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Johnny Blue Skies and the Dark Clouds played 26 songs over three hours and 15 minutes.The Austin show was the first and only Texas stop on the “Mutiny For The Masses” tour.Simpson said America is “definitely living in wartime” during the Moody Center show.AUSTIN, Texas 
Johnny Blue Skies and the Dark Clouds perform at the Moody Center Friday, Sept. 4, 2026 in Austin, Texas. Edwin Keeble Shore Fire Media
Johnny Blue Skies — AKA Sturgill Simpson — and his ferocious band the Dark Clouds set the tone early at the first and only Texas stop of their “Mutiny For The Masses” tour Friday, Sept. 4 at the Moody Center in Austin.
The first song stretched out to nearly 14 minutes. After an hour, the band — Kevin “Black Daddy” Black on bass, Miles “Easy Luvin” Miller on drums, Robbie “Raw B” Crowell on keys and saxophone and Laur “Little Joe” Joamets on guitar — had only played seven songs. They eventually played for a total of three hours and 15 minutes, barely taking any breaks and brushing right up against the Moody Center’s hard curfew. They sounded like they could have played for another three hours.
The sold-out crowd demanded more, but to no avail; the band left the stage at 11:15 as easily as they walked on it hours before. Before the show ended, Johnny Blue Skies and the Dark Clouds treated fans to 26 songs about dancing, love, war, life and protest, expanded for a live show that felt like controlled chaos.
Songs blended into each other; each band member got a chance to shine and add a sax solo or an extended guitar riff. While multiple songs stretched past the 10-minute mark, there was always a callback to another groove or a riff to keep everything under control.
There at the center of it all was Simpson, performing as his alter ego Johnny Blue Skies, reminding the Moody Center that “even though Congress hasn’t officially declared it, we are definitely living in wartime” — referencing America’s ongoing war with Iran.
Who is Johnny Blue Skies?
Simpson, famous for bluegrass and country albums like “High Top Mountain” and “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music,” started making music under the Johnny Blue Skies moniker in 2024 as a way to escape the celebrity surrounding his name.
“I’d be at an airport or a restaurant, and I’d hear somebody say my name and I’d turn around and realize I had no idea who the person is,” Simpson told GQ in 2024 ahead of the release of “Passage du Desir,” the first Johnny Blue Skies record. “All of a sudden I’d hear that name and it was like it didn’t belong to me. It was just a commodity or a brand.”
With “Passage du Desir” and this year’s “Mutiny After Midnight,” it does sound like everything released under the Johnny Blue Skies name comes from a different artist. “Passage” features “Scooter Blues,” which sounds like the best Jimmy Buffett song Buffett never recorded (and which got turned into a bass-heavy march Friday night by bassist Kevin “Black Daddy” Black).
“Mutiny After Midnight” is full of scuzzy, disco-funk-fusion rock that sounds like a perfect combination of “Passage” and Simpson’s “SOUND & FURY” and “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” records — which is what the setlist focused on.
Laur “Little Joe” Joamets, guitarist for Johnny Blue Skies and the Dark Clouds, performs at the Moody Center Friday, Sept. 4, 2026 in Austin, Texas. Edwin Keeble Shore Fire Media
“Mutiny” is also an album about protest, which is hard to pull off. Protest albums always run the risk of relying too much on the lyrics instead of making music that people will actually listen to. Judging by the crowd Friday night, it seemed like both the music and the message came across loud and clear. Couples swayed in the seat in front of me to “Don’t Let Go”; frat bros to my right snapped along to “Stay On That.” Everybody looked like they were having a great time.
Life during wartime
“I knew we were going to make a protest record. I think the greatest protest is always liberation and freedom. But if we want people to listen to these social commentary songs, maybe we need to make them think it’s a record about [having sex],” Simpson told Relix in August.
It might have been hard to hear from the nosebleeds Friday night, but “Excited Delirium” contains lyrics about ICE raids. The first time Simpson took a break to talk to the crowd, he made a joke about making sure people pay their taxes “because them bombs ain’t gonna build themselves.” The chorus of “Ain’t That A [Expletive]” is “The poor stay poor and the rich get rich.”
The biggest political moment Friday night came right before Simpson’s declaration that we are “living in wartime.” The Dark Clouds played “Call to Arms,” a song decrying the military industrial complex, and turned that into a cover of Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime.” The giant disco ball that had been hanging from the rafters all show took on a new prominence as the crowd started dancing and singing along: “This ain’t no party/this ain’t no disco/this ain’t no fooling around.”
The tour ad for Johnny Blue Skies and the Dark Clouds at the merchandise booth at the Moody Center Friday, Sept. 4 in Austin, Texas. Jake Harris Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Watching all of this unfold Friday night, I was also reminded of the protest that has been Simpson’s entire career. After launching to success with “Metamodern Sounds,” he pivoted to a horn-infused concept album about fatherhood. Then he made a hard Southern rock album with an accompanying anime film on Netflix, and started acting in Martin Scorsese movies and HBO shows. When COVID hit, he re-recorded earlier songs as bluegrass albums and then made a Western concept album before adopting the Johnny Blue Skies persona.
If you had told me back in 2015 when I saw Simpson play ACL that he would eventually be making something like “Mutiny,” I don’t know what I would have said. But that album, and this tour, is a testament to the ability for reinvention, and that you don’t have to stay in the box people make for you.
In a world that is increasingly moving toward more and more conformity, it’s nice to see someone make a career out of always zigging when you expect them to zag.
JOHNNY BLUE SKIES SETLIST, MOODY CENTER, AUSTIN TEXAS (SEPT. 4, 2026)Make America [Expletive] AgainBest Clockmaker on MarsExcited DeliriumDon’t Let GoA Good LookJupiter’s FaerieStay On ThatWelcome To Earth (Pollywog)It Ain’t All FlowersVenusParty All the Time (Eddie Murphy cover)Everyone Is WelcomeRight Kind of DreamAll Said And DoneIf The Sun Never Rises AgainLong White LineViridescentCall To ArmsLife During Wartime (Talking Heads cover)Ain’t That A [Expletive]Life of SinOne for the RoadMint TeaBrace For Impact (Live A Little)Scooter BluesSituation
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Jake Harris is the Service Journalism Editor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He has spent nearly 10 years working as a digital producer across newsrooms in Texas. He mainly writes about pop culture and local North Texas happenings and occasionally writes concert reviews.