Post Malone performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2024.

SAN FRANCISCO — “My name is Austin Richard Post and I was invited by Outside Lands to play some of my favorite songs,” Post Malone said early on during his early evening set on the polo field at Outside Lands.

The singer and rapper wasn’t talking about his own songs, however, but a collection of the country songs songs that shaped him as he was growing up.

He was essentially made the curator of his own playlist, performing with a band of pros that included a pedal steel player and a fiddler. The star was very much living the country music aesthetic with jeans, an old Eagles T-shirt, and a camouflage ball cap. Still, the familiar Posty staples of a red solo cup and a lit cigarette were there. He took the stage right around the time the fog started rolling in and some precipitation began to be fall.

Post Malone performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2024.

“I know the weather is kinda shitty,” he said. “If you’re cold, hug your neighbor and say ‘I love you very much.'”

Turns out, Post Malone is an effective messenger for country music. His vocals were smokey, crisp and authentic. His harmonies with the members of his band were right on target. The 13-song set was heavy on country legends with a few more modern hits mixed in.

He opened with Hank Williams, Jr.’s “A Country Boy Can Survive,” clutching the mic stand and rocking back and forth, letting out a metal-worthy scream at the end.

The pyrotechnics were a transferable feature from a typical Post Malone concert. Whether it was the fireworks during the opener or the bursts of flames during a cover of George Strait’s “The Fireman,” there was often some extra garnish thrown in. The funny part was that the fiery additions didn’t necessarily align with the intensity of a track, but it was still fun to see.

Posty picked up an acoustic guitar for the more traditional “Who’s Cheating’ Who?” by Alan Jackson.

“Y’all like George Strait?” he asked before playing a pair of covers that also included more twangy ballad “Carrying Your Love With Me.” It was during that song that he briefly stopped the performance to check on someone who may have had a medical issue.

“Let’s start back from the hook San Fran,” he said. “If anyone needs any help, let me know.”

There was some guests along the way, though these were musicians and songwriters with whom the majority of the crowd likely weren’t familiar.

“I was looking at this song, and he fuckin wrote it, too,” Post Malone said while introducing David Lee Murphy to play “Dust on the Bottle” (later popularized with Kenny Chesney), a rock-leaning song that saw Murphy singing and performing some of the lines with a beer cup in hand.

He continued down his memory lane and country music history lesson. It was clear from confused looks that some of the older songs and deeper cuts were new to the Gen-Z crowd, who came for Post Malone but clearly weren’t country fans. But the singer and rapper honored the material in the most authentic way he could. Moving through tracks by Tyler Childers (the popular “Feathered Indians”), Tim McGraw and ’90s Oklahoma country band Ricochet, he then brought up another guest.

“He wrote some of the most complex and fucking awesome songs,” Post Malone said of guitarist Jimmy Olander. “Hopefully I don’t fuck it up.”

Olander joined on “This Romeo Ain’t Got Julie Yet,” a song he cowrote for Diamond Rio, and Luke Combs’ “When It Rains it Pours.”

“I’m totally out of breath. Luke Combs, you’re the the shit,” Post Malone said.

Following Brooks & Dunn’s “Brand New Man” and his own terrific collaboration with Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help,” Posty got in one dig at the expense of the San Francisco crowed on his way out.

“Ya’ll remember when San Fran beat the Dallas Cowboys? Because I already forgot!” he announced.

He offered up a final tribute to the late Toby Keith on the bombastic “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American),” with all of the fire fit for the bed of a pickup truck.

Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald.