Article Contributed by Photo Foo Foo
Published on 2026-09-05
photos by Jon Rosenberger
30,000 Phreaky Phans turned up to see Billy Strings host his (inaugural?) Ionia Freak Fair last weekend. Billy who grew up in nearby Muir, Michigan has always supported Ionia with donations of guitars to area kids, providing holiday dinners to those in need and hosting concerts there - the most recent of which was with his father, Terry Barber at the Ionia Theatre in 2020. The Freak Fair was notably larger than that event with his pops. This was the largest crowd Billy has ever performed for, completely filling the grandstands and infield area where they typically hold car derbies.
Ionia was once a thriving hub for auto manufacturing, building car bodies for Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile at the local plant. That shut down in 1996, though, and Ionia is now a sleepy little town of about 8,000 with a mix of agriculture and manufacturing jobs.
The highlight of its year is the Ionia Free Fair, held each July, which is free to all comers and typically sees about 30,000 people a day over 10 days. The Free Fair has been held for more than 100 years on the multi-acre site and has hosted concerts in the past, with Metallica having played there during the fair, along with Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
With the property open at noon but doors not opening ’til 3, the crowd had ample time to make its way to the festy, find parking—which went very smoothly—and mosey around the Freak Faire Mall. I am referring to Shakedown Street here, but I have never seen anything like this.
I knew there would be outside vendors and was expecting 30 to 40 booths, like any normal sizable fest. There had to be more than 150! BMFS, goats, and Freak Fair designs flashed out from every nook and cranny for five full rows of Billy Mania. It was intense, all capped off by a booth right on the corner with the Ionia Health Department handing out free condoms.
This is pretty progressive stuff for farm country, and I saw plenty of bros who had no hope of needing them helping themselves to handfuls.
Billy also had his own merch outside, and a good friend of mine waited in line for four hours to land one of those coveted uncut BS posters and missed the first two acts. This is a level of dedication that I will never possess, but props to the diehards who make Billy prints some of the most popular papers in our community.
Leaving the cash registers ringing, I sashayed toward the gates, which really felt like the receiving line at someone’s wedding - high-fiving friends and passing out hugs. Seemingly everyone I knew was on the grounds and fired up for Billytime.
I stopped at the Short’s Brewing booth to grab a couple of cans of its tasty Thirst Mutilator, an N/A hop brew, with proceeds going to the Ionia Animal Shelter, before making my way, thankfully, to the pit access gate.
The GA lines were much, much longer and were split between those with chairs and strollers and those without. I understand some fans had queued up well in advance, and it took quite a while for everyone to go through screening at the GA gates. The pit seemed to move much faster, given the smaller number of people in that area, and I personally waited in line for about 45 minutes.
The pit ran fully across the front of the event area and was maybe 100 feet deep. It had its own wristband system, with a bar and food stand on one end and a guest/VIP pavilion on the other for Billy’s invitees.
The stage itself was massive. I chatted with several local media folks, and we all thought maybe it was the same mobile stage they use at Sherwood for Electric Forest. If not, it was that big - way deeper than it needed to be, probably 60 feet wide and eight feet tall at its base, with massive video screens bookending it on either side.
There were two areas for folks to set up chairs near the back wall. Both the rail in the pit and the rail in GA, which was the back wall of the pit, quickly filled with people posting up hard, legs crossed and all thoughts of bladder purges put on pause. There was almost zero shade in the pit and not much in GA. Porta-potties were in abundance, and personally, I never stepped into one that was horrifying, while being equally certain that some were.
Please pause a moment here and give thanks and appreciation for those fine men and women who clean up after our poor festival decisions. Handwashing stations were out front, but there were no trash cans to be found, which became a bit of a theme over the weekend.
GA: General Admission, gorgeous attitudes…Gonzos abound!
GA was where they put the “fair” in Freak Fair. There was a full Ferris wheel at $10 a spin, carnival games à la Whac-A-Mole and Skee-Ball, a circus tent with a real live bearded lady, and a sideshow barker with a python. There were corn dogs, elephant ears, cotton candy, crazy metal balls with motorcycles zooming around inside, and the Metal Tent!
While most of the audience was very much from the jamgrass community, the second stage, or tent, as it was, with metal acts handpicked by Dr. Apostol he-self added an interesting edge to things.
