Newport Folk Festival 2023 day 2 pics & video (Jason Isbell, Jon Batiste, Angel Olsen, more)

Lis Sinatra

Jon Batiste’s wide-ranging headlining set covered Indigenous chanting, soul-based rock, New Orleans second line, and acoustic-based adult contemporary, and transformed blues standard “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” into a dense, existentially wounded churn. Despite rumors all day of a James Taylor collaboration, it was Lauren Daigle who joined Batiste on the Colbie Caillat-like “Saint Ferdinand” and a “Down by the Riverside”/”When the Saints Go Marching In” medley that led into the audience and then petered out. By then it was 7:30, and organizers anticlimactically announced the concert’s end to get ahead of the inclement weather that miraculously hadn’t arrived yet. Since it’s Newport, though, that was no guarantee that this year’s festival had seen the last of him. [Boston Globe]

After kicking off on Friday, the 2023 edition of Newport Folk Festival continued on Saturday (7/29) at Newport’s Fort Adams park. Ahead of Jon Batiste‘ “and Friends” set, Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit brought out Evan Felker of Turnpike Troubadours for “King of Oklahoma,” and SistaStrings for “Death Wish.” Turnpike Troubadours’ own set earlier in the day also featured a surprise guest, Tyler Childers, who covered John Prine’s “Paradise” with them, and joined them on “The Bird Hunters.”

Day two of Newport Folk also featured The Hold Steady (who brought out Josh Kaufman of Bonny Light Horseman), Aimee Mann, Angel Olsen, John Oates, Goose (who, like My Morning Jacket on Friday, had Animal of The Muppets join them on drums), Indigo De Souza, Bartees Strange (who wrote that he was “a bit limited with what I can play” because of a broken finger, but debuted a new song, “Homestead”), Alice Phoebe Lou, and more. Check out pictures by Emilio Herce and attendee-taken video below.