Standing atop the knoll overlooking the smaller of the two stages at Big Mountain Ranch on Friday, Riley George struck a pose, showcasing her western wear finery as friend Reagan Mercer deftly juggled a cellphone and a Fujifilm disposable camera a few yards away.  

More than a little planning had gone into the moment captured on film and phone. There were Facetime sessions devoted to selecting their outfits, they said. It all culminated with Mercer, who lives in Walla Walla, Washington, picking up George at the airport where she arrived from her home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  

“We definitely overpacked,” George said.  

“This is our Super Bowl,” Mercer deadpanned.  

The two friends were in good company at the sixth rendition of Under the Big Sky, the annual summertime showcase of country, rock and Americana put on by Outriders Present just outside of Whitefish. The three-day music festival bringing together Birkenstocks and boots, baseball caps and Stetsons, tan lines and tattoos was in full swing by mid-afternoon on Friday with throngs of sun-reddened fans making regular pilgrimages back and forth between the Big Mountain and Great Northern stages.  

The weekend-long jamboree brings an estimated 20,000 people to the Flathead Valley, among them Mercer and George, who said they first heard about the festival after Mercer’s parents attended a few years ago. For Mercer, one of the big draws was Saturday’s headliner Mumford and Sons, a British folk rock act on the road promoting their new album “Rushmere.” 

“I love a lot of the bands, but Mumford and Sons doesn’t tour a whole lot, and I’ve listened to them my whole life,” she said.  

Another act the pair recommended: The Red Clay Strays, Friday night’s headliner. They weren’t alone. Eric and Brittany Fowler, who drove to Whitefish from their home a few hours outside Calgary for the festival, also listed the Mobile, Alabama-based band as one to see, along with the Brothers Comatose and Sunday’s big act, Tyler Childers.  

At that moment, though, the couple was perusing the selection at Whitefish-based Glacier Rim Hat’s stand inside a barn turned shopping arcade. Brittany, although already wearing a burgundy open crown hat, tried on several new possibilities in front of a narrow vertical mirror leaning against a wooden post.  

“I had this one that was a custom hat built by a buddy, but I saw the straw ones and I thought they might be cooler,” she said in a nod to the July afternoon heat. 

Eric looked on approvingly from underneath a straw brim. The first step in shopping for a new hat, he said, was to avoid buying a style you already owned. He figured the couple had nine hats between the two of them.  

After that, it comes down to geometry.  

“You want a wide enough brim to cover the sun, but not so big you can’t get in a pickup,” he said.  

Friends Laurel Belcher and Jordan Rose were both bedecked in sunglasses and western-style hats as they leaned against a railing on the crest above the Big Mountain stage, but the pair – hailing from Calgary – made no bones about their roots.  

“We’re definitely city girls,” Rose said. “But we have the attire.” 

“This isn’t our first time posing as rodeo people,” she added. 

Belcher and Rose made the trek south to see the Red Clay Strays, a band they’ve made it their mission to catch whenever practicable. Introduced to their music by a friend, they’ve watched the group blow up in popularity over the past year.  

“They just have a unique stye, like old-fashioned Elvis beats,” Rose said.  

FRONTMAN BRANDON Coleman leaned into the rockabilly image while taking the Great Northern stage with the rest of the Red Clay Strays as the evening settled into night on Friday.  

Wearing a button-up western-style shirt and black trousers, the clean-shaven Coleman appeared with his hair slicked back into a pompadour. Guitar in one hand, he pointed out into the audience to the spot where he and his bandmates had watched Hank Williams Jr. perform on the main stage in 2023.  

“And now we get to be up here — that means a lot,” he said in a nod to the band’s growing popularity.  

By then, an army of fans had carpeted the field in front of him, sprawled out on blankets or leaning back on low slung collapsable chairs. The wooded hillside to the rear, which offered relief from the summer sun earlier in the day, was transformed into a sea of faces, punctuated by brightly colored hammocks strung between the trees.  

As the Red Clay Strays launched into their performance with a set of raucous, honky-tonk infused songs, inflatable beach balls began rising into the air.  

“We do get called country a lot,” Coleman said in a polite southern Gulf drawl. “And I do disagree. I think we play rock ‘n’ roll a lot.” 

But the Red Clay Strays have a softer side that vacillates between country, gospel and blues. Coleman referenced that aspect of the band when, for a second time, he stopped the performance to direct medical personnel to a fan in distress.  

“We play a lot of religious songs — you all be careful or you’re gonna meet the Lord,” he chided gently.  

News Editor Derrick Perkins can be reached at 758-4430 or [email protected].