Newport Folk Festival is famous for the unexpected. You never quite know who might walk onstage.

This year, Dave Matthews made his first-ever Newport appearance, joining a long tradition of unforgettable surprises that has included James Taylor, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton and more.

In this episode of Americana Curious, Ben Fanning and Zach Schultz pull back the curtain on what really happens at Newport Folk Festival—the surprise guests, spontaneous collaborations, intimate aftershows, and the community of music lovers that makes Newport unlike any other festival.

You'll hear what it was like when Dave Matthews suddenly appeared, why some of the world's biggest artists treat Newport differently, and why the festival sells out before a single artist is announced.

Plus, Ben and Zach share some of their favorite Newport moments and explain why the real magic may not be the artists onstage at all—it's the people who come back year after year.

Follow Americana Curious for more stories behind the artists, songs, and moments that make Americana music special.

Newport isn't just one of Americana's most historic music festivals.

It's a place where music history literally gets made.

Changing the course of popular music forever.

Newport has become famous for unforgettable surprise appearances and once in a lifetime collaborations.

Last set of the day was Nathaniel Ratliff and friends.

I'm walking with a guy who's got a Dave Matthews shirt on and he's going, I wonder who it's going to be?

And I said, wow, I just saw Dave Matthews.

It possibly could be him and he's losing his mind.

It's quite the scene.

The tradition, everybody is still alive.

And today Zach and I are going to pull back the curtain of what really happens at the Newport Folk Festival.

Brandy Carlisle at 4 o', clock, the Harbor Stage.

When she walks out on that stage this year and says, hello, Newport, the love of my life.

The magic like nowhere else.

Raw, real road worn.

The artists we feature aren't chasing fame, they're chasing truth.

I'm Ben Fanning with my co host Zach Schultz and this is Americana Curious, where we spotlight the unsung heroes of Americana music.

You'll get new songs, hard earned lessons,.

Stories behind the music, and a big shot of inspiration.

Follow the show and rate us on Spotify and Apple and leave a review on Apple to help more people discover the power of Americana.

Let's get Americana Curious.

Zach, welcome back from the Newport Fold Festival.

Thank you, Ben.

Zach's fourth year in a row.

I've been three previous years.

Before you went, what did you think it would be and what was it?

Well, what was actually true?

Well, you nailed it with the liner in your intro about Bob Dylan going electric.

Because for as long as I can remember being from Minnesota, being a huge Bob Dylan fan throughout high school, the lore in my bucket list was to go to Newport Folk.

It seems that every year there's a magical moment or three or five or seven or ten moments, as you mentioned as well.

Noah Kahan.

Two years ago, people were ecstatic to see Noah and I mean, I was one of them.

And they did a last second where they had to make an announcement that a friend was going to be showing up and that turned out to be James Taylor.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The bad news is Noah Kahan, who You've all got been excited to see isn't going to be here.

But the magic of Newport was that happening.

Him not showing and an icon showing up.

And people were saying there were rumors throughout the crowd because apparently James Taylor was picked up somewhere on some Cape Cod.

In Cape Cod.

Yes.

And brought down on a boat by somebody.

Yeah.

Literally like 30 minutes before Noah Kahan supposed set, he walks on stage.

Yeah.

All they did was if you remember Ben on the big screen where you can.

If you're not sitting up close, they have a, a screen to the left in the quad.

And it just said don't worry, we got you covered.

A friend is on the way or some.

Something that.

Where it was a lyric from.

Of.

One of James Taylor's songs.

So I've never seen that inside.

Yeah.

You've got a friend.

Got our friend.

That's right.

Which is like.

And there's all kinds of hints and clues.

Yeah.

About what's happening.

And then do you.

I just remember the mass entrance of the quad stage which for people who have not been there, there are technically three big stages, three main stages.

There's Fort stage which is out on the harbor where you, you can watch from your boat.

And then along the walk kind of nestled into the.

The fort is the harbor stage.

And then there's one entrance through a tunnel that's not very big into the inside of the fort where my favorite stage lies, the quad.

And seeing people trying to get through that tunnel was full.

Tight.

Little tight.

Yeah.

Well, what was the, what was the, what was the big moment this year?

Because I wasn't there.

I was there for the big long term with Newport.

Becomes a year long speculation in the Newport folk groups.

Who's it going to be?

People try to oh, oh, this person is on the bill this year.

So they're tied to this person, you know.

So everybody is throwing out rumors like your, you know, I was in the beer line this year and people were like, I saw Bob Dylan and I said to the guy, no you did not.

I said, no you did not.

But the surprise this year, Sunday, the last set of the day was Nathaniel Raiff and friends.

