When Country Splash Cabo co-founder Robert Fried first talked to Billboard about launching the destination festival in Cabo San Lucas, he said, “One of the core concepts [is] to be the opposite of a major field festival. The intent is to be up close and personal where you can see your favorite country artists from 100 feet away instead of watching on an LED screen.”
Mission accomplished.
The first (hopefully) annual event took place Sept. 4-6. Country Splash bought out the 350-room/suite Paradisus Cabo San Lucas, an all-inclusive luxury beachfront resort, as well as made deals with surrounding hotels to create a peak destination musical experience.
With headliners Tucker Wetmore, Jon Pardi and Riley Green, the poolside festival also featured an undercard that included such developing talent as Jacob Hackworth, Blake Whiten, Zach John King and Lauren Watkins. Rounding out the bill were Dasha, LoCash and Cameron Whitcomb, who were among the best received acts of the event.
The live acts started right after sundown. The temperature was still sweltering — it was 88 degrees with 67% humidity at 9:15 p.m. Saturday night — but at least it no longer felt like 106 degrees as it had earlier in the day, in the blistering sun. The heat had main character energy in virtually every act’s set: At one point, Dasha declared, “I’ve never had so much sweat drop down my body before.”
Fried built the event around intimacy and capped attendance at 3,000 people this year (potentially expanding to 5,000 attendees for future years), making it about half the size of Luke Bryan’s Crash My Playa in Cancun. Despite having to the navigate around the massive pool (as if that’s a negative), it never felt overcrowded, and there was always ease of movement between the stage, the vendor stands and bars. The only thing occasionally blocking sightlines were the palm trees. There was even a wellness element that included a yoga class with Diplo on Saturday.
The festival is among the growing number of music events highlighting American country music in Mexico, catering to tourists and Mexicans alike as the genre’s popularity swells in the country. Country Splash may be the most luxe offering: All-inclusive suites at the Paradisus went for as high as $10,000 for four nights, but there were also one-day general admission passes available for as low as $199, according to the event’s website.
Here are the highlights from the inaugural year.
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Riley Green Links the Future With the Past
Green, who closed the festival Sunday night (Sept. 6), proved again what a thoroughly engaging entertainer he is, giving a no-frills, solid performance steeped in authenticity and warmth. Like his musical heroes, such as Alan Jackson, Green didn’t run around or move away from the mic stand much at all. Instead, he simply he ran through hit after hit (ever since Green went from steadily rising star to supernova over the past two years, he’s been racking up the hits at an incredibly fast pace). It’s easy to see Green turning into a modern-day country standard bearer; his unabashed love for old-school country and his own talent as a superb solo songwriter is an unbeatable combination.
He brought out Watkins to fill in for Ella Langley on “Don’t Mind If I Do,” and she gave the duet a sweeter, more wistful feel than the original’s burnished longing. He also roughed up “Change My Mind,” adding a tantalizing, almost menacing edge to it. He threw in his usual covers of Toby Keith and Alabama songs, but the best was his sinewy cover of Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” which he first covered earlier this year.
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Cameron Whitcomb Electrifies
Whitcomb, hands down, gave the most energetic set of the fest, mesmerizing the crowd. While he’s new to many folks, he’s already a star in his native Canada: His album The Hard Way earned a Juno Award earlier this year, and Whitcomb is up for entertainer of the year at Sept.19’s Canadian Country Music Awards.
It’s a sign of country’s expanding borders that there’s room, thankfully, for someone like Whitcomb, who combines pop-punk, rock and country in equal measure (OK, let’s say 50% pop-punk). Performing shirtless (as he did at Stagecoach) and showing off his tattoo-covered torso and arms, he didn’t say much to the audience, letting the music lead.
Whitmore’s a coiled bundle of nerves on stage, pacing back and forth, even doing a back flip, as he somehow combines some of the most forthright, dark lyrics about addiction (take these lyrics from “Options”: “Wake up at home or in a coffin/ It’s nice to know I got options”) and depression with an overall uplifting performance. He proudly declared that at 23, he’s now three years sober. There was a raw power to his music and performance brought on by a fearlessness that makes him one to watch.
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LoCash Brings the Party
LoCash always understands the assignment. As anyone who has seen them knows, LoCash’s Preston Brust and Chris Lucas are a party in human form. As they ran through their hits, including “I Know Somebody,” “I Love This Life,” “One Big Country Song” and last year’s No. 1, “Hometown Home,” they also turned into human jukeboxes blending in tunes like Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” Tim McGraw’s “Truck Yeah” (which they co-wrote), the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” and countless more.