Black was in abundance. Leather was present. Gasp…cosmetics could be seen, and not just on the men!
And this wasn’t the safe metal from the ’80s with nice bands like Slayer, Maiden, Priest and Dio. No, this was metal that meant it. Bane, Cryptopsy and William’s old band, Flesh and Blood Robot, unleashed fast and loud in a way that I am not certain the Deadheads had ever quite experienced firsthand.
Seeing a sea of tie-dye mixed with black boots, pants and lipstick was a singular trait of this fest that, in my opinion, hasn’t really happened in Michigan since Lollapalooza stopped touring. Overdue!
“Growing up here, I couldn’t get 30 people together without a fight, let alone 30,000,” Billy opined from the stage Saturday night.
Yet everyone really got along well. I saw no fights and no arrests, and it was odd to see folks firing up ganja within five feet of uniformed staties who were as chill as could be. Most of the troopers seemed to be having a good time, high-fiving fans and getting passed stickers and clothespins. They assisted medical staff on several occasions, and their presence seemed to add a level of calm to any incident I saw.
Full Cord, from Michigan’s west coast, opened the event with a bit of a rough start, spending nearly 20 minutes of its 45-minute set struggling with technical issues while the crowd, obviously amped up to boogie, grew restless.
The band prevailed and laid down a solid 10-song, bluegrass-inspired set before welcoming Billy to sit in on “Hubris Came to Town,” a song they recently recorded together.
The place kind of exploded. The seated stood> the standing jumped> and the stoned got focused in a hurry. It’s crazy how one guy can just electrify an entire event, and Billy truly does—all without any preamble or flash. Just an orange hunting cap, a T-shirt, and 10 fingers that can do the work in one song that five average guitarists cannot handle in a week.
Full Cord out. Lindsay Lou in.
Double L has her own connection to Ionia, having recorded her breakthrough LP here (mysteriously titled Ionia) at a house they were squatting in back in 2015. She also has a long history as a cohort of Billy’s. The two lived across the street from one another for a time in Nashville and shared a cat named Al, whom one or the other would care for depending on who was out on tour.
Lindsay recently released a new record, Bluegrass Women, and was accompanied onstage by Tatiana Hargreaves (Alex’s sister) and, I believe, Emma Rose, both of whom performed on the new LP.
Mark Lavengood (MC, Freakero Numero Uno and former Flatbelly) joined LL for a rip through the Ionia favorite “Criminal Style.” Lindsay played a song she co-wrote with Billy, “Nothing’s Working,” from her solo debut, and was then joined by Drew Emmitt from Leftover Salmon and Kyle - King Tut - Tuttle, whom she introduced as “Bart’s dad,” for a few numbers, including “I’ve Endured” from the new LP.
The pit still had plenty of room to dance, but the GA rail was now packed harder than North Sea tuna.
Speaking of fish…Leftover Salmon!
Uncle Vince and company brought their usual brand of zydeco, hip-hop, and jamgrassy grooves to the fest, and the place started dancing intensely. I had a close friend remark later that she hadn’t remembered seeing Leftover before but really enjoyed it, which is pretty much the perfect metaphor for them. Always great, but no one thing stands out. It’s just all fun!
Lindsay popped out to perform Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” with them as a tribute to the recently departed Tennessee queen, and it really was at the same level of awesome as all their stuff.
The sun was getting low. Food lines wrapped around like a game of Chutes and Ladders, and the boss was coming to the stage.
Billy released his new LP, So Much for Goodbyes, on the same day as the Freak Fair, and he proceeded to play it from end to end for the first set.
There were live debuts of 12 new songs, with Lindsay duetting on three and Mark “Huggy Bear” Lavengood and Leftover Salmon’s Alwyn Robinson sitting in on two tracks apiece. The crowd was pretty damn ecstatic, and the album was incredibly well received, though the material is a bit slower and more introspective.
After maybe a 15-minute break, the second set cranked open with his first ripper of the night, “Dust in a Baggie,” before moving into a fairly typical GOAT set, maybe a bit more grassy than usual, with some Stanley Brothers included.
