Conan O'Brien promised special guests to close out the Newport Folk Festival. Here's who came

NEWPORT – When Conan O'Brien was named as a performer at the Newport Folk Festival he promised special guests and, well, he delivered.

O’Brien closed out the 2024 Newport Folk Festival with a bang, bringing special guests Langhorne Slim, Nick Lowe, Brittany Howard, Nathaniel Rateliff, Mavis Staples, Jack White and even Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

While O'Brien may not be the conventional show closer like Billy Strings last year, Joni Mitchell in 2022 or Dolly Parton in 2021, his appearance was highly anticipated with the spaces and walkways around the Fort Stage packed even 30 minutes before O’Brien took the stage alongside Jimmy Vivino and the band Dawes.

As rumors swirled over who the “very special guests” O’Brien would bring to the table for the final slot of a weekend it wouldn’t be until 19 minutes into the set that the first guest, Langhorne Slim, would take the stage. Minutes later, drops of rain here and there began to fall.

O’Brien greeted Newport and Rhode Island, naming several real towns before jokingly naming three fake ones to fool the “wasted” attendees in the crowd. He said he grew up coming to Rhode Island over the summers and had a real “attitude” about Newport that’s flipped since coming here for the festival.

The former Tonight Show host told the packed crowd this is his first time performing while looking at a harbor, joking that people could swim rather than just walk away from his show. Why was he at a primarily country and folk music festival in the first place? O’Brien jokingly explained that his mission at Folk Festival was to prove he could ruin “any genre of music.”

This story was updated to reflect that Billy Strings closed out the 2023 Newport Folk Festival.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Newport Folk Festival 2024: Conan O'Brien and special guests