If Friday had been about The Long Road Festival fighting the weather, Saturday began with everyone looking at the sky and wondering whether we were about to do the whole thing again. Unfortunately, we were.
The Long Road Festival 2026
Saturday at Stanford Hall was wet. Properly wet. The sort of rain where waterproofs stop being an accessory and become part of the official country music uniform. But after Friday’s thunderstorms, evacuations and technical gremlins, there was a feeling around the site that it would take considerably more than another downpour to stop anyone now.
There was something else hanging over Saturday too. For months, this had been sold as Bailey Zimmerman’s night. His withdrawal had left The Long Road Festival with a rather sizeable hole at the top of the bill and the festival’s solution was about as unexpected as replacements get: Rolling Stones legend Ronnie Wood and his band, joined by Imelda May.
It was a booking that inevitably raised eyebrows. Bailey Zimmerman represents exactly where mainstream country is right now, while Ronnie Wood comes from a very different musical world. Was a Rolling Stone really the right person to headline The Long Road Festival? Was it an inspired last-minute booking or simply the biggest name available? After ending Friday wondering whether Baylen Leonard and his team could actually pull this one off, Saturday was finally going to give us the answer. First, though, there was an entire day of music to get through.
Hayley Jensen kicked things off with plenty of country-rock energy and the sort of voice capable of waking up even the dampest of early festival crowds. The Australian singer has spent years building a following both at home and internationally, and there was an assuredness to her performance that made an early slot feel considerably bigger.
Then came one of my highlights of the entire weekend. Bec O’Malley had already appeared on Friday, but Saturday felt like another step entirely. The Stockport singer-songwriter has been steadily making his mark on the UK country scene, blending modern country and Americana with storytelling that feels distinctly his own. There’s an honesty to what he does that immediately makes him likeable, without ever feeling as though he is trying too hard to convince you of it.
Seeing him take to the Rhinestone Stage was particularly impressive. It’s a big stage and one that can easily swallow an emerging artist, but O’Malley never looked lost on it. The songs carried, his personality connected and there was a sense that you were watching someone taking another significant step forward in real time.
Having already caught him across the weekend and then sitting down with him for an interview later in the day, he became one of those artists who seemed to encapsulate what The Long Road Festival does particularly well: giving emerging British talent a genuine platform alongside established international names. By the end of Saturday, Bec O’Malley wasn’t simply someone I’d enjoyed seeing at the festival; he was one of my discoveries of the entire weekend.
Brennen Leigh brought things back towards the traditional end of country. Her music has one foot firmly planted in the genre’s past, drawing from classic country, bluegrass and Western swing, and it provided a welcome contrast to some of the more contemporary sounds filling the festival. The Long Road Festival has grown considerably, but it has thankfully never forgotten the music that all of this grew from.
Noah James continued the day before Liam Price managed to gather a crowd around the rain-soaked VIP Stage. It wasn’t exactly the most inviting of conditions, but people stayed, huddled around the stage as Price played through the weather. His appearance carried a little extra significance too, having won The Long Road Festival’s competition the previous year to earn his opportunity at the festival.
But while Saturday gave Price a chance to introduce himself, his attention was already turning towards something considerably bigger. This was only the warm-up; tomorrow he would be stepping onto the Rhinestone Stage. From winning a competition to playing the biggest stage at The Long Road Festival — with a rain-soaked VIP Stage set somewhere in between — Sunday would be another big step on that journey.
Then came First Time Flyers. Twenty-four hours earlier I had been squeezed into a room with them while thunder and lightning brought the festival to a standstill, watching them keep everyone’s spirits up with an impromptu rendition of Coming Home. Now they were out of the shelter and back where they belonged: on a stage.
It was a nice continuation from one of Friday’s strangest and most memorable moments. That is one of the joys of a multi-day festival like The Long Road Festival; artists start appearing throughout your weekend rather than simply existing as isolated slots on a timetable.
Simon Howard offered another change of pace before Uncle Lucius brought some Texas grit to Stanford Hall. The Austin outfit have always occupied that space where country, southern rock, blues and Americana collide, and their heavier sound suited a Saturday afternoon that was becoming increasingly grey overhead.
Twinnie brought things firmly back towards contemporary country. She has become one of the most recognisable British artists to make the jump into the Nashville world, and that experience shows. There is polish to what she does, but enough personality and attitude underneath it to stop the performance feeling overly manufactured.
Shaylen was another Saturday standout. The Nashville-based singer brought a confident mix of modern country, pop and rock to the Rhinestone Stage, with the kind of big vocal that immediately feels built for a main stage. There was attitude to the performance, but also plenty of warmth, and she quickly won over a crowd that had spent much of the day battling the weather. On a Saturday packed with strong performances, Shaylen was one of those artists who perhaps arrived with a few people not knowing her name and left with considerably more remembering it.
Susto Stringband demonstrated once again how broadly The Long Road Festival is willing to interpret the term country. That variety remains one of the festival’s biggest strengths. Within a few hours you can move between traditional country, bluegrass, Americana, rock, folk and something considerably harder to categorise without any of it feeling out of place.
