Somewhere between a Goo Goo Dolls ballad and a Whitney Houston dance-floor anthem, Ocean City’s beach stopped being strictly country. Across two days at Country Calling on Oct. 2 and 3, fan-edited setlist.fm entries show artists on all three stages reaching well outside the genre, and well back in time, for covers that ranged from a 1960s Nancy Sinatra hit to a song from this decade.
The widest swing came on Friday. Russell Dickerson’s setlist lists 13 songs, including “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” the Whitney Houston hit, folded into a medley, and Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” paired with his own “Happen to Me.” Mitchell Tenpenny’s 14-song entry goes further, listing a three-song run of Sugar Ray’s “Fly,” Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It” and Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me,” a medley that includes Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” and a late “Iris,” the Goo Goo Dolls ballad. Tenpenny’s hour on the Scoot stage was already described in the Chronicle’s Day 1 recap as a mix of his own songs and covers.
The Boot stage went in a different direction. Kaitlin Butts opened her set with her own rendition of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),” according to the Salisbury Daily Times, before moving into her single “White River.” Later on the same stage, Wyatt Flores’ 15-song list includes The Fray’s “How to Save a Life,” and Butts joined him for his song “Sober Sundays.”
Saturday’s covers leaned closer to home. Brothers Osborne, who told Fox Baltimore the show would be a homecoming for two brothers raised in Deale, Maryland, are listed on setlist.fm as playing Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” though that list is partial. Miranda Lambert’s 17-song entry shows covers of Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” and Audra Mae and The Almighty Sound’s “Little Red Wagon,” and the Chronicle’s Day 2 recap noted the crowd singing “Kerosene” back to her through the rain.
Treat the tally as a minimum. Fans edit setlist.fm, and many Country Calling entries were blank or partial when the Chronicle checked, including those for Chris Stapleton, Dierks Bentley, Rascal Flatts and Belles. Lainey Wilson’s 17-song list shows no covers at all, which may be accurate or may simply reflect what fans caught. No set has been confirmed by the artists or the festival.
The pattern fits a festival that works as a beach party. Country Calling ran two days this year, a week after a nor’easter canceled Oceans Calling, and fans came from as far as New York and Virginia, some wearing butterfly clips in honor of Dolly Parton, the Daily Times reported. A cover is a shortcut to a sing-along. At the water’s edge, with 25 acts to hear, a Whitney chorus or a Goo Goo Dolls hook gives everyone in the sand a line they know.
For artists, it is also a way to say who they listen to. Dickerson reached for pop and dance music, Tenpenny for 1990s and 2000s radio hits, Butts for 1960s pop and Osborne for a classic-rock anthem. None of it replaced the hits, but each pick is a small clue about what these performers listen to when they are not on stage.
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