Chicago Proves To Be More Than A Little Bit Country As Windy City Smokeout Dominates At The Westside Music Festival

Jul 15, 2024 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews Comments Off on Chicago Proves To Be More Than A Little Bit Country As Windy City Smokeout Dominates At The Westside Music Festival

By Kelly Clausen

Chicago is home to some massive music festivals. We have something for everyone from Lollapalooza’s seemingly never ending indie pop reign on the lakefront to North Coast electronic focus EDM fest to the home town favorite punk rock leader Riot Fest, we’ve got it all and that’s not including all the neighborhood fests and block parties. So it only makes sense that we have a country music festival. The organizers of the Windy City Smokeout fulfill that gap and have been for over a decade.

Starting back in 2013 in a small parking lot of River North, the festival has proven its popularity and expanded to the massive parking lots outside United Center. There’s a noticeable difference between where they started and where they are today, starting with the numbers. At the beginning, they roughly had 10,000 people attending for their 3 day festival. Now, they’re over 15,000 people a day! And it’s grown to 4 days.

This year they’ve brought out more heavy hitters in the country music scene including Thomas Rhett, Parker McCollum, Cody Johnson and Carrie Underwood.

On top of the music, there’s the other half of the festival, the food. What’s goes best with country music, barbecue of course! I mean when you think of country music, you can’t help but think of southern culture, fashion, wide open spaces and grilling pits. The BBQ they bring in for this festival is equally as legendary as the musical acts bringing in pitmasters from around country and here in Chicagoland.

Where else can you sample legendary ‘que from our home town, but Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Carolina’s and other southern states all in one place and the same time? No where but at Windy City Smokeout.

In The Loop Magazine partook in this deaply this year and held an onsite brisket judging contest with our staff and randomly selected guests. We sampled all the brisket vendors and determined a winner, fan favorite, based on tenderness, taste, cut of beef, smokiness and overall flavor.

We sampled brisket from Timothy Cottini’s Bub City (Chicago), Josh Broderick and Rory Asher’s Jack Stack Barbecue (Kansas City), Scott and Bekke Holmes’ Little Miss BBQ (Phoenix), Mitch Benjamin’s Meat Mitch BBQ (Kansas), Miriam Wilson and Scott Roberts’ Salt Lick (Texas), Mike Johnson’s Sugerfire Smokehouse BBQ (St. Louis) and Jordan Wright’s Wright’s Barbecue (Arkansas).

The overall winner, fan favoritre, was Jordan Wright’s Barbecue. On our scale of 1-10, they received a 9.5 out of 10. Followed closely by Bub City getting a 9 out of 10 and Little Miss BBQ with a 8.5 out of 10.

Back to the music.

Each day brought a new artist. Opening night was Chase Rice and Thomas Rhett. This was the coolest temperature day of the 4 day festival with each day getting hotter and stickier than the last.

Rice, a television personality from the Survivor TV series, performed to a loud crowd of fans. The North Carolinian and former pit crew member, came out promoting his 2023 release, “I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go To Hell” and past tracks throughout his almost 15 year career.

Thomas Rhett, son of Rhett Atkins, is a country star in his own right. He’s well into his career with six albums under his belt including a soon to be released seventh album, “About A Woman” due out in just weeks. On this night, we heard a track from that album, “Beautiful As You” as well as other hits throughout his career.

Friday brought in Lee Brice and Parker McCollum. Brice, a songwriter for many other country artists before making it on his own, played through his catalog including the apropo, “Parking Lot Party”, “More Beer” and “Crazy Girl” which was accompanied by many in the crowd.

McCollum ran deep through his hits that range from blues to root rock, soul and folk. Starting off with a video show of a lightning storm and his opening track off last years, “Never Enough” album, “Hurricane”.

Saturday was a day that started with incumbent weather with passing rain showers in the early morning and later evening that required all to evacuate the premise to a near by shelter until the storm passed.

