Billy Strings Takes New Single ‘Leadfoot’ For 1st Live Spin At Penn State

Billy Strings performed his recently released single, “Leadfoot,” in concert for the first time on Friday at Penn State University’s Bryce Jordan Center in State College, Pennsylvania. The song appears on Strings’ forthcoming, Jon Brion-produced album, Highway Prayers.

Strings debuted “Leadfoot” at the start of the second set of Friday’s concert, the first of two back-to-back shows at the 15,000-person capacity arena. The song is among 20 originals on Highway Prayers, set for release on September 27 via Reprise Records.

The live premiere of “Leadfoot” saw Strings playing a Masterton ML-1: Missing Link Béla Fleck series baritone banjo while his bandmate, banjo player Billy Failing, played acoustic guitar. The debut was visually enhanced with footage from the music video that accompanied the single’s recent release.

Watch audience-shot video of the “Leadfoot” live debut below:

Strings, Failing and fiddler Alex Hargreaves, bassist Royal Masat and mandolinist Jarrod Walker played five additional songs off the Highway Prayers tracklist on Friday night. The group offered across the evening’s two sets live performances of “Seven Weeks in County,” “My Alice,” “Be Your Man,” “Escanaba” and, during the encore, “Richard Petty” with the participating musicians around a single microphone.

Friday’s first set also saw Strings’ live debut of Larry Sparks’ “Natural Thing to Do” and the second set featured Strings’ second time covering Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” View additional audience-shot videos from Friday’s show at PSU:

Setlist (via BillyBase)

Set One: Sharecropper’s Son, Turmoil & Tinfoil, This Old World, Long Forgotten Dream, Dust In A Baggie, Love and Regret, Doin’ Things Right, Natural Thing to Do [1][2], Seven Weeks in County [3], Will You Be Loving Another Man?, Away From The Mire

Set Two: Leadfoot [4][5][6], Think Of What You’ve Done, New Camptown Races, My Alice, Be Your Man, Escanaba, Nothing’s Working, Running The Route [7] > Running, The Old Mountaineer, Everything’s The Same > Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, Miss The Mississippi And You, Roll On Buddy, Roll On

Encore: Richard Petty [8], Tennessee [9]

Notes:

• [1] FTP – Larry Sparks
• [2] Billy spoke about learning this song from his Dad as a kid
• [3] Billy introduced this song, celebrating the album announcement of Highway Prayers
• [4] FTP – Original (video single released midnight the night before)
• [5] Billy on his new Masterton ML-1: Missing Link Béla Fleck Series Baritone Banjo
• [6] Billy Failing on guitar
• [7] “Under the Sea” (Alan Menken and Howard Ashman) tease
• [8] Band minus Alex around single mic front of stage
• [9] Full band around single mic front of stage