Ole 60 sold out the Ryman last October. Not on tour support. Headlining. A six-piece from Hawesville, Kentucky, not two years into the job, standing in the chapel of country music on a sold-out night. Their debut album wasn’t even out yet.
Smokestack Town is out now, and it’s the kind of record that earns those rooms. Jacquire King produced it — the same producer behind work with Zach Bryan and Kings of Leon — and the album shows that reach. It’s a concept record, a fictional small town rendered across ten tracks by frontman Jacob Ty Young. His songwriting leans on John Prine more than it leans on Nashville: character sketches, moral weight, the kind of story that requires the narrator to care how it ends. “Smoke & A Light,” their certified Gold breakthrough single, is on there. So is “Let You Down” and “Dust 2 Dust.” The record opens with the title track and doesn’t waste a note.
June 26 in Houston is part of an extended Smokestack Town Tour run. What started as a 28-date headlining run in January now stretches through September, with Stagecoach and Gulf Coast Jam already in the rearview. Ole 60 comes into 713 Music Hall with momentum and without apology.
The hall holds 5,000. It sits inside POST Houston — the converted former Barbara Jordan Post Office building — a Live Nation room that opened in 2021. Big and clean, with sight lines to match the stages Ole 60 is earning these days.
Opening the night is Dexter and The Moonrocks, four members out of Abilene who describe their genre as “Western space grunge.” That’s an honest label: they grew up on country and grunge both and split the difference with skill. “Sad in Carolina” sat at No. 1 on Billboard Alternative Airplay. “Freakin’ Out” hit the Hot 100. The Houston crowd that shows up early won’t regret it.
Show starts at 8 PM, Friday, June 26. Tickets available via Ticketmaster.