Last fall, a group of my high school friends and I decided that we would buy tickets to Stagecoach, a huge country music festival held in Palm Springs every year.  It is at the same location as Coachella, just one week later.

In the words of Luke Bryan “We are not at Coachella, we are at COUNTRYchella!”

Those of you who know me, know that I am a huge country music fan! I tried telling this to my friend’s parents when we were in Palm Springs this weekend and I don’t think they really believed me until they realized that I knew every word to every country song they had on their Spotify music playlist.

So needless to say, this was one of the best weekends of my life. I remember looking around on Day 2 and just thinking to myself, “These are my people!”

We were with about 20 of our friends from home, plus 4 of their families as well! We had 3 houses between all of us and we had a blast grilling out, swimming and just spending time together.

Day 1 (Friday)

Jana Kramer, Eric Paslay, Sam Hunt, Chris Young and Eric Church

This day was so great because it was the first time that I got to see a lot of my friends that I had not seen since last summer! It was so fun to catch up with everyone and talk about our plans after graduation. Plus, I was so excited about the first day of Stagecoach...

I like to say that I am a true Sam Hunt fan because I have been a die hard fan for a sold 2.5 years. He was the person I was most excited to see at Stagecoach and the running joke of the weekend was that I needed to meet him asap! #Mrs.Hunt.

Chris Young and Eric Church were good too, but to be honest, I was too busy walking around trying to find some of my other friends that I hadn't had a chance to see yet, so I didn't really get a chance to fully embrace their sets. 

Day 2 (Saturday)

Chris Stapleton, Joe Nichols, The Band Perry and Carrie Underwood

This was probably my favorite overall day of the weekend. One of my good friends, Daver, along with his family, planned a huge party along with a “Stagecoach Shootout.” Basically the shootout consisted of each person (probably about 40 of us) taking turns hitting a golf ball from their backyard to a small inflatable pool that they had put in the lake across from their house. In theory the shot didn’t look too difficult, but it took a while for someone to finally get it! Shout out to Mike!!

In my opinion, the best part was that they had the party catered by an incredible group of women who made authentic Mexican food, including hand making corn tortillas right in front of us! Yum!

When we got to the festival later that evening, we were able to catch about half of Chris Stapleton’s set.  He is just as good in person as you would expect.

My favorite act of the night however was The Band Perry. They were the first band that I had seen at the festival so far who really interacted with the audience, and you could tell that they really enjoyed being there. I had never seen them perform live before, and I was pleasantly surprised!

Day 3 (Sunday)

Dustin Lynch, Little Big Town and Luke Bryan

Day 3 was by far the best night in terms of musical performances. Dustin Lynch, Little Big Town and Luke Bryan were all unbelievably good! I have seen Luke Bryan in concert before and he is probably my favorite country artist of all time, so seeing him again in this setting was pretty cool.

The best moment of the night was when Luke brought the two previous acts back up on stage with him and they all did shots of tequila and started free-styling.  It was so obvious to me at that point that not only are they all great friends, but that they are very talented and have incredible voices.

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For me, this weekend was so special because not only did I get to listen to my favorite artists all weekend in the desert, but also because I was able to spend it with some of my oldest and best friends. I had a conversation with one of my friend’s dad this weekend and he was saying how incredibly lucky we are to have each other and still be this close even though we all went off to different parts of the country for College.

It’s rare to find such a big group lifelong friends at an early age, but I think that these people will always be in my life, and I am so thankful for that.

XOXO,

Rachael Claire