Billy Currington and Cody Johnson headlined the night with their sets heating up the crowd who responded with chants of “U-S-A” and “Don-Ald-Trump” as word spread around that an assassination attempt was made on Trump’s life earlier in the day. You could feel a downward trend in audience response and vibe. You could see groups of people with heads down just staring at their phones. Surprisingly nothing from the festival was announced and the show went on.

The award winning CoJo continued with hits from his almost 20 year career including new songs off his latest release “Leather”. Side note, he cut his chops here in Chicago years back as a regular at Joe’s on Weed Street. This night, he burned through “Dear Rodeo”, “People in the Back” and then brought it down for “Fenceposts”. Ending on “Til You Can’t” and and encore of “Diamond in my Pocket” helping to get people back up and staying positive.

But Johnson couldn’t hold back and finally spoke about the earlier political incident asking fans for unity and shun political, radical, racial and religious divisions. Expressing sides or affiliations didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was togetherness and the Red, White and Blue. Then rolling right into, “God Bless America”. A true professional, Johnson calmed his fanbase and stayed positive through the end.

Sunday. The final day of the festival. This day was the steamiest, nastiest day of the weekend by far. The heavy rains the night before soaked the land and brought out the mugginess. The high heat didn’t help, but fans didn’t care as this seemed to be the busiest day of the fest. Massive crowds flanked the lot from end to end. It probably helped that closing out the event was American Idol winner and Billboard Hot 100 chart topper, Carrie Underwood.

The day was kicked off a little different. Sets were bumped up an hour earlier than scheduled. We’re assuming because of the impending weather that was coming. All weather stations predicting a major storm would be rolling through again but this time before the festival night would have been over. This threw many off though as it doesn’t seem it was advertised well and the app notices didn’t reflect this, still showing start times for artists at the original times. For some, who arrived later, they missed some artists completely.

Newcomer, and viral singer songwriter, Nate Smith came out before Underwood. Sporting a Cubs jersey and black shorts (might have been the first male artists to come out not wearing skin tight wranglers) and working over the crowd pacing up and down the runway. He paused between songs and asked the crowds to come alive and rise up. Dividing up each side of the stage in great cheers. No matter how hot it was, the fans kept going especially for his hit, “Wildfire”. He even did a Foo Fighters cover of “My Hero”.

The headliner of headliners was up next. Queen Carrie Underwood took the stage but was meet with technical difficulties. As the band started in with “Church Bells” the singers voice could not be heard. The band played on, but we couldn’t hear he amazing voice and it seemed she wasn’t aware of this. The confused band seemed to be looking around for help but it never came. So they kept playing through with the help from the audience completing Underwoods parts.

“Undo It” was next and again, started out with no vocals for Underwood. But this time the fans weren’t having it. They shouted at the house and band to stop and fix it. Finally, one of Underwoods backup singers gave her a working microphone and all was well again. The fans went wild cheering the Idol singer along.

After that, Underwood let us know that she wasn’t aware she couldn’t be heard because she could hear herself and no one told her otherwise. Now with a good working mic in hand, she powered through the night like the pro she is.

“Southbound” was loud and clear. As well as the rest of the night. She broke out all the fan favorites including “Jesus Take The Wheel”, “Cry Pretty”, “Last Name” a cover of Guns n Roses “Paradise City” and ending with the powerful, “Before He Cheats” Proving why she’s know as Country Music’s Reigning Queen, not only sounding fantastic, but looking fantastic as well. She’s obviously keeping up with her heath and fitness routines. “Carr-dio” was on full display – just go girl!

The fans at this festival are all in. They come fully decked out in their best country attire ready to show off. Ladies wearing skirts and cowboy boots, guys in their Wranglers and cowboy hats.

The grounds are littered with Instagramable spots. You can pose with a giant pig, stand by a wall of guitars, swing on a giant rope swing and make your stand at the classic festival sign showing all you were there.

For others, they have plenty of shopping and even old western bars where you can swing through the wooden doors. Games set up all around with giant Jenga or toss the bags. There’s never a dull moment at Windy City Smokeout. Even if you don’t like or know an artists, there are plenty of other things to see and do to fill in the time or take a break. Let’s see what 2025 brings.