Saturday was always going to be the hard one.
Four stages were active around the Gatlinburg Convention Center, the Rock N’ Roll Market was packed and the artist photo experiences were pulling me upstairs while bands I wanted to see were starting below. Before the first real decision of the day, I already knew I would miss something. That is the bargain at The Mountain Music Festival: there is no perfect route through the building, only the route you choose and the music you hear bleeding through the walls while you are somewhere else.
Then the schedule changed.
Bret Michaels had to cancel because of health complications. His doctors and physical therapists were working with him on medication adjustments, blood sugar and blood pressure after a recent show and cross-country travel. It was disappointing news for everybody who came ready to see him, but the important thing was for Bret to rest and get better. Brother, we missed you on the Mountain and cannot wait to see you return.
The festival crew moved fast. BulletBoys shifted into Bret’s 9:15 p.m. spot on the Creekside Stage and Bad Marriage moved upstairs for the late-night Summit Stage set. On paper, those are two changes. Inside a sold-out building with artists, fans, crews and photographers already in motion, it felt like the whole day had been picked up and set down at a new angle.
A place to land
Covering a festival like this means long days, late nights and very little time between the last ringing guitar and the next morning’s schedule. We want to sincerely thank our housing sponsor, The KiN Way, for giving us a place to recharge throughout the weekend and making this coverage possible.
Our gratitude goes to Channing and Rhiannon McGee for supporting independent music journalism and helping put IronTrakksMedia in the room for three packed days on the Mountain. You can find The KiN Way on Facebook or Instagram to learn more about the work they are doing and booking with them.
Plans change on the Mountain
My Saturday started upstairs at the noon photo experience with John Corabi & Friends, The Cruel Intentions and White Lion. It was a strong group for the early session and exactly the kind of conflict that makes this festival both great and mildly maddening. There were photographs to make upstairs and music starting elsewhere. I could not be in two places, though I spent most of the day trying to prove otherwise.
WildStreet had the Summit Stage at noon, followed downstairs by another acoustic set from Hoekstra/Gibbs. Their Friday appearance had already shown what Joel Hoekstra and Brandon Gibbs could do with a stripped-down setup, and Saturday gave them room to change the set instead of repeating themselves. That mattered. Several artists played more than once during the weekend, but the better repeat appearances never felt copied and pasted.
Bad Marriage came next downstairs for the second of three sets they would play during the festival. They had already hit hard on Friday and now had an unexpected third assignment waiting for them late Saturday. There is a practical lesson in that for a first-timer: when a band has multiple sets, do not assume you have already seen what they are going to do. Rooms change, crowds change and, as Saturday proved, the schedule can change underneath everybody.
Crazy Lixx became one of my compromises. I had been looking forward to them, but by midafternoon I was at the beer garden in the back of the arena with a barbecue sandwich. The pulled pork and brisket were affordable, convenient and badly needed. I could hear the band clearly and follow them on the video screens, so I was not exactly absent, but I still wished I had moved back toward the stage. A screen will tell you what happened. It will not give you the same feeling as being in front of the amplifiers when it happens.
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Texas, Corabi and old records
John Corabi & Friends sat high on my personal must-see list, and I was in place for them. Corabi pulled from his 2026 solo album, “New Day,” while making room for the songs fans connect to the other chapters of his career. A newer version of “Hooligan’s Holiday” reached back to the self-titled 1994 Mötley Crüe album, which remains one of my top three Crüe records behind “Too Fast for Love” and “Shout at the Devil.” I know that ranking will start an argument with somebody. I am comfortable with that.
The “Friends” part of the billing was no throwaway. Jeremy Asbrock brought his history with Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons and Rock City Machine Co. to guitar. Troy Luccketta of Tesla was behind the kit, Michael Devin of Whitesnake and The Dead Daisies held down the bass and Paul Taylor of Winger and Alice Cooper handled keyboards. Put that much road experience around Corabi’s voice and the result is not a loose collection of guests. It is one hell of a band. I caught up with John and Troy the next day, but on Saturday their playing did all the talking I needed.
I made sure there was no hallway between me and Dangerous Toys, either.
They are one of my absolute favorite bands from Texas, and this was the first time I had finally seen them in far too long. The whole set felt like a payoff. “Scared” landed exactly the way I wanted it to, and when “Sport’n a Woody” came around, the crowd was ready. The songs still carry the crooked grin that made that first record such a good one: heavy enough to hit, strange enough to have its own fingerprints and never too proud to let the clown out of the box.
Where was he? That is part of the fun.
The band took the room through a greatest-hits set and the Mountain crowd gave it right back to them. Later, I ran into guitarist Scott Dalhover in the hallway. He was an awesome dude to talk with about just about anything, which is another piece of this festival that does not fit on a schedule. One minute you are watching a band you have loved for decades, the next you are standing in a convention-center hallway talking with one of the people who made those records.
Mike Tramp was next with the songs of White Lion. I first saw White Lion open for Aerosmith on their first tour, so hearing that catalog again carried its own timeline into the room. Tramp still delivers those songs with respect for what people remember while sounding like a singer who has continued living inside the material rather than simply visiting it.
