By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
Nine bands and nearly 50 bulls will vie for the audience's attention at a new music festival Saturday in Amarillo.
The Buckin' Wild Music Fest runs from noon to midnight Saturday in the Amarillo National Center on the Tri-State Fairgrounds, 3301 S.E. 10th Ave.
The festival — which originated and continues to run annually in Erick, Okla. — was named one of Great American Country's Top Tours, Festivals & Rockin' Road Trips, and makes its Amarillo debut this year.
Headliner is JB and the Moonshine Band, with support from Nashville acts Ward Davis and Ray Scott, Grammy Award-winning Tejano star Sunny Sauceda, and Amarillo and regional acts Zac Wilkerson, Comanche Moon, Tyler Wilhelm & A Few Dollars More and JW Lane & County Road X.
That's all at one end of the center. At the other end is a Professional Bull Riding competition with about 50 bulls and professional riders.
It's the brainchild of Donny G. Liles, who moved from Nashville to Sayre, Okla., a few years ago and saw immediate success with his festival in Erick. In just three years, his festival has grown to more than 5,000 attendees, including Amarillo men David Weir and Joel Wolfson, who convinced Liles to make Yellow City the home of his first expansion and helped find a boatload of sponsors.
When they attended the festival, "it was just pouring down rain, but the event ended up being so much fun," Weir said.
Liles said he thinks the festival is the first of its kind to regularly feature Texas country/Red Dirt and Nashville acts, and the Amarillo edition will add Tejano to the mix.
Tickets are $55 for adults, $40 for students ages 13 to 17 or military, and $25 for children ages 6 to 12.
Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and at www.facebook.com/chipchandlerwriter on Facebook.
