Chris Stapleton’s ever-traveling All-American Road Show pulled into Ford Field Saturday night (Aug. 8) with a familiar load of sights and sounds.
No new tricks, no fancy bells and whistles — just two hours of premium songcraft, endearing authenticity and a crack band to rival any in modern country music.
Two years after his Ford Field debut, the 48-year-old, well-bearded Kentucky native returned bearing a set of road-tested songs drawn from across his 13-year public career, with the newest of them — the rattlesnake-booted “Bad as I Used to Be” — in the leadoff spot.
Stapleton is no leap-around-the-stage showman. But what he lacks in onstage charisma is more than compensated by good old red-blooded musical allure, driven by his raspy and elastic
tenor, adroit guitar work and sturdy body of songwriting. He's a versatile musician who pays reverence to classic country without letting himself get boxed in by it.
Stapleton’s status as a stadium-sized draw is an inspiring phenomenon, built largely on an organic fan connection rather than standard Nashville star-making machinery. Just five of his myriad singles have cracked the Top 10 on Billboard’s country songs chart, the traditional atlas of A-list success.
The Detroit branch of that audience was certainly dialed in Saturday as Stapleton traversed his catalog of blues-and-soul-infused country, including a closing crescendo of insta-crowd-pleasers (“You Should Probably Leave,” “Starting Over,” “Fire Away,” “Broken Halos”) that led to the most loved of them all: his breakout hit “Tennessee Whiskey.”
Earlier, “I Was Wrong” was a smoky, extended jam that showed off the chops of his accompanying ensemble, and its pairing with the Stapleton vocal showcase of the blues-rocking "Cold" created a potent one-two punch.
There were satisfying musical detours, like the funk-lite groove of “Think I’m in Love with You,” the gnarled honky tonk of “Hard Livin’” and a serviceable rendition of Al Green’s “I’m a Ram” that brought show opener Allen Stone back to the stage to trade vocal lines. The headliner’s wife, Morgane Stapleton, was a harmony companion with her hubby on numbers such as the forlorn “What Am I Gonna Do.”
The night was a particularly special occasion for band member and Detroit native Paul Franklin, a well-traveled pedal steel guitarist whose earliest professional work included teenage sessions with George Clinton’s Parliament at the turn of the 1970s. Onstage Saturday at Ford Field, to a roar from the hometown crowd, he was greeted by two representatives from the Potterville-based Michigan Country Music Hall of Fame for presentation of his 2026 induction plaque.
“One of the finest steel players alive,” Stapleton proclaimed.
Stapleton's spunky cover of the Georgia Satellites’ “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” found Lainey Wilson back onstage as a duet partner after her own hour-long opening set of muscular, twangy material.
Wilson's country-rocker “Can’t Sit Still” had kicked off a performance that featured her spiky new single “Phones, Keys, Wallet” alongside Western-flavored fare (“Good Horses,” “Somewhere Over Laredo”), the rollicking “Hang Tight Honey” and the closing power ballad “Heart Like a Truck.” Several years now into her mainstream breakthrough, the 34-year-old singer-songwriter still feels like an artist still poised for bigger things.
Stapleton will keep on trucking with 2026 dates scheduled through October, including a pair of shows later this week at Boston’s Fenway Park.
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Chris Stapleton, Lainey Wilson get country music rocking at Ford Field
