A week earlier, the Atlantic had been tearing at the dunes by the Ocean City Inlet. On Friday night, that same stretch of sand belonged to Lainey Wilson.
Country Calling opened its two-day run Oct. 2 on a downtown beach that town crews spent the week regrading after the nor’easter that canceled Oceans Calling. Gates opened at noon. The music ran from 12:30 p.m. to an 11 p.m. curfew, more than 10 hours across three stages named Boot, Scoot and Boogie. The bill stretched from an Australian rodeo rider and a Canadian crop-duster’s daughter to a Red Dirt firebrand and the woman who sang Dolly Parton’s final duet. Four sets were interpreted in American Sign Language: Belles, Rascal Flatts, Dierks Bentley and Wilson.
The early afternoon: three countries, one beach
Elijah Scott opened the day on the Scoot stage at 12:30 p.m. The Banning, California, singer-songwriter blends country and Americana with soul and R&B rhythms, on songs like “Cigarettes” and “Turnin Into Something.”
At 1:15 p.m. on the Boot stage, Wade Forster played for the crowd that had traveled the shortest distance, though he had traveled the farthest of anyone on the bill. The 28-year-old grew up in Winton, Queensland, in Australia’s rodeo country. He started posting guitar covers between rodeo runs and paid for his first recordings with prize money. This year he won Male Artist of the Year at Australia’s Golden Guitar awards and brought his Aftermath tour to North America. His 45-minute set opened with his breakout single “Anytime, Anywhere, Antoinette” and included “Rodeo Romeo” and “Can of Worms.”
At 2 p.m., Noeline Hofmann brought the Alberta Badlands to the Scoot stage. She grew up in Bow Island, Alberta, in a family of farmers and crop dusters. In 2023 she posted a TikTok of her song “Purple Gas,” named for the dyed fuel farmers use, and it caught Zach Bryan’s attention. Their duet charted on the Billboard Hot 100. She has since played the Grand Ole Opry, earned a 2026 Juno nomination for Breakthrough Artist and landed an opening slot on Shaboozey’s fall tour.
3 p.m.: Belles and Kaitlin Butts
The day’s toughest scheduling choice came at 3 p.m., when two very different women took stages at the same time.
On the Boogie stage, Belles played a 45-minute set. The Nebraska native moved to Nashville at 19 with no industry connections. She came to Ocean City as one of the last artists to record with Dolly Parton. Her song “Son of Jolene” imagines the son of Parton’s famous redhead inheriting his mother’s charm. She wrote it after meeting a woman named Jolene on tour, and her publisher got it to Parton’s longtime producer, Kent Wells. A week later, Parton wanted in. The two recorded harmonies together last November.
Parton died Aug. 26 at 80, after a brief battle with cancer. “Son of Jolene” became her last collaboration released before her death. It was also her first original song on country radio since her 2006 duet with Brad Paisley. One more Parton recording remains unheard: “My Place in History,” recorded in 2015, is sealed in a time capsule at Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort until Jan. 19, 2046, which would have been her 100th birthday.
“I just want to do Dolly proud and continue to honor her legacy,” Belles has said. Her debut album, “Midwestern,” comes out Oct. 16.
At the same hour on the Boot stage, Kaitlin Butts played an hour-long set. The Tulsa native is one of the Oklahoma Red Dirt scene’s most dynamic voices. Her 2024 album “Roadrunner!” includes a duet with Vince Gill and a cover of Kesha’s “Hunt You Down.” She would come back to the same stage two hours later.
The afternoon build
Mitchell Tenpenny delivered the day’s most unexpected set on the Scoot stage from 4 to 5 p.m. He ran his own “Fly” into Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It” and Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me,” then paired “Bitches” with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” about as close to a beach anthem as music gets. Between the detours came “Truth About You,” “Alcohol You Later” and “Drunk Me.” He closed with a cover of the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris.”
At 5 p.m., two sets ran side by side. On the Boogie stage, Redferrin played one of the day’s best inside jokes. Blake Redferrin, of White House, Tennessee, raced professional Arenacross until an injury pushed him into songwriting, and his early credits include Florida Georgia Line’s “Lil Bit.” So when “Lil Bit” turned up fifth in his 12-song set, it wasn’t a cover so much as a songwriter taking back his own work. He also played “Jack and Diet Coke,” his gold-certified single, along with “Red In My Last Name” and “Mossy Oak.”
Over on the Boot stage, Wyatt Flores offered something quieter. The 25-year-old from Stillwater, Oklahoma released his second album, “Scared of Heights,” in July, two years after stepping away from touring to care for his mental health. Butts, who sent him care packages and advice during that break, rejoined him on the same stage for “Sober Sundays.” His 15-song set also included covers of Sturgill Simpson’s “You Can Have the Crown” and the Fray’s “How to Save a Life.” He ended with “Losing Sleep” and “Runnin’ On E.”
Russell Dickerson took the Scoot stage from 6 to 7 p.m. and stacked his radio hits back to back: “Worth Your Wild,” “Home Sweet,” “She Likes It,” “Blue Tacoma,” “Every Little Thing” and “Yours,” the wedding-playlist staple. He also slipped Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” into one medley, and Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” into his closing run.
From there, the night ran without a gap. Rascal Flatts played the Boot stage from 7 to 8:15 p.m. Dierks Bentley followed on the Scoot stage from 8:15 to 9:30, carrying the crowd from sunset into the headline slot.
Lainey Wilson: the whole story in 17 songs
Wilson closed the night on the Boot stage with a 90-minute set that ran right up to the 11 p.m. curfew. Her setlist, as posted, ran 17 songs and was paced for momentum rather than chronology.
She opened fast with “Can’t Sit Still” and “Wildflowers and Wild Horses.” In the middle stretch, she turned reflective with “Those Boots (Deddy’s Song),” her tribute to her father, and “Things a Man Oughta Know,” the song that broke her through on country radio. Her recent single “Somewhere Over Laredo” and “Call a Cowboy” followed. “Country’s Cool Again,” which shares its name with her current tour, came sixth.
Then the set turned into a party: “Watermelon Moonshine,” “Bell Bottoms Up,” “Hang Tight Honey” and “Smell Like Smoke.” She saved “4x4xU” and “Heart Like a Truck” for the end. “Heart Like a Truck” is the closest thing she has to a signature song, built for a beach crowd shouting every word into the wind off the Atlantic.
One name missing
Travis Tritt, recovering from pneumonia, withdrew the day of the show. His team said he would “unfortunately be unable to perform at the Country Calling Festival in Ocean City, Maryland, this weekend.”
A town that needed the weekend
For boardwalk businesses that lost the Oceans Calling crowds a week earlier, Friday brought relief. “This Friday compared to last Friday is already off to a better start,” the head chef at The Dough Roller told WBOC.
The beach still has a long way to go. A $27 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers replenishment project, scheduled to begin this month, will pump about 800,000 cubic yards of sand back onto Ocean City’s shoreline, as the Chronicle reported.
Day 2 brought Chris Stapleton, Miranda Lambert, Brothers Osborne, Dustin Lynch, Charley Crockett, Clay Walker, Jackson Dean, Rodney Atkins and Carter Faith to the Inlet.
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