Well who, who are these friends?

So I had gotten a little bit of a tip off because I went over to the quad stage and a lot of commotion was behind me.

And you know that area where the artists can walk into the artist area.

I just heard people yelling that's Dave.

That's Dave.

And I could see the top of his head.

So I knew he was on site.

Didn't know he was going to perform, which he did come out his first time at Newport, which, I mean, for a guy who's had such a storied career and you could see how much it meant to him.

He did about a five song set and was very visibly nervous and emotional and you could tell that how special it was for him to be there.

But yeah, Dave, Matt.

Dave Matthews showed up.

It's quite the scene.

So tell me more about what that felt like to be in that audience that day.

You wake up, you're going to Sunday at Newport.

You don't really know what's going to happen.

You like, you know it's going to be a big day.

Then Dave Matthew shows up for his very first appearance there.

What was it like?

Yeah, I mean, first off Sunday, there's nothing like Newport on a Sunday.

It is the anticipation because it's always just a stacked lineup and you want to be able to see everybody, but it's just not physically possible where you have to kind of catch people here and catch people there.

Brandy Carlisle, Tom Morello, Brandon Flowers of the Killers, Nathaniel Ray Lif, all back to back to back to back with the wonderful Kathleen Edwards thrown in there.

I mean, it's.

It was be there or be everywhere.

You know, he tried to.

Tried to see it.

I was walking over from the quad about a half hour after seeing Dave walk through the crowd or whatever Nathaniel had already started.

I was finishing up watching Brandon Flowers set, which was a highlight for me.

And I'm walking with a guy who's got a Dave Matthews shirt on and he's going, I wonder who it's going to be.

And I said, well, I just saw Dave Matthews, so it possibly could be him.

And he's losing his mind.

And as we walked up to the harbor or the fort stage, Dave had just walked out and this kid's excitement, he ran and ran.

I mean, being in that crowd, witnessing something for the first time like that was.

Was really special.

Quite amazing.

Yeah, so special.

And I saw a few of the clips from Dave and y'.

All.

It wasn't like Dave just got up there and played a bunch of Dave Matthew songs.

There's an other element, right?

It's the collaboration.

Yeah.

So what?

He sang with Brandy.

He sang with Nathaniel.

Brandy came out with him.

That's Brandy.

You could see how.

And Nathaniel and him sang a few songs and you could just see on his face how nervous he was.

And then you look to the right and there's Joan Baez and Mavis Staples sitting On a chair.

There you go.

Just watching over him.

Y I.

You'd be hard pressed to find any other festival, music festival in the world where superstar artists, regardless if they have an album out or not, they just show up.

And they may or may not get on stage.

Right.

They may perform, they may get caught up.

They may not.

One of the big moments for me was a few years ago when it was Nathaniel Rattle.

It wasn't Nathaniel Ratliff and friends, it was Nathaniel Ratliff and American Tune.

Everybody's like, what's an American tune?

And then it turns out, well, it was Paul Simon and Nathaniel Ratliff and his band just backed up Paul Simon, who had not played a gig in years.

Years.

They did an entire set of Paul Simon music backing him up.

And then the next day they followed up with dang Joni Mitchell, Brandy Carlisle bringing Joni Mitchell out years before Dolly Parton appeared.

So you can already see the magic like nowhere else.

They're.

Whoever is in charge of keeping these secrets of is a genius.

Because.

Yeah, none of the.

I mean, people had speculated, Dave, but that they're just throwing names at a wall.

You know, they don't know who's going to show up.

But we've heard all kinds of stuff.

Everybody keeps telling, Taylor Swift's coming.

Well, that was a big one this year with Haley Williams being on.

And I said to my wife, taylor Swift ain't coming.

It's not coming.

Yeah.

But I'm married.

Yeah.

And she's never been.

Who knows if she will be.

But there's the possibility because it's Newport.

Yeah.

And you can't rule it out.

That's it.

Yeah.

You really can't rule it out.

Another.

And I'm kind of getting off my questions a little bit, but since we're talking about shock and awe, they have.

Some people often don't realize part of the magic of Newport are the afterships.

Oh, yeah.

And I know, Zach, you've been to some very memorable ones.

My wife and I have been to a few.

And one of the greatest ones was when Tyler Childers, Sonora May, his wife, was performing on the stage in Newport, but Tyler was not.

But he did an after show and he brought his whole band.

His.

Do you remember what the name of the after show that he built it under?

Shadrach Boggs or something.

Yeah.

So Shadrach, it was under Shadow Boggs and I had.

And I don't always follow this, but I. I had a tip off, or I did some research to understand that those tickets were related to Tyler Childers.

