Green River Festival, celebrating its 40th anniversary this past weekend in Greenfield, Massachusetts, is no longer the state’s best kept secret. The 2026 edition felt like the clearest proof yet that it has hit the mainstream, yet still remains something genuinely special.
This was my third year at Green River, and each has come with its own weather story. Year one brought torrential rain that held up everything. Year two was a heat wave that had everyone fighting for shade by noon. This year the weather cooperated completely. Mid-80s, sunny with a breeze that kept the whole weekend feeling easy. You don’t fully appreciate this kind of weather until you’ve stood in a muddy field watching a stage delay tick upward, or felt the unbearing heat as you wait for your favorite artist to take the stage.
The setting helps too. Green River takes place across multiple stages in and around a working fairground in western Massachusetts, mixing outdoor main stage sets with intimate barn performances that create a range of experiences you don’t often find at a single festival. The food lineup is its own reason to show up. Gunnar’s Icelandic Hot Dogs, Skinny Pancake, Dean’s Beans, and the festival’s own Moo-Nuts ice cream filled donuts, with a line that was at least 50 people deep at all times all weekend and worth every minute of the wait. The Maker’s Market rounded things out with local artists and craftspeople that made the between-set wandering feel like its own event.
Like I said, it’s no longer Massachusetts’ best kept secret. It just took forty years for everyone else to figure that out.
Friday: Charley Crockett and a Filipino Rapper Who Stole the Day
Friday set the high bar early. Ruby Ibarra, the Tiny Desk Contest winner and Filipino rapper who has been blowing up lately, played the Dean’s Beans Stage with energy that won over a crowd who probably wasn’t super familiar with her showing up. Her message about immigrant resilience and Filipino empowerment landed as hard as her delivery (which came mostly in Tagalog), and by the end of her set she had a field full of converts.
Kashus Culpepper brought a different kind of surprise to the main stage. The 26-year-old Navy veteran, who learned to play while serving overseas, delivered a set of southern soul that felt rooted and raw. Over at the Roundhouse Stage in the barn, local bluegrass and country act Splendid Torch played a set that reminded everyone why the barn stage is one of the best kept secrets of the festival itself.
Charley Crockett closed Friday night after the sun went down, and while country isn’t my default genre, his deep voice and old-school sound made a strong case. There’s a classicism to what he does and the crowd hanging on every word as the field darkened around him was one of the weekend’s better images.
Saturday: Ratboys in a Barn and Spoon Playing Songs You Already Know
Saturday was the day I’ll be thinking about the longest. The Back Porch Stage, which is essentially a barn and pavilion mixed together, hosted two of the weekend’s best sets in a row. Ratboys, the Chicago band whose momentum right now in the indie rock scene is genuinely hard to overstate, played a set that felt almost absurdly intimate for a band that should be selling out mid-to-large venues in the very near future. Watching them in that setting, with a crowd packed in tight and completely focused in, was the kind of experience that reminds you why festival stages like this exist.
Folk Bitch Trio followed on the same stage and brought something entirely different. Their quiet harmonies had the barn in a hushed, collective state of attention that was almost striking given the reggae set blasting from the Dean’s Beans Stage across the field. The band acknowledged it themselves, joking that they wouldn’t blame anyone for wandering over to dance, before one of them shot back “hey, you can shake your ass to our songs too.” The room disagreed, but everyone stayed put.
The Beths also delivered a strong afternoon set before Spoon closed Saturday night. I walked into the weekend without much Spoon knowledge and left having spent most of their set thinking “wait, I know this one.” That’s a testament to just how deep their catalog runs and how well those songs hold up in a festival setting.
Sunday: Geese, the Hype, and Everything That Led Up to Them
Sunday had an energy from the start that was different from the first two days. That was largely due to Geese, whose headlining slot had been the subject of more conversation and anticipation all weekend than any other act on the bill. The New York band has been polarizing online, beloved by some, questioned by others, and I came in curious rather than convinced.
Live, I think I get it. They rocked, full stop, and their fanbase’s energy fed directly into their performance in a way that made the whole thing feel larger than the stage it was happening on. They earned the headline slot.
But Sunday had plenty going on before Geese took the stage. Hurray for the Riff Raff and Thao both delivered sets worth arriving early for, and Angela Autumn was a genuine early day discovery. The recent winner of SXSW’s Developing Artist Grulke Prize, an award that has previously gone to Leon Bridges, HAIM, Anderson .Paak, and Future Islands, she is definitely one to keep an eye on as she kicks off her career.
Wednesday, who opened for Geese on the main stage, matched the hype that had been building around the headliner all day, and added to it with the funniest stage design I’ve seen in a while. Creepy dolls, weird painting, toys. The stage looked like a children’s playroom, which paired with the bands rock sounds, made for a humorous pairing. By the time Geese finally took the stage as the sun went down on the 40th edition of Green River Festival, the field was full and ready.
Forty years in, Green River is still finding new ways to make the same field in western Massachusetts feel like somewhere worth being. The 2026 edition was the best I’ve attended. Next year, make the trip yourself and find out why.
Nathan Smith is a Providence-based music photographer and journalist focusing on capturing the special moments and unfiltered magic of live performances. Whether he’s shooting established artists at sold-out TD Garden shows or documenting the rise of emerging local bands, his goal is the same: to pull viewers directly into the heart of the moment.
His writing spotlights rising artists and local scenes, with a focus on telling the stories that often get overlooked. A lifelong music fan and musician himself, Nathan approaches interviews and portraits as conversations rather than transactions, building trust with artists so their genuine personalities can shine through. Whether he’s backstage, in the photo pit, or at home in front of the keyboard, he brings the same curiosity and care to every assignment.
Outside of his press work with Juice Box Press, Nathan works regularly as a photographer with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as numerous bands in the Boston and Providence area. Nathan also plays violin with a local orchestra, follows Celtics basketball almost religiously, and is an avid fantasy reader.