Show Review: Hayden Pedigo

Hayden Pedigo performed an intimate set at the Parker Theatre in Salt Lake City on October 26, 2025.

Concert

Hayden Pedigo is perhaps one of the best guitarists I’ve ever seen. I tend to overstate or overexcite myself after a phenomenal show, especially ones as rare as this, but I mean it. Pedigo’s signature fingerpicking style has taken over my life again this year with the release of I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away in June and the anticipation of his project In the Earth Again with new collaborator Chat Pile, which releases tomorrow. I dare you to find a contemporary musician with as much expansive sound and technical skill. I am sure you can, but this is a hill I will die on for my own sake.

Pedigo wears his influences on his sleeve and doesn’t hold back from rattling off the names of guitar legends that inspire his fingerpicking style. He is a self-described disciple of the late John Fahey. His influence oozes out of nearly every one of his songs, especially the opening track, “Long Pond Lily,” of I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away, the final album in a trilogy that included 2021’s Letting Go and 2023’s The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored. To describe Pedigo’s playing style as intimate would be selling him short — much of the set was spent both inviting the audience into the music through Pedigo’s short stories before and after each song, and communicating directly with them through a short Q&A. Pedigo discussed how he came to his current style of guitar playing because of his inability to shred at a young age: “I retired from [that stuff] at 14, then started playing with a slide.”

I could call the whole thing tenderly confessional as Pedigo holds nothing back, admitting to his severe struggle with stage fright — which he’s managed to conquer in the last few years — and the lingering heartache from running for Amarillo, Texas city council in 2018. When asked on his plans for any future campaigns, Pedigo sighed and said, “I will not be running again.”

Pedigo played only a handful of songs, most from I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away, and even gave the audience a chance to pick between “an ugly song or a pretty song.” We unanimously chose ugly, which led to him playing “Rained Like Hell” which captures the high winds and crushing rains of the Texas panhandle that Pedigo grew up in. With winding crescendos and delicate lulls, all moving at a near-unending pace, it became my favorite performance of the evening.

This set was shared by opener and almost-local Jens Kuross of Boise, Idaho. The pair became friends after Kuross opened for Pedigo in 2023. Pedigo took the time to watch all of Kuross’ set and call out for an encore. “Who does that?” Kuross said when recounting the story. His latest album, Crooked Songs, sees Kuross blending bold and pounding synth melodies with his airy, nearly falsetto vocals. It’s not a perfect comparison, but if you are a fan of Barchords-era Bahamas or Youth Lagoon’s The Year of Hibernation, you will love the vulnerability Kuross brings to each song and lyric. Pedigo said it best, describing Crooked Songs as “a lighthouse beam in the dark.”