But it just says a Shadow Bog show.

And yeah, we ended up getting to go and the Muppets were performing with Tyler Childers.

It was a surreal experience.

Just this year we had a magical experience because I mean if you know me or if anybody of our listeners know how big the band American Aquarium means to me.

And when they announced the after shows and BJ Barham is going to be singing songs with a literate light at the smallest bar in Newport.

And both singing songs Wilco songs because both of their band names are from Wilco tunes.

So the excitement was doubled to see BJ get a chance to be invited to Newport.

And that was a really special littlest show.

There might have been 50 people in there and you just got to see BJ and the boys from just way along Wilco songs.

And it was just such a great time.

BJ was a star of the Newport.

I think they found their new favorite son.

He was everywhere.

Paul.

I interestingly I saw BJ a couple days ago.

So this is a week after his Newport gay because we were at a friend of the show.

Jim Nolte had a house show and BJ was the star of the house show down in Manisto and they call it Nolte Palooza.

And Jim has had it.

This is the fourth year and BJ has been down there and BJ talked about what it meant to him.

Yeah.

And I actually Zach.

I mean like Zach was just going crazy about.

He's about it.

Yeah.

And you could just see like BJ's like.

Yeah, that was a.

That was a special thing.

Does it go it does it.

That's the magic of it.

The these festivals.

A lot of these bands you're seeing, they're playing at multiple festivals and it's like okay, festival, next festival.

They're just going to one to the other.

And for them it may just kind of be an old hat.

But none of them tree Newport like that.

It's like a special thing.

And we need to mention what also makes Newport special.

The magic is most of the artists don't get paid.

Yeah.

And yes, you heard me right.

They might have some expenses periodically covered or something.

But it's a non profit.

These artists are volunteering their time and it's on a weekend.

Right.

When they could be playing gigs elsewhere.

They are there to make magic themselves and they're not getting paid.

So what does that mean?

Well, they don't have to play their hits.

They can.

They may not.

They might just collaborate with someone.

They may they take more risk because they're not like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna be bri.

And be in breach of my contract if I don't play my top five hits and blah, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, they put.

I mean, the.

You are not the priority.

I mean, I shouldn't say they're not the priority, but you.

Brandy Carlisle on A.

At 4:00 clock on a harbor stage.

You put.

You check your ego at the lake or at the ocean.

She sold out two nights at Madison Square Garden this year and she's playing 4 o' clock in the afternoon at Newport.

Are you kidding me?

You can see that it means the world to her.

After all, how many gigs she plays, how you know, when she walks out on that stage this year and says, hello, Newport, the love of my life, and then went into just singing her brand new album, Return to East, she didn't have to.

She played.

I think she played one of her older tunes, if I remember correctly, but it was straight new songs.

Returning to myself.

It was really, really special.

Cried a little bit.

Gonna be honest.

That is.

That is so good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can remember a few Brandy sets and, you know, I've seen her summit once at Newport, but never.

I mean, I don't know, she's.

She's always good, but there she's.

She hits another level.

And part of.

It's just a Brandy spirit of collaboration that I think with other artists that really hits a new level.

I mean, I love just the, like.

One of my favorite things about Newport Festival is we take the water taxi over and we get the first water taxi or second out of the day.

We're getting over there.

We're here to experience Newport.

We don't show up at 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

You know, just see the headliners.

We get over there at 8 and you.

It's waiting to hurt, you know, hurry up to wait.

And the people you find in lines year after year, same exact people having the same excitement.

You find people that are there for the first year.

You find people who are there that.

35 Years.

This guy told me in line this year, 35 straight.

35 Years.

And he said he'll go as long as he's standing.

Yeah, I think.

I think my buddy Monty, who's also a friend of yours, friend of the show, he's been.

I don't think he's been going quite that long, but he is strung a lot of years together.

And I think that's one thing that surprised me is I met Monty.

We Were sitting in the quad Tunt, kind of waiting for the next band.

And I was struck up a conversation.

And we've been friends for years, like, ever since that.

And there's this feeling of friendship, of acceptance, of possibility that you just don't find other festivals.

Yeah.

I mean, and that's.

You know, I was chatting with some people this weekend, and they were asking some questions, and they were like, well, how can you go from this stage to that stage?

You know, we've been to Bourbon and Beyond.

And I'm like, well, there's only 10,000 people at this thing.

Yeah.

Versus a hundred thousand people.

Versus a hundred thousand.

And then they asked, well, how can.

I said we.

I told the story of the after show.

And they're like, how can you have an after show?

Because, you know, Bourbon and Beyond ends at midnight.

