New Music Fridays presents a new live release every Friday night! This week’s hand-picked show closes out the 41st annual Farm Aid, recorded September 26, 2026, at the Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater in Virginia Beach, the festival’s first-ever stop in the city. A Nor’easter had shut down major concerts further up the East Coast that same weekend, but Farm Aid pressed on through a light mist, and at 93 years old, founder and president Willie Nelson closed the night with a set that critics are already calling one of the best of his career.

Nelson opened with Trigger in hand for a “Whiskey River” that had fans and critics alike noting how strong his voice still sounds. The family stayed close all night: son Lukas Nelson joined for a duet of Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe,” while son Micah Nelson, who’d already played earlier with Neil Young, led the band through his Particle Kid track “Everything Is Bulls**t.” Lily Meola joined for “Will You Remember Mine,” and fellow Farm Aid co-founder Neil Young stepped out for their classic “Are There Any More Real Cowboys?”

The night closed the way Farm Aid always does, with nearly everyone who played that day back onstage, Neil Young, Nathaniel Rateliff, Margo Price, and the Turnpike Troubadours among them, for a massive gospel-tinged medley of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” “I’ll Fly Away,” and “I Saw the Light.” The 2026 festival leaned hard into the economic pressure, climate impacts, and corporate consolidation facing American family farmers, with the full day also featuring John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds, Sierra Ferrell, and Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs.

Tune in Friday at 9 PM EST and catch the full set.