Fifty years after Ted Nugent released Free-for-All, the title track got a rare live coda. On Sept. 11, 2026, at Timber Rock Amphitheater, Power Rock guitarist Alex Cole stepped onstage with Nugent and played the song on Nugent’s own 1958 Gibson Les Paul.
The moment was not a surprise walk-on. Nugent brought Cole out himself.
“We have a special guest with us tonight. His name is Alex Cole, and he plays a killer guitar and he is gonna play with us tonight. He likes a big ’ol’ ‘Free-for-All’, Alex Cole! How about that little motherfucker? It’s like an international global Rock’n’Roll event!” Nugent told the crowd.
Cole then took the guitar and tore through the 1976 anthem with Nugent’s band. After the song, Nugent circled back to the guest.
“His name is Alex Cole, remember that name. The guy has got the fucking attitude, let’s hear it for the attitude! Thank you Alex. That’s the shit. All the way from Italy just to Rock’n’Roll with the real fuckin’ McCoy. I love you buddy. He is playing my ’58 Les Paul and you did a fine job!”
The performance is captured here: Alex Cole & Ted Nugent — “Free-for-All” Live.
Free-for-All, issued by Epic Records in September 1976, was Nugent’s second solo studio album and reached the Top 25 on the U.S. charts. The title cut has remained a setlist staple for decades. Hearing it on the album’s 50th anniversary year, with a younger guitarist on Nugent’s vintage Les Paul, gave the Farmington date a different weight than a standard guest slot.
For Cole, the night closed a circle that started in 2019, when he opened seven Nugent dates on a U.S. run that included California and Arizona rooms such as the Canyon Club and Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix. Six years later, the same artist who once put him on the bill handed him the guitar for one of the catalog’s signature songs.
“The fact that we played ‘Free-for-All’ in its 50th anniversary year makes this moment even more meaningful to me,” Cole said. “I grew up with this music, and Ted was one of the artists who represented the American Rock dream to me. To stand beside him 50 years after that song was released, and to play it together, is something I could never have imagined when I first started dreaming about becoming a Rocker.”
Cole has built his own path as a guitarist, composer and performer, with years in Los Angeles and dates at the Whisky a Go Go, The Viper Room, The Mint, House of Blues, Celebrity Theatre and Rio Casino Las Vegas. He has shared bills with Anvil, Mike Pinera and Doug Aldrich in addition to Nugent. His latest single, “Knockin’ On Demon’s Door,” arrived June 26, 2026, and is streaming on major platforms.
The Timber Rock appearance does not rewrite Nugent’s catalog. It does mark a clean line from a 1976 studio statement to a 2026 stage, and from a 2019 opening slot to a personal invitation to play the song on the instrument that helped define it. For Cole, it was the kind of night a working rock guitarist spends years chasing and rarely gets.
