The third and final country music show at Musikfest 2026 finally gave fans a taste of real country.

After concerts by bro-country singer Russell Dickerson, July 31, and pop-country performer Bailey Zimmerman, Aug.6, Parker McCollum, whose music, with its traditional influences of blues and Americana has given him eight gold and platinum hits in the past decade, took the Bethlehem festival’s main Wind Creek Steel Stage, Aug. 7.

He played a 20-song, 95-minute set that went from swinging honky-tonk to slow-burning and smoldering to cool country and fun fiddling, all in the traditional country format.

McCollum served notice that would be the case when he opened with his 2024 hit “What Kind of Man,” as his six-man band, plus a female backing vocalist, playing swinging country.

His 2020 gold hit “Young Man’s Blues” added steel pedal guitar, and the third song – one of the night’s best, “New Orleans,” from his 2015 debut album, “The Limestone Kid” – finished with a minute-long, fiddle-fueled jam.

The slow-burn segment started, appropriately, with his 2023 platinum chart-topper “Burn It Down,” slower and smokier as he urged the crowd to sing along – “Come on, Pennsylvania, everything you got!” – but showcasing his own high, clear vocals.

Similarly slow and emotional was his 2020 Chris Stapleton-written gold hit “Like a Cowboy,” with its light, cool piano intro and him hitting more high notes.

It also gave McCollum a chance to have some fun, as beforehand he recounted how his wife gave birth to their second boy July 30 and that he still was recovering and napped before the concert.

Then a couple in the audience asked for him to help reveal the gender of their expected second child (their first date was his concert in Allentown and they named their first child Parker) – it will be a second daughter.

McCollum’s latest single, “Big Old Fancy House” was another highlight of the night, starting with touching steel guitar and piano before breaking out, with him again hitting high, yodeling notes.

His 2015 minor hit “Meet You in the Middle” was fun and lighthearted, with more fiddle, and “My Own Worst Enemy” from his most recent album, last year’s self-titled disc (eight of the night’s songs were from it) was slower and also good.

“Country music right here, Pennsylvania,” he said, stating the obvious. And as if to add more evidence, he called his new album’s “Solid Country Gold” – a fiddle-fueled tribute to his influences – “one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written.”

He added a pure country voice on his 2017 gold hit “Hell of a Year,” which the crowd appreciatively cheered.

The audience of perhaps 4,000 showed just how invested it was in the show not only by cheering and singing along, but by actually dancing.

Songs such as his 2020 Top 40 hit “Stoned” and the new “Come On” were more rock country, and McCollum sang well on those, too.

The new “My Blue” was very good – also more country-rock, with a guitar solo, but the kind of lyrically-dark song that filled classic country.

He brought out supporting act Kassi Ashton to sing their new duet, “Sounds Like Something I Said,” and gave perhaps his best singing performance, belting and rocking to match her Amy Winehouse-like voice.

Of course, the audience wanted the hits, and McCollum played all except 2017’s gold “I Can’t Breathe.”

His biggest, 2020’s four-times platinum “Pretty Heart,” also was performed well, as was 2022’s platinum “Handle On You,” during which he encouraged the crowd, “Bethlehem, let’s go!”

And he blasted out the 2021 triple-platinum “To Be Loved by You” as the audience sang along.

McCollum closed with his recent single “Big Sky,” fun and upbeat.

There was no encore. McCollum already had given the audience everything a real country show could.

Ashton’s 11-song, 44-minute supporting set was very good, indeed.

In a crop-top T-shirt and hip-hugging jeans, she clearly incorporates sexuality into her act, but her voice – think Bonnie Raitt with a little Shania Twain – overshadows it.

Backed by a four-person band, Ashton opened with a snippet of Cher’s 1960s hit “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),” and her Top 40 country hit “Called Crazy.”

She showed off her voice on her new song, “Bitches,” holding a high, long note, and late in the set even covered Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon.” Ashton is no Stevie Nicks, but did a respectable job with the song.

New Jersey pop-country act Southpaw played a five-song, 19-minute set, to open the concert.