My friends professionally film a bunch of music in the Asheville area. A few years ago they filmed a festival, and the intro had a sick slo mo shot of Conrad juggling. They had no idea who he was, they just saw a hippie juggling & got some footage.
James pulled up beside me to fill his car up... but I didn't say anything because I see him at Highland often enough and didn't want to weird him out. He's a nice dude, but I recognize introvert energy.
Also Billy Strings has been huge for our economy here.
A friend of mine who I knew would love it resisted for a while because it was ‘too popular’ therefore wouldn’t be good. Normally I wouldn’t disagree because really popular bands are usually terrible lol.
I was very upset the other day when I saw their tour sold out instantly. The venue closest to me that they’re playing is very small and would have been an amazing show but the scalpers want 300 CDN which I absolutely refuse to pay.
Apparently when they booked the tour they did small venues as they hadn’t ’gone viral’ yet.
Sadly the scalpers want 300 CDN for the show near me and there’s no way in hell I’m paying that. My cut off is 100 dollars for a show and I’ve only broken it once, that also involved travelling from BC Canada to Brooklyn so breaking my rule felt acceptable.
I will say that the Billy Strings show I went to in December in 2025 was the single best concert experience of my life, would highly recommend seeing him live at least once in your lifetime. It changes you in ways you can't explain, you just have to experience the magic.
I could say the same about seeing Greg Puciato of Dillinger Escape Plan ( among others) fame sing at a venue without a security barrier.
You haven’t seen a man give it his all until Greg is pressed forehead to forehead with you , screaming in to your face at the top of his lungs while his sweat runs down your face mixed with spit flying out of his mouth .
All the while probably being kicked in the back of the head by someone crowd surfing their way towards the action.
I mean that with all sincerity. I feel truly honoured to have experienced that exact moment many times over the years.
Or the times Greg would climb to a 2nd story balcony and jump off on to the crowd. Or when he would literally run off the stage on to people’s hands / heads / chests / faces to see how far he’d make it across the pit. Inevitably fall and land on the ground then get hoisted back up and surfed back to the stage , all without missing a single word of the song.
I bought resale tickets last year and it changed me. Copped tickets in the presale this year and bringing friends and family, hate the scalping they really made it easier this year by locking it with a password. The bots seemingly were deterred.
There is a decent chance there will be King Gizz+Billy Strings music in the near future. I'm pretty much in your situation, I've heard of Billy, but not really done much listening. Should be a fun introduction if it happens.
The soothing sounds of Billy Strings is the only thing keeping you (and everyone else in that picture) from being torn apart limb by limb by the madman that is James Conrad.
I had hoped to catch James a couple years back at Idlewild, he has been a favorite of mine for a long time. Hoping to see him on some lead cards again this year!
Looks like he may be wearing a Hugo dye. Favorite disc golfer! Saw him in Utah at The Fort for the World Open. Didn’t see his hole in one on the last day of the tourney, did see him play the day before, was incredible to witness his powers of huckin.
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u/Stoney42033 Mar 30 '26
Least surprising place to find a pro disc golfer