“Every time we left the driveway, we’d be so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—just totally ecstatic to be about to see something we’d never seen before,” says Flatland Cavalry frontman Cleto Cordero. He’s not talking about the concrete pad in front of the Lubbock home where the band started out (chronicled in their recent release “Three Car Garage”). No, “the driveway” is what the band called Highway 84—specifically, the two-hour stretch from Lubbock to Sweetwater that they’d have to traverse before just about every tour in their early days of rigorous honky-tonkin’ around the Lone Star State.
They’re spending considerably fewer hours driving in and out of Lubbock these days, but the country band, which started in 2014, has had plenty to be ecstatic about over the course of their 10th year together. Flatland Cavalry has headlined shows at legendary venues like the Ryman in Nashville and Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, placed songs on blockbuster soundtracks and Yellowstone alike, toured internationally and released a greatest-hits compilation called Flatland Forever that features their six No. 1 songs on the Texas country charts, among many others.
Now, they’re heading back to Fort Worth, where they’ve played countless times over the years and were even based for a period, to cap off the victory lap at Dickies Arena on New Year’s Eve—their biggest headlining show to date. “It’s the culmination of 10 years of hard work and dedication to our craft and living the dream, really,” as Cordero puts it.
Cordero grew up in Midland, and though he now lives in Nashville, his passion for music is decidedly rooted in red dirt. When he was 17 years old, a Randy Rogers Band concert in Odessa proved pivotal. “I thought I was alive and awake before that moment, but I got struck in the soul there,” he says. “I saw these people dancing and truly enjoying themselves, and it moved me. I knew in that moment what I wanted to do.”
Fast forward through formative years at Midland College and Texas Tech (and, perhaps most importantly, playing at Lubbock’s storied Blue Light Live), and the band set off for Fort Worth for the first time in 2015, booking a show at the since-relocated Landmark Bar & Kitchen. It was a Sunday, and they had a three-hour set that they had to flesh out with covers, but they still made $800 and had a good crowd because 95.9 FM The Ranch was playing their first EP. “I was like, ‘Man, we’re rolling in it!'” Cordero says, laughing.
A year later, they were playing Billy Bob’s Texas; for the past two years, the band has sold out two night runs at the so-called “World’s Largest Honky Tonk.” “So last New Year’s Eve, our agent told me that the next time we play Fort Worth, it would be at Dickies Arena,” Cordero says.
It will be a milestone show for the group, though they’ve already played arenas and stadiums like the AT&T Stadium opening for larger acts. They’ve spent a lot of time planning and growing their set from those barroom shows to some of the biggest stages around, leveling up their performances to each new setting and getting a new kind of response back in return.
“It just makes you think about it differently in terms of singing to that many souls—every word really counts,” Cordero says. “You can forget that sometimes because of the in-ear monitors, which create isolation and block out some of the noise. But there’s nothing like taking them out to hear an audience that size just erupt with praise and cheers, tens of thousands of people just screaming their hearts out. It’s like a movie. It gives you goosebumps.”