Billy shared that he first heard one of those songs on cassette just down the road. Leftover Salmon sat in for a few songs, Lindsay and Huggy Bear joined for a few more, and Billy finished right at the 11 p.m. curfew before saying, “The mayor is right over there, and he seems to be having a good time. I’m supposed to stop here, but heck, let’s pick a couple more.”
The band ripped through “Psycho” and “Hide and Seek,” closing at about 11:20. Billy was not fined $20,000 for doing so, as was reported. Apparently, the mayor really was having a good time.
To the exits!
Getting nearly 30,000 people through two 12-foot-wide gates takes a minute, but everyone seemed chill enough to just mosey along. Billy was selling his new LP outside after the show, which deserves killer props. There was no need to hold vinyl all day in the heat, just sell it on the way to the car.
The fairground was littered with debris everywhere, like a place only Oscar the Grouch could love. If every attendee had five drinks of whatever type and food of some kind, that’s at least 100,000 cans and a whole lotta paper trays. There simply were not enough trash cans to put them in. I saw people with armfuls of stuff looking for a place to toss it, and you just couldn’t find a can that wasn’t full because there weren’t enough of them. So, they did the next best thing and made piles near the cans they could find.
From what I understand, the Ionia High School athletic teams came through and cleaned up overnight, and I will say they did an amazing job. It was pretty darn clean by the gates on Saturday, and there were also many more trash cans available the following day.
Lessons learned and changes made were a great indicator of the crew supporting Billy in putting on the fest. Exiting the parking lot was about what you would expect at a large concert, but multiple roads led away from the grounds, and once clear of the parking lot, things moved pretty quickly.
Saturday dawned bright and beautiful in a way only a clear blue Michigan sky can, but it had clouded over by showtime.
Sierra Hull didn’t mind one whit. The show got off to a pistol of a start as she led her band through a blistering 45-minute set of bona fide blue-blue-bluegrass tunes. Sierra just gets better and better every time I have the pleasure of seeing her perform. She has always been a phenomenal mandolin player, seemingly since she was in her crib, but her voice is really growing and embracing that sweet Appalachian sound of her Tennessee hometown.
Hearing her put the band through a lightning-fast cover of Tears for Fears’ killer ’80s track “Mad World” in a grass-converted style was super impressive, especially since she hadn’t even been born when it came out.
The fact that Sierra had only 45 minutes to introduce herself to Ionia was downright criminal, in my 100% biased opinion.
Michael Cleveland, 12-time winner of the IBMA’s Fiddle Player of the Year award, took the stage after Sierra with his band, Flamekeeper, for another thick round of bluegrass, this time by way of Indiana.
Josh Richards handles the vocals for Flamekeeper, but this was a largely instrumental set with only a few lyrical tunes. One of those, “Too Late for Goodbyes” à la Julian Lennon, seemed to be a nod to Billy’s own new LP.
The crowd had now put up with a smattering of misty rain and two true dyed-in-the-bluegrass bands, and it had flipped from chill to full party mode. The entire place was packed, knowing what was coming.
Greensky MF Bluegrass is not bluegrass at all, and everyone in the place loves Michigan’s favorite jamgrass legends, including Billy Strings. A sit-in was inevitable, and everyone knew it, even though Billy had joined them for “Reverend” just two nights before.
While Lindsay and Lavengood are Billy’s contemporaries, Greensky was the band that helped him get started as a solo performer after he left the confines of the Don Julin era, booking him as an opening act and taking him on national tours.
Billy drove Blanche, the old GSBG bus, for a number of years on his own early tours, and the bands remain close friends. There is a solid reason he had them play directly before him.
Greensky did what they do, starting with “Reasons to Stay” like anyone had any thoughts of going anywhere, then moving into a jammy cover of Pink Floyd’s “Time” and “Breathe (Reprise).” Next came “Old Barns,” “Burn Them”—including Royal flubbing the Tibetan finger-cymbal solo—and “Room Without a Roof.” Bam, bam, bam: short, straight versions for them.
Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for.
Billy Strings joined the band onstage, Anders extending his arm in welcome and Billy giving a deep standing bow before dropping to his knees for a more regal curtsy. Anders waved him away but was clearly pleased.
“Michigan music, baby…in Michigan!” pHoff declared.
They were off, creating a “Courage for the Road” jam that stretched far beyond its recorded version, with Billy and the band trading phrases and solos, tossing the music back and forth like a grass potato.
