Backroads Tour 2026

There’s a certain kind of electricity that only happens when music, movement and community collide — the kind that turns front porches into organizing hubs, tiny clubs into cultural flashpoints and strangers into lifelong collaborators. On May 24, that energy is heading to Asheville Music Hall.

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, Rural Progress is bringing the Backroads Tour to Asheville — part of a coast-to-coast live music run designed to celebrate the rebellious joy, cultural grit and community power that have always pulsed through rural America.

Running from May through July, the tour isn’t positioning itself as another packaged nostalgia trip or corporate-sponsored “heartland” campaign. Instead, Backroads is aiming for something bigger: a traveling cultural movement rooted in the idea that rural communities have always been at the center of America’s most transformative moments — and still are. An Appalachian stop centering collaboration across musical traditions and generations. The night lifts up Appalachia as a place of ongoing creativity and struggle.

Raury headlines the Asheville show, joined by Joseph Terrell, Dori Freeman, Sparrow Smith and The Wildmans — a lineup that pairs marquee artistry with performers deeply connected to the communities the tour passes through.

Show Details
Date: Sunday, May 24, 2026
Venue: Asheville Music Hall
Address: 31 Patton Ave, Asheville, NC 28801
Doors: 6:30 PM
Show Start: 7:00 PM
Ages: 21+
Headliner: Raury
With: Joseph Terrell, Dori Freeman, Sparrow Smith, The Wildmans
Tickets / Info: https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/53540905/backroads-tourpresented-by-rural-progress-asheville-asheville-music-hall