The story Tim McGraw tells about his first guitar has always been the most country thing about him — not the twenty-one number-one hits or the three Grammy Awards or the three decades of stadium shows, but the fact that he once traded his high school class ring at a pawn shop for a twenty-dollar guitar. That exchange, and the mythology it carries, is the spine of his 2026 album Pawn Shop Guitar and the namesake of the tour that arrives at Austin’s Moody Center ATX on Thursday, September 10, 2026, at 7:00 PM.
About Tim McGraw
Born in Delhi, Louisiana, in 1967 — the son of MLB pitcher Tug McGraw, a connection he didn’t make until he was eleven — McGraw broke through with his second studio album, Not a Moment Too Soon (1994), which became the best-selling country album of the year. What followed was one of the more durable careers in modern Nashville: three Grammy Awards, twenty-one singles at number one on the Billboard Hot Country 100, and a catalog — “I Like It, I Love It,” “Live Like You Were Dying,” “It’s Your Love” with Faith Hill — that has been lodged in the American ear for the better part of thirty years.
Pawn Shop Guitar, released in early March 2026, is the record McGraw built around that origin story — not the headliner he became, but the kid who figured a twenty-dollar guitar on a traded class ring was a reasonable foundation for a life in music. The Pawn Shop Guitar Tour, announced February 3, runs 33 dates across North America from July 9 through September 26. Three stadium stops brought The Chicks and Lady A into the bill at Hersheypark Stadium, Fenway Park, and Target Field. The Austin show is an arena-scale evening, with 49 Winchester — a six-piece Appalachian country-rock outfit from Castlewood, Virginia — on the bill for select tour dates.
49 Winchester’s 2022 album Fortune Favors the Bold on New West Records put them squarely on the Americana map, and they’ve spent the years since earning their road legs alongside Tyler Childers and Luke Combs. Their lineage runs back through Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, and Waylon Jennings — the same roots McGraw’s audience has always respected, even when Nashville radio didn’t always know what to do with that tradition.
Moody Center ATX
Moody Center ATX opened in 2022 on the University of Texas campus, replacing the Erwin Center, which had served Austin for forty-five years. The arena holds more than 15,000 and was designed from the ground up with concerts as the priority — sightlines, acoustic profile, and production infrastructure included. It sits at 2001 Robert Dedman Drive. For show listings, directions, and accessibility information, visit the Moody Center ATX venue page or moodycenteratx.com. For more Austin-area concerts, see the full calendar.
Tickets
Tim McGraw and the Pawn Shop Guitar Tour play Moody Center ATX on Thursday, September 10, 2026, at 7:00 PM. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster. VIP packages and meet-and-greet options are available through VIP Nation.