When I took a trip last month back to East Texas, I figured “Dirt Road Anthem” by tonight’s Stagecoach headliner, Jason Aldean, would anchor the trip’s soundtrack.

But I was surprised to find that there was a lot more pavement in East Texas than I remembered. County roads, Farm-to-Market roads, even the way to Holland Quarters on FM 959 that I hadn’t ever explored when I lived in nearby Carthage — they were all paved better than some stretches of Ramon Road, a major throroughfare here in the Coachella Valley.

The closest I got to a dirt road on my East Texas trip was a couple of short unpaved driveways leading up to friends’ homes. Hell, I’d done more dirt-road driving on my latest trip to the Salton Sea.

But it was when I heard the opening guitar line of “Dirt Road Anthem” as the ringtone of some fellow customer at a Chick-Fil-A in Longview that I knew, pavement situation aside, the song really was an anthem that fit in East Texas just as it did back home in California.

Make it your anthem tonight when Aldean hits the Mane Stage at 9:45 p.m.