The Stagecoach County Music Festival fills its Mane Stage with top artists, but only one celebrity has daily set times at the annual event.
That star is Guy Fieri, and he will be grilling for the masses all three days of the festival. It takes place April 28-30 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, where the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival is wrapping up.
Guy Fieri speaks onstage during the 2022 Stagecoach Festival at the Empire Polo Field in Indio. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Stagecoach)
Bailey Zimmerman will help Guy Fieri with a cooking demonstration at the 2023 Stageoach Country Music Festival in Indio. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for CMT)
Lainey Wilson, performing in Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, is scheduled to assist Guy Fieri in a cooking demonstration at the Stageoach Country Music Festival in Indio.. (AP Photo by (Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
“Rallying people together is something that I do,” he said in an interview for “80 for Brady,” a recent screen comedy in which he plays himself.
Acting is a side hustle for Fieri, who is executive producer and star of the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” and many other shows. He is also a cookbook author and restaurateur.
His persona fits in well with Stagecoach, which books a lot of vendors serving barbecue and smoked meats. This year will be the same, with one big exception.
Anyone can cook
Fieri first boarded Stagecoach for the 2018 festival, where he curated barbecue in a 40,000-square-foot tent called Guy’s Stagecoach Smokehouse.
It included a fenced-off area to the side set up like a backyard barbecue with grills and lawn furniture where Fieri gave cooking demonstrations of exotic meats such as ostrich and wildebeest along with his crew and pitmasters from throughout the United States.
In 2019, the focus shifted to cooking demos with rock stars and musicians such as Bret Michaels and Cole Swindell.
This year will be Fieri’s fourth Stagecoach due to the cancellations of the 2020 and 2021 festivals amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
“I really feel honored to be invited. I’m not a musician. I can’t play the guitar. I can play the griddle, though,” Fieri said in a phone interview last fall.
“Usually what happens, when the lineup comes out, I make it known that I’d like to have anybody who wants to come and cook. We can do one person. We can do 10 people.”
He is scheduled for three demonstrations a day. The first, at 3 p.m., will be with pitmasters. The other two, at 4 p.m. and 5:50 p.m., are with musicians and actors, including two people with red-hot careers, multi-award nominee Lainey Wilson and Taylor Sheridan, creator of “Yellowstone.”
Unexpected rifts
Stagecoach will have plenty of ways to wash down the barbecue. In addition to a Beer Barn, the festival has posted more than a dozen partnerships on its “Eat & Drink” webpage ranging from Coca-Cola and Monster Energy to Robert Mondavi Winery to Hendrick’s Gin and Jameson Craft Whiskey.
For a no-alcohol experience, there will be a tent called the 1 Million Strong Wellness Retreat. It is a partnership with recovery groups 1 Million Strong and The Phoenix to provide a meetup for sober attendees.
There’s also a departure from seared meat. It’s a high-end sushi and sake pairings event curated by Chef Phillip Frankland Lee, whose restaurants such as Pasta | Bar in Encino have received Michelin ratings.
Lee and wife Margarita Kallas-Lee partner on Sushi By Scratch Restaurants, which put on “omakase speakeasies” in Los Angeles and other cities. At Stagecoach, it will be a 16-course meal served to 12 people at a time for $375 each.
Stagecoach calls it “a playful reverie on new wave nigiri and other delicacies from both land and sea in a free form interpretive take on the traditional sushi counter experience where you can expect unexpected riffs on beloved standards.”
There are three seatings a day at 3:30 6 and 8 p.m.
Guy Fieri’s Smokehouse Demos
3 p.m. Friday, April 28: Adam Perry Lang, Los Angeles-based chef and restaurateur; Pat Martin, Nashville pitmaster.
4 p.m., Friday, April 28: Jon Pardi, California singer/songwriter known for “Head Over Boots.”
5:50 p.m., Friday, April 28: ZZ Top, 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group with the most famous beards in the business.
3 p.m., Saturday, April 29: Chris Conger, Texas pitmaster; Rashad Jones, winner of the Food Network’s “Master of ‘Cue.”
4 p.m., Saturday, April 29: Niko Moon, Georgia singer/songwriter of “Good Time” fame.
5:50 p.m., Saturday, April 29: Old Dominion, 2020 winners of the Country Music Association’s vocal group of the year.
3 p.m. Sunday, April 30: Brandon Shepard, North Carolina pitmaster; Operation BBQ Relief, nonprofit dedicated to feeding disaster victims.
4 p.m., Sunday, April 30: Lainey Wilson, six-time nominee for Academy of Country Music Awards of 2023; Taylor Sheridan, actor, writer and director riding high on “Yellowstone.”
5:50 p.m., Sunday, April 30: Bailey Zimmerman, TikTok phenomenon with a top hit, “Rock and a Hard Place.”
Where: Empire Polo Club, 81800 51st Ave., Indio.
Information: stagecoachfestival.com