The Five Spot, January 25th, 2011
Nashville, TN
Ah, Nashville.
This town is home to some of the finest musicians I may ever encounter. That said, do we really need to walk around acting like it? Come on, Music City, it's only music.
I played a show last night over in East Nashville. My pal Chris booked me on the night, which turned out to be quite a full bill when all was said and done. (It was both Said and Done.) The Five Spot is something of a local hang on that side of town, and apparently on this particular day of the week, being Tuesday, is jam-packed due to a good deal on some kind of beer and/or hotdog. I wouldn't know. Anyhow, we had a big audience. My line-up played fourth, out of about six bands. We had some trouble with our monitor mix on stage, and my guitar was virtually inaudible for the duration of our set. It threw us all off at first, as I'm the one that the band naturally follows, but after the first awkward song, I think we all decided to just rock out no matter what.
I made a resolution with myself on stage to try like hell to get more momentum around live shows, because man it felt good to play with that band. I was very lucky to have the talents of Chris Autry on upright bass, Adam Popick on drum kit and Greg Hagan on lead electric guitar. Wow. Those guys can play. And it was very cool to hear their interpretations of my songs, having either played alone or with the same people for the last several years. Greg played some parts last night that ought to be on the records, in all seriousness. What an intuitive, musical player. And Adam played so well that I found myself smiling in and out of the set just because I like what he was doing so much. Chris was fantastic as well, and it was really nice to finally share a stage with him after a year and half of us talking about it. I loved it. I want more. Book us. (Please.)
The interesting part about the night was, that even though we had a really attentive audience while we played (for which I'm grateful), absolutely not one soul came and spoke to me afterward. Not. One.
I'm from the school of shaking hands with anyone who did something I connected with when they played. Of course. In fact, there was a really great drummer there last night who got up with a couple of different bands, and I made sure to tell him that I loved his style. It didn't cost me anything. I still had all of my fingers and self esteem in tact on the other side of that interaction. It's just a nice thing to do when we're all performing for one another over the course of a really long night, after which we may have to leave our clothes outside in the snow to recover from the horrifying layer of smoke that has accumulated. It takes a lot to get up in front of other human beings and do your thing. Why not support one another in the process of doing so, eh?
I'll tell you who did support me, my rad friends who braved the gross, rainy weather and stuck around for hours to watch me sing. Thank you. And, again, thanks to the guys who stood up there with me and made me feel like I had a team to be a part of. I don't typically feel like that, and a girl could get used to that right there, tell you what.
For some freak reason, there are no pictures to prove that last night happened. Well, I know one of the reasons: My camera's busted. And, like all robotic, digital things, it's broken in a deep and mysterious way, where it performs some tasks, while shirking others. It won't talk to me. Sigh. I took the picture of the latest tablecloth dress on my phone, and that's all that remains. But you can picture it, right? Beer, Cool People (not me, the audience), and a whole lot of guitars. Yep.
There's snow on the ground on this fine Wednesday morning, and coffee to be made.
The songs we played are listed below.
Thanks for listening.
xoxo, bu
true story
brilliant mistakes
northern star
strong as you think
younger all the time
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