Hitching Post added another stop along the way before Ken Pomeroy brought something quieter and more intimate to the day. Those moments matter at The Long Road Festival. When the larger stages are getting louder and the site busier, there is something refreshing about finding an artist whose songs make you stop rather than shout. Although Ken had to pause while main stage music bled onto the Front Porch.
Jason Scott & The High Heat brought more grit and groove into the mix, another reminder that Saturday wasn’t simply a conveyor belt of interchangeable country artists. There were different sounds coming from every corner of Stanford Hall, and that sense of musical discovery remained even as attention inevitably started turning towards the night’s bigger names.
Before Ronnie Wood could answer the question everyone had been asking, though, there was Josh Ross. And Josh Ross was superb. The Canadian arrived at Stanford Hall with the sort of momentum that makes you wonder how much longer his name will continue appearing beneath other artists on festival posters. His music sits firmly in the modern country world, blending country storytelling with rock-sized choruses and radio-ready production, but live there is considerably more muscle to it.
What impressed me most was how effortless Ross made everything look. There was charisma without the constant need to demonstrate it and he worked the Rhinestone Stage crowd naturally. Even with the weather doing its best to make life difficult, the connection between stage and field never disappeared.
It was one of those sets where you can almost feel an artist outgrowing their position on the bill. The songs sounded huge, Ross looked completely at home on the main stage and, for much of his performance, I found myself thinking this might be Saturday’s set to beat. I was wrong.
Because now it was time to answer the question that had been hanging over The Long Road Festival since Bailey Zimmerman pulled out. Ronnie Wood and Imelda May.
When Wood was announced as Zimmerman’s replacement, there were inevitably doubts. Of course there were. One represents the current explosion of mainstream country, while the other has spent more than half a century as one of the most recognisable guitarists in rock ’n’ roll. On paper, it was a curveball. In reality, it was inspired.
From the moment Ronnie Wood walked onto the Rhinestone Stage, any lingering doubts about whether he belonged there began disappearing. Wood’s musical roots have always stretched far beyond The Rolling Stones into blues, roots, rock ’n’ roll and the American music that helped shape all of those genres. Add Imelda May into the equation and suddenly the whole thing made complete sense.
And then the rain really came down. Not drizzle. Not the annoying festival rain you can pretend isn’t happening. It poured. Yet hardly anybody seemed interested in leaving. If anything, the worse the weather became, the better the atmosphere got. Wood looked like he was having an absolute blast, while May was phenomenal. Her voice cut through the rain with astonishing power and the chemistry between the two of them made this feel nothing like a hastily arranged replacement show.
That was perhaps the greatest compliment you could give it. At no point did this feel like Plan B. Nobody was standing there thinking about who should have been on that stage. Nobody cared that this wasn’t the headline performance originally printed on the poster. Thousands of people were standing in the pouring rain watching a genuine rock ’n’ roll legend tear through a set alongside one of the finest voices of the weekend.
The Long Road Festival 2026
Any doubts about Ronnie Wood headlining The Long Road Festival after Bailey Zimmerman were gone. Completely. Wood and May’s take on Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 was one of those brilliantly unexpected festival moments that somehow summed the whole thing up. Around me were thousands of people singing and dancing while ponchos fought losing battles, Stetsons slowly surrendered to the rain and boots disappeared further into the Stanford Hall mud. And nobody cared.
There are festival sets you enjoy and then there are performances where, while you’re still standing there watching them, you realise people are going to be talking about this one afterwards. This was the latter. Not to get ahead of myself, because there was still another full day of The Long Road Festival to come, but Ronnie Wood and Imelda May may well have delivered the best performance of the entire weekend. And perhaps the most remarkable part was that it came from the booking people had questioned the most.
Friday night had ended with me asking whether Baylen Leonard and The Long Road Festival team could really pull off replacing Bailey Zimmerman with something so completely unexpected. By the end of Saturday, the answer was obvious. They hadn’t simply found someone to fill an empty headline slot; they had turned the loss of their Saturday headliner into one of the defining moments of The Long Road Festival 2026.
The pouring rain somehow made it even better. Under perfect blue skies it still would have been a great show, but there was something wonderfully unhinged about Ronnie Wood and Imelda May playing while the rain hammered down and thousands of people simply refused to go anywhere.
Saturday had given us Bec O’Malley taking another step forward, Liam Price looking ahead to his biggest stage yet, Shaylen winning over the Rhinestone Stage, Josh Ross looking every inch a future headliner and, against all expectations, Ronnie Wood and Imelda May producing something genuinely special. Friday had belonged to the thunder. Saturday belonged to Ronnie. And somehow, we still had Sunday to go.
Live review & photography of The Long Road Festival 2026 – Day Two @ Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, by Henry Finnegan on 29th August 202. Instagram: @finneganfoto | Facebook: @finneganfoto
The Long Road Festival 2026 – Day One: Come Rain, Shine Or Biblical Thunder
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