Jason Boland & The Stragglers book The Armadillo Ranch in Azle for Feb. 20

The red dirt veterans, a year past their 'Last Kings of Babylon' album, take a Saturday-night date in Azle.

Fort Worth has seen Jason Boland & The Stragglers in plenty of big rooms, Billy Bob's Texas among them. In February, the red dirt band heads out to Azle for a Saturday night that should feel a lot closer to the stage.

Jason Boland & The Stragglers play The Armadillo Ranch in Azle on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2027, at 7 p.m. The date was announced Oct. 29. Ticket details were not posted with the announcement, so keep an eye on the band's and the venue's channels as the date gets closer.

For a band that usually headlines rooms of around 637 people, an Azle date is a chance to hear a road-tested group up close, in a setting that suits songs built on storytelling.

The band has more than enough material. Its most recent album, *The Last Kings of Babylon*, was announced in late 2024 as a 10-song record, the band's eleventh studio album, and arrived in March 2025, as Saving Country Music reported. Whiskey Riff covered the announcement too, and the record carries a retrospective feel tied to the band's 25 years on the road. By February it will be nearly two years old, which means the new songs have had time to settle into the set next to the older ones that longtime fans come to hear.

Those 25 years are the real story. Boland and the Stragglers came up as part of the red dirt scene and have spent a quarter-century touring Texas and Oklahoma clubs and dancehalls. Their 2026 calendar shows the kind of loyalty that builds: a two-night stand at Cherokee Casino venues in Oklahoma in January, according to the Cherokee Nation's Anadisgoi news service, which called the band red dirt icons.

North Texas has its own long relationship with the band. Billy Bob's Texas has hosted Jason Boland & the Stragglers, and the band has turned up on FOX 4's Good Day to talk about new records. For Tarrant County fans who have caught them at the big Stockyards room, Azle offers a different look at the same songs.

Genre-wise, this is country with folk bones: songs about work, drinking, drifting and getting by, delivered by a band that has played them for decades and still means them. The Stragglers are tight in the way only bands that have spent years together are.

A Saturday night in February is a good time to get out of town. Make the short drive west, get there early, and let a band that has been doing this for 25 years remind you why it lasted.

Sources: Jason Boland & the Stragglers announce new album Last Kings of Babylon (Saving Country Music) (savingcountrymusic.com); Jason Boland & The Stragglers announce new album The Last Kings of Babylon (Whiskey Riff) (whiskeyriff.com); Cherokee Casinos hosts red dirt icons Jason Boland & The Stragglers for two nights in January (Anadisgoi) (anadisgoi.com); Jason Boland & the Stragglers (Billy Bob's Texas) (billybobstexas.com); Jason Boland and the Stragglers release new album (FOX 4) (fox4news.com); JamBase: Jason Boland & The Stragglers at The Armadillo Ranch (jambase.com)