rock/bluegrass artist announced earlier this summer that you can call him Johnny Blue Skies now, the better to match the melancholy tone of his eighth studio album, Passage du Desir. If you’re wondering why he’s doing all this, he’s got a bunch of shows coming up this late summer and fall that he’s calling the Why Not? Tour.

Sturgill — er, Johnny — launched that tour on Aug. 11 with a festival performance at San Francisco’s Outside Lands, giving many fans their first chance to see some of his new music in action. For most, it was their first chance in years to see him at all: His last tour, in 2021, ended abruptly with the announcement that he’d injured his vocal cords.

His headlining set on the festival’s third night included just two Passage du Desir songs: “If the Sun Never Rises Again,” making its world debut, and “Right Kind of Dream,” which he played for the first time at a warm-up show at a local club two nights earlier.

Beginning the set with rollicking versions of “Railroad of Sin,” from his 2013 debut LP, and “Brace for Impact,” from 2016’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, Simpson and his band shook off any rust right away. In a shaggy moptop hairdo and Chuck Taylor sneakers, he ripped one mean solo after another, reminding everyone that he’s a rock star by any name. 

“Right Kind of Dream” appeared four songs into the set as a hard-charging number that kept the momentum going strong. A few minutes later, the band broke out a cover of Procul Harum’s 1967 hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” New band member Robbie Crowell, formerly of Midland, held down the song’s famous organ part, and Simpson delivered his vocals soaked in heartache.

After a pair of Metamodern songs (“Life of Sin,” “Living the Dream”), Simpson debuted “If the Sun Never Rises Again,” with its smooth-cruising sound and soulful vocals: “I still don’t know why you let me in/Were you just lonely? Did you need a friend?/Did you see a broken man you thought you could mend?” Simpson punctuated the verses with lyrical lead guitar parts, harmonizing with bandmate Laur Joamets’ playing.

“I just wanna say real quick — this is all I’m gonna say tonight because I don’t like to talk when I could be singing,” Simpson told the crowd. “This is our third time playing in Golden Gate Park. We did Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in 2014, we did Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in 2018, and now we’re playing Outside Lands in 2024. And I think most of these guys were in the band for most of those shows, and those were some of the greatest shows we’ve ever gotten to play in the whole history of the band, driving around the world, fucked up out of our heads, doing this stuff.”

He added: “All of you have a big, bright light inside of you. Let that shit shine, all right?”

Earlier in the weekend, Kacey Musgraves came out as a surprise guest during Night Two headliner Sabrina Carpenter’s set for a cover of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” The Killers headlined Night One.

The Why Not? Tour is scheduled to resume on Sept. 14 in Los Angeles, running for two months before wrapping in Boston on Nov. 23.