This post has little to do with the 2025 music scene and everything to do with a cover done exceptionally well. Seven years ago Sugarland went on tour in support of their album Bigger and drew crowds by the thousands. It was actually the band’s last major stadium tour before taking a second hiatus (their first occured from 2011-2016). To date, Bigger is also the band’s last full length LP. The Nashvilla-via-Atlanta duo did release the EP There Goes the Neighborhood (which this site reviewed last fall). The duo partnered the EP’s release with a fall 2024 tour with longtime touring partners, Little Big Town.

Back to 2018, inspired by close friends in the LGBTQIA+ community who were struggling to be seen, heard and loved, the band incorporated Patty Griffin’s visceral pro-gay rights anthem “Tony” into their sets for the Bigger tour. The band even went so far as to change the band’s name for this tour, moving away from Sugarland and instead using the moniker Sugarl&. While finding good covers is a relatively simple task these days, this one seems to be one worth revisiting time and again. The only regret here is that the band didn’t record it as a single. The song only exists in YouTube clips like the one seen above.

The magic of this cover is that it proves Sugarland is one of country music’s best live acts and that Patty Griffin is one this nation’s finest songwriters. As for Sugarland, who knows when the band will drop their next LP, but until then this cover will rank as one of this writer’s favorite cover songs to date.