Billy exited the stage, the crowd deflated and rushed toward the plastic privacy havens, and Greensky finished its set with a corker of a “Kerosene.”
It was much darker already, and the PA was filled with metal tracks: Zeppelin, Sabbath, Priest, Rick Derringer’s “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,” which I hadn’t heard in years, and “Frankenstein” by one of the Winter brothers. I can never remember which.
The crowd got antsy.
“Is Billy gonna do a metal set?” was the general conversation down front.
Billy was actually in the Metal Tent shredding on electric guitar with Cryptopsy, but no one here knew that.
When he and his band -Billy Banjo Failing, Alex Hargreaves, Royal Masat, and Jarrod Walker came onstage, it was not metal at all, but a mix of Billy songs including “My Alice,” “Highway Hypnosis” and “Turmoil & Tinfoil,” along with usual covers such as “Doin’ My Time” and “Little Maggie.”
Billy talked a bit about the deer he watched that inspired “Broken Doe” and generally seemed to be trying to soak in the night: the culmination of months of hard work and years of desire to create this happening, bring it here, and share his good fortune with the town he called home.
The second set had nine covers, mostly old grass standards, complete with sit-ins from Cleveland, Hull, Lavengood and Billy’s dad, Terry.
What must it be like to stand on a stage in front of nearly 30,000 people stretched as far as you can see, a crowd so large that you need a drone to fly up and take a picture of it, and pick Bill Monroe’s “Little Cabin Home on the Hill” with your dad, just like you did as a kid here near Ionia?
I am certain it was a wonderful moment for him.
The grassers all stepped offstage, and the GOATs ran through a couple of their own, including “Red Daisy.” Then Greensky came onstage for a beautiful version of “In the Morning Light.” Paul Hoffman traded lines with Billy on the song they wrote together five years ago, one Greensky rarely performs.
Then came the finale: “Don’t Lie” > “Meet Me at the Creek” > “Don’t Lie.”
A great big jamgrass sammich... a 30-minute stroll through all the things that make these two bands unique and such a deep brotherhood pairing.
Ten guys. Ten consummate musicians plying their wares on the same beaten boards.
Guitar to guitar: Strings and Bruzza. Banjo to banjo: Bont and Failing. Bass brothers: Devol and Masat. Neck and neck: Hoffman and Walker. Alex and Anders on their own end, melting faces.
They were all playing for themselves now as Billy sang the lines the crowd knew so well, and everyone began singing along with him: “Thinking about the days I’ve left behind.” The crowd down front had become a kinetic ball of emotion and energy, bouncing with glee. Several Ionia-area barns spontaneously caught fire for no known reason. Billy seemed relieved when they slid back into “Don’t Lie” 10 minutes later, and his smile was a gajillion megawatts wide. He finished with a hot little pick of his own, the band took a bow, and it was done.
The Freak Fair had to overcome some crazy expectations. Perhaps because of the name, folks thought they should be able to camp onsite. Some were rattled by the long list of “do not bring” items and the demand for short chairs and no blankets. Some balked at the location and didn’t understand why it wasn’t held at Shagbark or the Hoxeyville festival site.
But this was the event Billy wanted here in his town, and in my opinion, he and his team far exceeded those expectations and delivered an amazing two days of fun.
I didn’t talk to a single person who didn’t think it was a smashing success.
Folks piled in from all over the United States. I saw friends from Colorado, California, Alabama, and Florida. All traveled to William’s town to pay homage to the amazing artist he has become and bathe in the joy his music brings.
Since the close of the fest, Billy has said that all profits will be donated back to the Ionia community to help put a new roof on the old theater and support the town where it can. Contrary to onsite rumors, there are no plans for another Freak Fair, but Billy seemed open to the idea. Hopefully, another fair may be in the future, and if it is, the phreaks will come out again.
The bank tellers, accountants, and corporate CEOs. The barbers, postmen and grocery clerks. All hidden. All living normal lives until Billy Strings says it is time to come be yourself—to be free, to be joyous, to dance, to drink, to smoke and to be in this happy place, free of judgment.
That is the true beauty of the Ionia Freak Fair, and I look forward to hearing Billy’s call that it’s time again to…
Get Yo FrEAK On!
