Country music and East Tennessee have always had a storied relationship. Founders of the genre, like Chet Akins, and its early proprietors of mainstream success, such as Dolly Parton, have paved a path through the Smoky Mountains to the Cumberland Gap that’s been catching nationwide attention for generations. The hallowed ground of Rocky Top has cultivated its fair share of stars over the years, the most recent of which just made a big announcement: Morgan Wallen is coming home.
On Monday morning, the announcement came through local FM radio waves around 9 a.m. on Knoxville’s local station 107.7 WIVK. Wallen will be playing at Neyland Stadium on Friday, September 20th, and Sunday, September 22nd. Joining him are label-mates Hardy and Ernest, two of Morgan’s most prominent supporters in the media, on stage, and in the writers’ room. The announcement comes just weeks after being teased on Instagram in response to the recent Tennessee Volunteers National Championship at the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, which Wallen attended along with a litter of Vol legends. With guys like Peyton Manning in your corner, there’s no hill too steep to climb.
Wallen now joins a selective and extremely small group that can say they played anything besides a football game in the General’s house. On top of that, he’s one of three since the turn of the century. The return of the Gibbs High School alums marks the sixth concert ever held in Neyland Stadium, with the last being Garth Brooks in 2019. Sixteen years before that, fellow Knoxvillian Kenny Chesney graced the stage in 2001 and 2003. The only two acts to have that privilege were the Jackson 5 on their Victory tour in 1984 and Johnny Cash with Billy Graham on his Knoxville crusade in 1970.
To say that an opportunity like this is an honor still undersells it. Seldom do the powers in the UT athletic department allow for an event like this to happen, and it’s equally rare that the city sees an act that can even fill those seats for anything other than a Saturday in the fall. Not only does a show of this caliber speak to Wallen’s love for his home state and his neighbors, but it also displays how fervent the state is to have its hometown hero back on its side of the mountains.
For Wallen specifically, the return is long overdue. While he’s had a few impromptu sets after big wins for the Volunteers, it’s been almost half a decade since the singer took to a stage fit for his size. His last ticketed event on Rocky Top was at the 2019 Tennessee Valley fair, while the singer was amidst the buzz and bustle building around him and his debut LP, “If I Know Me.” Five years, two LPs, and two tours later, it feels like he may be capable of giving the state’s biggest stage a run for its money.
However, this is far from the first instance of Wallen paying his respects to the roots that raised him. Aside from his celebrations with fellow fans on a collegiate level, he’s also given back to his alma mater in poetic fashion. In 2023, he hosted a private concert for students of Gibbs High School before the release of his most recent record, “One Thing At A Time.” The concert itself, held on the school’s baseball field, had Wallen on the same pitching mound he grew up on before a torn UCL would alter his trajectory from ballparks to ballrooms.
The show marks a storied homecoming for Wallen and a new precedent set for Tennessee and the acts it cultivates. Only sometimes is an act of this caliber allowed to play a venue such as Neyland, but to have one that can return the favors of hospitality on a stage this big is an even rarer occurrence. Moments like these cement Wallen’s legacy as a tried and true Tennessean, and they only further an ongoing and rapidly growing legacy. A move like this displays that amid world tours and platinum records, Morgan Wallen is still, first and foremost, a Tennessee Volunteer.