I go 11 to 7:45.

The greatest.

Yeah.

Yeah, y'.

All.

Everybody goes out to dinner in Newport.

Yeah.

You, like.

You have enough energy, you know, like, you.

Because it's not late.

And Zach mentioned the beer tent, y'.

All.

It's not easy.

It is the most sober music festival you'll ever go to.

They have beer tents, but you're not allowed to bring your beers out into the bigger crowd.

And the one that's the beer pier on the main stage is a half a mile out.

They don't want any noise ruining the music of the.

Of the people drinking.

But.

So there you go.

You're gonna.

People are there for the music, not to get hammered.

Right.

They have few drinks and hang out, but you're not.

That's one of the most annoying things at a festival is someone's drunk and dehydrated and they're like, passing out.

That's not the performance.

And kind of get them out of there.

Or they're encroaching on your personal space in some way that's just.

Just completely.

Can really ruin your festival.

Yeah.

And it's just not.

It's really not an issue at Newport.

No.

There might be some cases, but not nothing.

I'm in four years, and I don't think I've seen a nebrated person.

Really.

I don't.

I don't.

I. I don't.

I go.

I pop in into the beer tier.

The beer, you know, the.

The.

The whatever the other one's called in the quad for one or two.

And then it's out, you know, and then I don't spend a lot of time out there.

Yeah, because you miss too much.

Yeah.

And the food's Great.

By the way, festival food can be so questionable.

Yeah.

Lines can be terrible.

And they really do it right.

They really support local food vendors.

And a lot of those same food vendors come back year after year.

So it is legitimately a family.

And also need to mention one thing, too.

People may not realize this.

The festival itself sells out before they announce a single act.

And so that changes a lot of things about who that's.

And for me personally, the anticipation starts from that first announcement, and then you get two a week all the way up until about a month before.

So every day you're excited, who's it going to be?

Who's it going to be?

You know, and so you're kind of constantly finding out who's going to be there.

I always make a playlist of the artists, some new to me that I fall in love with their music.

And then it pays off with.

When I've got.

I had two or three people I wasn't familiar with before they were.

Or.

Before they were announced that absolutely lived up to every expectation I had of them.

And now I'm just a giant fan.

A giant fan.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

That.

Brother Wallace.

Brother Wallace.

We're gonna have to do a separate episode, all the dang music.

Because, yeah, I was looking at it this year.

Brother Wallace.

Yes.

And I love that when you put so much time and get almost like a little mini obsessed with an artist that you've never seen live.

And it pays off.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That's the way Newport is.

And we've got to wrap up here, but let's.

Let's do just a little quick summary for.

I'm going to say my part of why I think this is.

I give you time to think about this question.

Yeah.

True to me, the part that makes the magic of Newport so special is the people, not the music.

It's the people you're enjoying the music with.

You can see a lot of these artists anywhere in the country on tour.

Okay.

And as we've said, they show up for a special, super special focused show at Newport.

Okay.

That is special.

But the magic are the people that are so committed to Newport staying a special experience.

They're focused, they're engaged, they support the artists, they support each other.

And so the environment, when you step onto Fort Adams, and that's the name of the fort where they have this, have Newport, when you step onto that hallowed ground, you get an immediately different experience that you can't find anywhere else on the planet.

How would you describe the magic of.

Newport Yeah, I think that's a huge part of it, is the people that are there.

I mean, these are music lovers, and they treat the music as if.

I mean, that.

That's the number one thing.

It's not to go party or, you know, they are camping out to see their favorite artists.

My magic of Newport is it's always somebody I least expected that's gonna grab me, then say somebody I was already a fan of.

That is a, you know, a huge deal.

It's always somebody small.

My wife says all the time I go every year, I fall in love with an artist there that I would have never imagined.

Like, for her this year was Medium Build.

He just was so vivacious and just so talented, and he came out with multiple artists and his own set, and she just fell in love with Medium Build and his whole personality.

But the magic of Newport is the artists not, you know, leaving their ego there.

There's been a few.

We had Lauren Hill there this year, but she doesn't need to leave it and find, boy, she was fantastic once she showed up.

Took a while to get her going.

The magic is the artists and the people that are there you know, for that music.

All right, man.

Signing off.

Y' all have some magic of Newport.

If you enjoyed this episode, you like what we're talking about here, make sure to let us know.

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Stay curious.

Yes, sir.

Thanks for joining Zach and I for this episode of Americana Curious.

Subscribe where you listen to your podcast so you are notified when a new episode is released.

I'm Ben Fanning, and it's been great sharing these artists and music with you.

Until next time, stay Americana Curious.