Shoalsfest 2026 Features Jason Isbell, Drive-By Truckers, and Jeff Tweedy
The 2026 edition of Jason Isbell's Shoalsfest is going down Oct. 3 and 4 in Florence, AL's McFarland Park, and Isbell is going full-on jam band mode with this year's festival, performing not once or twice but three times over the course of the festival.
For Isbell fans, there's plenty to love at the top of the Shoalsfest lineup, as he and his band The 400 Unit will headline both nights. For anyone who has seen (or just read the setlists for) his annual multi-night Ryman Auditorium residency, there's no doubt that there will be enough variety in the setlist to make both nights worth checking out for fans. He's been known to throw an off-the-wall cover or two out at these multi-night runs that have to be seen to be believed.
That's not all the Jason Isbell you'll see at Shoalsfest 2026. Co-headlining night one of the festival is Drive-By Truckers, Isbell's old band. This time, Isbell will sit in for a full run-through of their groundbreaking 2003 album Decoration Day. You can hear the two songs Isbell wrote on the album, the title track and “Outfit,” as a rotating part of his normal setlist, but the chance to see Isbell cut loose on guitar on the rest of the album's tracks is going to be something special.
But it isn't just Jason Isbell and Isbell-adjacent bands playing Shoalsfest. Co-headlining night two of the festival is a solo performance by Wilco founder and vocalist Jeff Tweedy. Tweedy's done some solo tours in the past, but any chance to see him stretch his legs on his own is worth the price of admission.
The other two artists performing at Shoalsfest 2026 are S.G. Goodman and Willow Avalon. Goodman is as fast a rising star as there is in roots music, being featured in pretty much every major music publication over the past few years. Goodman also won the Americana Music Award for Emerging Artist in 2023 and has followed it up with a pair of Americana nominations for her album Planting by the Signs and her song “Snapping Turtle.”
Willow Avalon may be the least famous artist on the Shoalsfest roster, but that doesn't make her an unknown. She's been named an Artist to Watch by The Tennessean, and her latest album Pink Pocket Pistol features collaborations with Midland, Kaitlin Butts, and Jason Isbell.
If that seems like a small lineup for a two-day festival, it's that way on purpose. One of the appeals of Shoalsfest is that every artist on the lineup gets time to perform a full set. If you're tired of those 20-minute mini-sets at the megafests, Shoalsfest will be right up your alley.
You can get full weekend tickets to Shoalsfest 2026 for $150 or single-day tickets for $100 at Shoalsfest.net.