At a Star-Studded Flood Benefit Concert, Texas Musicians Reckoned With Unspeakable Tragedy

The band that played at the “Band Together Texas” concert at the Moody Center on Sunday night was impossibly tight. The stakes were high: It backed a collection of Texas country stars that included headliners Miranda Lambert, Parker McCollum, and Cody Johnson, as well as artists that spanned generations—from young acts like Dylan Gossett and Lukas Nelson to living legends like Lyle Lovett and Ronnie Dunn. They’d all come to Austin to raise money for victims of the Fourth of July flooding that devastated the Hill Country, each bringing a handful of songs as a tribute in front of thousands of fans from around Central Texas, most of whom were dressed in their Western best.

For the performers themselves, it was a complicated affair. How do you pick a song to play for an audience that’s still