But where they really won over the crowd was by bringing out a mariachi trio they found when they went into town on Saturday. Donning sparkly sombrero de charros (traditional Mexican hats) along with the trio, they sang their hit “Ring on Every Finger” before an impromptu, and appropriately slapdash, “La Bamba.” The crowd ate it up, following every song and waving their arms in unison. It was the feel-good performance of the fest.
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Sunset Sessions
The organizers took coziness to a new level with two concerts around a firepit at 6:45 p.m. before the doors officially opened, making it one of the perks of staying on the premises. On Saturday night, Zach John King and Jon Pardi separately performed two songs accompanied only by acoustic guitars. On Sunday, it was Riley Green, Dasha and Lauren Watkins’ turns. Dasha, who gave a lively mainstage performance Friday night, gave off the fest’s best line when talking about using her dismal love life as fodder for songs, noting, “Men are business expenses at this point.”) Pardi was also feeling confessional, reminding the audience he was “freshly single” and jokingly added, “What’s up, girls? Hey, I’m not trying to be a man whore,” stressing he’d been through “a lot of therapy.” He then dedicated “Head Over Boots” to ex-wife Summer saying “because I love her. I love you too.” There must have been something in the air because Green admitted as he took the stage, “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been drinking and I just took a weed gummy,” as he started his short set.
It was thrilling to see all of them, especially Pardi and Green, in such up-close settings in a way that teased their upcoming full-band electric sets but didn’t distract from them. It’s an idea that should be expanded on to include songwriter rounds at future events — perhaps in the afternoons.
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Tucker Wetmore’s Keyboard Chops
Anyone who’s seen Wetmore in concert knows he shimmies and wiggles around on stage in his half-unbuttoned shirt like a modern-day Elvis, unlike so many country male artists who stay pretty much glued to one spot. (At several points, female fans were screaming for Wetmore to “take it off,” as he kept unbuttoning his shirt. “We’ll not be doing that,” he finally answered.)
Wetmore, who headlined Friday night, continues to grow as an entertainer, but he also prides himself on his serious piano playing chops. The self-taught Wetmore trots the keys out every show for a short segment, but fans got a little extra on Friday night when he sat down at the keyboard and, in an effort to cool off a bit, stayed there longer than normal, going from Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” into Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and then remarking, “I don’t want to get off the piano yet” before improvising into Journey’s “Faithfully.” We’re looking forward to an album where Wetmore really leans into his piano side.
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Jon Pardi Prevails
Most of the performers commented on the stifling heat, but poor Pardi, the headliner for night two, seemed to be suffering the most because — as he confessed about half-way through his 75-minute set — he’d also been battling a cold for a few weeks. He added, “It’s been killing me. I’m not my best.” In addition to the stifling heat — like Wetmore, his shirt was soaked through with sweat within 20 minutes of starting his performance — and his cold, Pardi said he was also having trouble hearing himself over his band. He finally opted to sing a few songs solo, just him and a guitar, including “She Ain’t in It” and “Night Shift.” “I don’t sound too bad when I can hear myself,” he joked.
But the truth was he didn’t sound bad at all. In fact, he sounded pretty great, especially as the neo-traditionalist ran through hits like “Ain’t Always the Cowboy,” “Last Night Lonely” and “Heartache Medication,” after opening with a cover of Johnny Horton’s “Honky Tonk Man.”
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Perfect Music Mix
Country Splash Cabo was not for you if you wanted 12 hours of live music a day. It was way more chill than that. And, quite frankly, given the heat, if people were standing poolside on the hot concrete in front of the stage during the daytime, they’d probably be dropping like flies — as would the acts.
This was the fest to hang by — o r better yet, in — the pool during the day. Even though the live music only took place at night, it didn’t mean there wasn’t music throughout the day. Both Saturday and Sunday afternoon there were poolside DJ sets starting with ADHD, the DJing alter ego of Nashville mega-songwriters/producers Ashley Gorley and Jesse Frasure, who have written more No. 1 country songs than anyone can count. Their set was mainly comprised of their remixes of hits for artists like Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll and Sam Hunt, with classics from The White Stripes, Dolly Parton and Nirvana mixed in. Diplo, who came straight from Burning Man and a set in Vegas, followed with a smooth, intoxicating mix of country, pop and rock mixes. We’re not sure how many other DJs can segue from The Ramones’ “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go” into Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochie.”
On Sunday afternoon, VAVO, the duo that credits themselves with helping spawn the YEEDM movement, led a fun poolside set followed by Dee Jay Silver, everyone’s favorite country DJ. Silver was omnipresent, not only DJing Sunday afternoon, but between sets all weekend long to earn the unofficial title of hardest working man of the fest (OK, maybe second to founder Rob Fried).
