Hootie and the Blowfish Make Their Stagecoach Debut With a Set of Nineties Staples and a Few Smart Covers

Hootie and the Blowfish played their first Stagecoach set Sunday night, filling a prime evening slot with the direct, unadorned guitar music that turned their 1994 debut Cracked Rear View into one of the best-selling records of the decade. The crowd, already sun-worn and receptive after a weekend of mainstream country and rock, treated nearly every chorus like a communal reflex.

The show opened with “Hannah Jane” and kept its focus on the album’s other lasting singles — “Let Her Cry,” “Hold My Hand,” and “Time” all appeared. The set’s most reactive moment came during “Only Wanna Be With You,” when the band tagged the hook with a few bars of Kool and the Gang’s “Get Down on It,” drawing a fresh wave of movement across the field.

Rucker also led the group through “Wagon Wheel,” the Old Crow Medicine Show song he rode to the top of the country charts as a solo artist, and a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Hey, Hey, What Can I Do.” The latter, a minor B-side from the rock canon, sat comfortably alongside the band’s own easy-going melancholy. It was a festival debut that felt less like a novelty and more like a late acknowledgment of the space Rucker and his bandmates have occupied for years on the porous edges of country’s big-tent circuit.