Last Night in Omaha (by Matt Simonsen)
2026-03-21, Orpheum Theatre, Omaha, NE
Last spring at the Orpheum Theatre in Omaha, a year ago next week, there was a setlist change: “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” became the new opening number. By Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour setlist standards, that was big news! But that was nothing compared to what happened a year later at the same venue.
Last night saw the biggest single setlist shake-up of the entire Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour. Nine of the songs he’d been playing at every Rough and Rowdy show for the last year were out. Seven new songs were swapped in. Five of those came from Outlaw last summer, but two were huge surprises—one classic he hadn’t played since 2013, and one cover he’d never played ever. Not to mention that, for the first time ever, the show was entirely acoustic.
Matt Simonsen was on hand to tell us about it. Matt and I recorded a short podcast before the tour, predicting what we thought would change with the setlist. As usual with Rough and Rowdy, the safe bet was: Not much. Boy were we wrong!
Here’s Matt’s report from the show (with a bonus tape and audio samples courtesy Stu Levitan):
It’s hot down here, and you can be overdressed
The beautiful Orpheum Theater in Omaha won the right to kick off the 2026 leg of the Never-Ending Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour. While many of us were feeling the Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour was getting a little long in the tooth, the good people of Nebraska got a double-dose of March Madness!
On the drive to the concert, my wife asked me if I was excited and I told her I was. “I hope he plays a song I’ve never heard live, but I’ll be happy just to see him,” I said. I knew how unlikely it was he’d play some shocking surprise. Or, rather, I thought I knew…
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