Look, I know that calling Wilco “dad rock” is something of a cheap shot at this point, a rather lazy shorthand for one of the most influential bands of the twenty-first century. But somewhere out there, a dad really is punching the air right now—I know because that dad is mine, and I’m fist-pumping right along with him. For good reason, too: Jeff Tweedy and English folk-punk icon Billy Bragg are reuniting onstage to perform Mermaid Avenue live for the very first time next year, kicking off the 2026 iteration of Wilco’s beloved Solid Sound Festival.
The collaborative record, originally released in 1998, set Woody Guthrie’s unearthed lyrics to new music and spawned one of the most enduring cross-generational songbooks in modern folk rock. Its success led to a follow-up, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II, in 2000, and later Mermaid Avenue Vol. III, released in 2012 as part of a deluxe box set compiling all three volumes alongside a documentary and bonus material. Now, after decades of trading those songs back and forth in their own sets, Wilco and Bragg will finally share the stage to bring them to life together. Tweedy put it simply: “The world needs all the Woody Guthrie it can get.” Bragg echoed the sentiment, saying he’s eager to “bring Woody’s words to life once again.”
The reunion feels both overdue and inevitable. Mermaid Avenue was a singular act of musical archaeology—Guthrie’s unseen verses, written in the 1940s-50s, meeting the scrappy experimentation of late-nineties Wilco and Bragg’s working-class wit. The result was an album that reframed Guthrie as something more complex than a protest icon: a writer of romance, humor, and grit. It’s the kind of project that always felt too big for one era, which makes its live debut nearly three decades later feel strangely right.
Solid Sound has a reputation for turning its Friday night slot into something special—previous editions have featured Wilco karaoke (with the backing tracks performed live by Wilco themselves), all-covers sets, and full-album performances—but this one carries an especially heavy dose of nostalgia. Mermaid Avenue tracks like “California Stars,” “Hoodoo Voodoo,” and “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key” have remained fixtures in both Wilco’s and Bragg’s live sets over the years, but this will be the first time this will be the first time the two artists come together to play an entire set drawn from the Mermaid Avenue songbook.
Outside of the reunion, Solid Sound 2026 will once again fill MASS MoCA’s sprawling grounds in North Adams, Massachusetts with Wilco’s extended musical family, comedy sets, and the museum’s own massive art installations. Running from June 26–28, this will mark the festival’s eighth edition since its 2010 debut, continuing its reputation as one of the country’s most distinctive and community-minded music gatherings. Weekend passes are available now, and you can read what Tweedy and his sons Sammy and Spencer had to say about his new album Twilight Override in our recent cover story here.
Nearly thirty years after its release, Mermaid Avenue still feels like lightning caught in a bottle—a meeting of worlds that somehow made perfect sense. Seeing it finally come to life onstage might be as close as we get to time travel, or at least to watching the folk tradition reinvent itself in real time. An air-punch well-earned.
