Our visit to Nashville has it’s own creation story. My favorite musical artist is a guy named Steven Wilson, who is quite prolific in both creating his own progressive rock, as well as an expert in mixing older albums into 5.1 surround sound, and now Atmos surround sound. I became a fan of his when I purchased his first surround album about 15 years ago (In Absentia) from his previous band Porcupine Tree, with it’s very creepy album cover.
Fast forward to about 2 years ago, while I was searching for Steven’s music video’s (which are really excellent) on YouTube, I misspelled his name, searching instead for Stephen Wilson, and ran across Stephen Wilson Jr. Who the hell is this guy? Kim and I listened to a few of his songs, and have been completely enthralled with him ever since. He’s a mixture of country and folk with some rock thrown in.
About 6 months ago tickets for his current concert tour went on sale, and they weren’t expensive ($25 each), so we bought some for his performance in Glasgow, Kentucky, thinking if we didn’t end up going it was no great loss.
Well here we are, in Nashville, about two hours away from Glasgow, spending 3 days in the “County Music Capital of the World” before heading to Glasgow. We arrived last night, and shortly after checking in we headed over to Broadway, where the bulk of the local action is.
It’s lit up like Vegas, but without the casinos. Broadway is lined with honky-tonk after honkey-tonk….where music is being performed on three different floors, most of them with rooftop bars. The definition of honky-tonk is “a cheap noisy bar or dance hall”. They are definitely noisy, but Nashville is not cheap! This is a shot of Broadway from a rooftop bar at a honkey-tonk called “Ole Red”.
It was warm inside so we found a seat outside and listened to a country duet performing on that level. Behind the bar is the downtown headquarters of AT&T is known as the Batman Building.
Directly across the street from Ole Red are the honkey-tonk’s owned by hit country artists Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan.
One of our favorite country artists is Dierks Bentley, so we had to visit his honkey-tonk.
The spots on Broadway weren’t nearly as busy as I thought they would be, particularly with it being a Saturday night, but then again I’ve heard the bulk of the crowds show up late.
We ventured into Garth Brooks fairly new honky-tonk, Friends in Low Places. The bottom level was quite busy, so we went up to the rooftop bar, only to be met with c”rap” from a DJ. Not our thing!
Of our initial evening reviews, Ole Red was the hands down winner, particularly with the low-key music and their selection of craft beer on tap. We plan to hit a few more tonight! Right now we are off to the Frist Museum. Hopefully we don’t freeze on the way…it’s 34 degrees outside, after being over 60 yesterday!