Stone Whiskey played the Summit Stage later in the afternoon and sounded great from what I caught. This is where honesty matters in festival coverage: I heard more than I saw. Between the photo opportunities, the downstairs sets and the distance between rooms, Saturday demanded choices faster than I could make them. The music never stopped simply because I was in the wrong hallway.
Then came Lita Ford. There are artists you anticipate because you have never seen them and artists you anticipate because, well, it is Lita F’kn Ford. Guitarist Patrick Kennison gave me another connection to Nashville, where I had met him when he performed with his wife at The Basement. On the Mountain, he and Lita worked through the songs everybody came to hear and made a few moments feel bigger than a normal catalog run.
One fan came onstage and received Lita’s “Cherry Bomb” guitar, a scene that meant far more to the person holding it than any description could capture. Her Ozzy moment with Kennison was handled beautifully, and their performance of “Only Women Bleed” found another gear entirely. Lita did not need to prove that the songs still belonged in a room like this. She played them as if the question had never been worth asking.
Jackylstock takes the room
For me, Jackyl stole Saturday.
Jesse James Dupree and company came out with a purpose: take control of The Mountain Music Festival and do it the only way Jackyl knows how. On a hot Saturday night in a packed, sold-out arena, it turned into Jackylstock. We rocked, rolled and Jackyled everything in sight.
Some sets have that little extra before anybody can put a finger on why. The musicians were moving all over the stage. There were bullwhips, whiskey, a chainsaw and barstools. Jesse even became a runaway singer for a stretch, heading toward the other stage to make sure the people on that side were part of the show too. It was awesome as hell, honestly. Not polished into submission, not held inside an invisible box, just a frontman reading a big room and refusing to leave any corner of it alone.
“I Stand Alone” became one of the night’s best moments when Jesse invited his son, Nigel T. Dupree, out to play guitar. Nigel came on with a black Les Paul and lit the stage up. It was not a sentimental cameo that needed the family connection to work. His playing earned the reaction on its own, and the father-son part made it hit harder.
The set also made room for Bret. Jesse led the crowd through Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” as a tribute and get-well wish, turning the song into something larger than a replacement-slot acknowledgment. Bret later thanked the bands, crews and fans for the shout-outs from the Mountain, and you could understand why. A cancellation leaves a hole in a festival day. Jackyl did not pretend it was not there; they filled it with everybody’s voices.
Jesse alone with his Telecaster for “Suspicious Minds” brought another huge singalong. After the bullwhip and chainsaw, that stripped-down turn could have felt like a hard left. Instead, it showed how much control he had over the room. Noise is easy when the production is built for it. Getting thousands of people to lean into a familiar melody takes something else.
Night Ranger followed with a catalog built for exactly this kind of crowd. I had not seen them since their second album, but “(You Can Still) Rock in America,” “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me” and “Sister Christian” closed that distance in a hurry. Brad Gillis still brings it, Jack Blades still knows how to carry those choruses and the band gave Saturday another full hour of songs people did not need introduced.
BulletBoys then stepped into the changed closing slot on the Creekside Stage. Asking a band to move from a late-night room into the main arena after a headliner cancels is no small adjustment. They took the assignment and carried the day to its official finish downstairs. Bad Marriage still had its added 10:45 p.m. Summit Stage set ahead, their third performance of the weekend, but by then I was tired, hungry and ready to sit for a spell.
Punchlines after backlines
Sitting down did not mean the night was over. A short walk brought me to Smith & Son Corner Kitchen for Punchlines & Backlines, the festival’s late comedy show. Saturday’s rock-star guest was Dangerous Toys singer Jason McMaster, with host Izzy Presley and comedians Don Jamieson, Courtney Cronin, Jim Florentine and Mike Dawson on the bill.
It was especially good to see Courtney again. I first met her in Sarasota, Florida at the Kiss Cancer Goodbye event, and running into familiar people is one more way a festival weekend starts to feel like its own temporary town. The laughter flowed even with a few annoying people who refused to be quiet. Other people in the crowd shushed them several times. The comics mostly laid off them that night, which may have been an act of mercy nobody requested.
After a day of sprinting between stages, standing in photo lines, eating barbecue while watching Crazy Lixx on a screen and watching Jackyl turn a convention center into a chainsaw revival, a chair and a room full of jokes made perfect sense. My ears were still ringing. At least now the noise had punchlines.
Afterglow
Saturday began with the certainty that I would miss something and ended by proving me right. I missed sightlines, caught songs from hallways and ate lunch while a band I wanted to see worked through its set on a video screen. The headliner canceled, the schedule moved and everybody adjusted.
What stayed with me was not the frustration of choosing. It was how much survived every choice: Dangerous Toys finally in front of me, Corabi backed by a ridiculous amount of talent, Lita handing a guitar to a fan, Nigel Dupree lighting up a black Les Paul and Jesse leading a room through a song for Bret. Then Night Ranger, BulletBoys and a late comedy set down the street.
Day two was the Mountain at full capacity, in every sense. Too many bands, too many rooms, too many decisions and just enough time to realize I would gladly do it all again with a better plan next year.
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