Country Thunder Arizona is back for its 2024 run.The festival kicked off at Canyon Moon Ranch in Florence on Thursday, April 11, with electric line dancing, RV bottlenecks and a fiery headlining performance by Lainey Wilson.The concert bowl opens at 1 p.m. today and Eric Church will headline the main stage later tonight. If you’re attending the festival — expected to draw some 20,000 people each day — here’s your guide to avoiding traffic.Looking ahead to the rest of the weekend, Jelly Roll is headlining Saturday and Koe Wetzel will close out the fest on Sunday.Check azcentral.com or follow us on Instagram and TikTok all weekend for live updates, concert reviews and setlists from Country Thunder 2024. Eric Church takes the main stageThe party people came in from the campgrounds as the time approached for Friday’s main event — a headlining set by Eric Church, a Country Thunder Arizona regular who hadn’t played the festival since 2021.And Church’s entrance did not disappoint — a haunting verse of “The Outsiders” with Church accompanying himself on electric guitar as the members of his backing band strolled out to join him, kicking in at full intensity for maximum effect.We’ll have a full review of Church’s set on Saturday morning.— Ed Masley A picture-perfect sunset on Day 2 of Country ThunderAs the sun is setting, Country Thunder provides the picture perfect background for golden hour. Three cousins ― Mara Manera, Kayden Hughes and Brooklyn Buck ― traveled from Colorado to attend Country Thunder. They aren’t there just for fun, it’s business, too as they are running a clothing booth at the festival for Pinque Boutique, a woman-owned family business in Grand Junction that’s owned by Hughes’ aunt.“She was inspired because she won Miss Colorado 2008, so she just fell in love with fashion and creating clothes so that’s her inspiration behind Pinque,” Hughes said.Adorned in bedazzled pink, white and purple outfits with fringes and white cowboy boots, the women took photos in front of the rides as the sun set. It was picture perfect.— Dina Kaur Paul Cauthen did his own thingAs statements of purpose go, you’d be hard pressed to top Paul Cauthen opening his set at Country Thunder Arizona with “Country as (Expletive),” especially considering how rarely Cauthen’s music ventures into territory one might commonly associate with country.That opening song, for example, was closer in spirit to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ brand of funk-rap (if the Peppers had been more experimental). Much of what he did was as rooted in hip-hop, alternative rock and funk as anything remotely country.Not that anybody seemed to mind.The Country Thunder crowd was in his corner from the time he sauntered out to join his bandmates on “Country as (Expletive)” through the funky alternative rap of “Caught Me At a Good Time” to a deeply emotional solo acoustic rendition of “Country Coming’ Down,” which Cauthen followed with a heartfelt cover of the Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained …
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