NELSONVILLE, Ohio – Waxahatchee caught the ears of Americana fans with her great 2024 album “Tigers Blood.”
Now she’s backing up the buzz with a heavy touring schedule that will continue all summer.
Waxahatchee – the stage name of Katie Crutchfield – proved that she’s the real deal with her headlining set Friday at the Nelsonville Music Festival. Her performance seemed like the start of a trajectory that will take her to the top tier of her genre.
The Alabama native, whose moniker was taken from a creek that flowed near her childhood home, is making the most of her opportunity. She is in the midst of a road stretch that includes quite a few festivals – including Farm Aid, with Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews, in Minneapolis in September.
Waxahatchee had already proven herself as a songwriter, and Friday’s concert on the opening day of the weekend fest showed she has performance chops to match. Her soulful Southern voice is confident and full of depth.
The concert, incidentally, came on the same Nelsonville stage where Lucinda Williams – a powerful early influence on Crutchfield – performed in 2023.
Backed by a full band, including a steel guitarist, Waxahatchee played 10 of the 13 songs on “Tigers Blood” during her 80-minute set, which also included new singles “Mud” and “Next to Me.”
She was joined on stage by MJ Lenderman, her lo-fi comrade and frequent collaborator, for “Right Back to It” and “Burns Out at Midnight.” Earlier in the day, Crutchfield lent backing vocals to Lenderman on his single “She’s Leaving You.”
With his fuzzy guitars and laconic delivery, Lenderman is also destined for big things.
Nelsonville Music Festival always toes the line between indie hipness and folk. Waxahatchee and Lenderman, a one-two punch of rising stars, were perfect choices for this year’s event.
The two appear on each other’s albums and often on the same lineup card.
The Scene
Nelsonville Music Festival takes place every summer at Snow Fork Event Center – a fancy name for a few acres of rolling greenery surrounded by woods just outside the Appalachian town that gives it its name. The site is just a few miles up the road from Athens, the home of Ohio University.
Other than Waxahatchee and Lenderman, the acts who made the strongest impact include Dehd, the Black Lips, Low Cut Connie and the Bug Club.
This year’s festival included more than the usual number of mellow artists, including the return of Bonnie “Prince” Billy. His evening set on the leafy Creekside Stage amphitheater was delivered to an enraptured crowd that remained stunningly silent for an hour.
Nelsonville is one of the most earth-friendly festivals in the world, and its space is as green and shady as it gets. But for the second year in a row, the three-day weekend was baked by an intense heat wave.
Last year, the festival took place in late July, which is the hottest time of the year. It was moved to June this year, and I expected the weather to be a lot more comfortable. But Mother Nature had other ideas.
Here are some other highlights and lowlights of NMF 2025:
Late-night heroics: The bands picked for the denouement slot – right after the headliner and just before the end of the night – at NMF are always unforgettable, and that was as true as ever this year with Dehd on Friday and the Black Lips on Saturday. Both were instantly recognizable, quirky, comical, unique, intense and the funnest bands at the fest.
Each member of Chicago-based trio Dehd brings something fresh to the table. Jason Balla bounced and gyrated like it was the only way to get the precise sounds he wanted out of his instrument. Emily Kempf’s offbeat vocals were delightfully commanding. And drummer Eric McGrady played standing up without a kick drum, popping the snare and tom and creating beat loops.
If you could distill the NMF sound and vibe into one band, it might be the Black Lips, whose punkabilly dance weirdness provided a much-needed jolt after Charley Crockett’s monotonous headlining set. The Lips seemed like the real headliner Saturday.
Snoozer: With his name up in neon lights behind the stage, Crockett definitely got the big-star treatment. Wearing a cowboy hat and jeans, the country-western artist played a 90-minute set that was low on musical dynamism, save for an occasional blast of New Orleans-ish trumpet. After last year’s Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album, Crockett is riding high. But he seemed out of place at NMF and slowed down the proceedings. Kudos to Nelsonville’s organizers for snagging the ascending star, but this was a swing and a miss.
Bugging out: Thousands of Welsh immigrants came to the hills of Appalachia a century ago to work the coal mines and make it their home. Likewise, the Bug Club – which also hails from Wales – made Nelsonville their home, if only for a weekend. The “Quality Pints” rabblerousers played two rowdy sets of UK pub punk rock.
Being hot: How hot was it? Being Dead is from sweltering Austin, Texas, and not even they could stand it, remarking on the heat several times during their set. Still, they endured, with co-leads swapping places on guitar through the set.
Remembering a friend: The late singer-songwriter Michael Hurley, who died earlier this year, has always been a mainstay of NMF and a symbol of its ethos. The fest paid tribute to him with a Creekside Stage celebration set just before Taj Mahal brought the weekend to a close Sunday evening. Many bands also mixed in Michael Hurley tributes during their sets.
Party starter: God bless Low Cut Connie for getting the party started Saturday with a sweaty high-energy set. The humidity was brutal when he took the stage at 5:30 p.m. At one point, he implored the crowd to raise an arm in celebration – and then saluted it for releasing a “funk” that no deodorant could mask.
Our neck of the woods: Cleveland was represented by PAL and Brood X, two goofy bands that are worth the price of admission if you get a chance to see them playing nearby.
World beat: The most exotic band at the fest was BALTHVS, a jam and groove trio out of Colombia.
Eclectic: Nelsonville might be the only festival in which you’re practically guaranteed to hear banjos (Larry & Joe), maracas (Brood X) and a theremin (Brood X again) in a single day.
Keeping stats: When you’ve been to as many rock fests as I have, you begin to keep statistics. I made up one category that I call the Quadfecta, for the best four shows in a row. The stretch of Lenderman, the Bug Club, Waxahatchee and Dehd on Day 1 of NMF 2025 is a definite contender for all-time best Quadfecta.
Youngstown radar: Have you ever been to an event in another part of the country and – amazingly – befriend a stranger only to discover later that they are also from Youngstown? It’s a phenomenon I call Youngstown Radar, and it was in full effect at NMF. I’m not sure what triggers it, but it could be anything from the way someone looks or acts, to what they drink or what part of the event they gravitate toward.
Pictured at top: Katie Crutchfield, who performs at Waxahatchee, on stage at Nelsonville Music Festival in southeastern Ohio on Friday. (Photo by Chris Crowell)