Live on the Green 2011

The 6-week downtown Nashville concert series, Live on the Green,  hosted by local independent radio station, Lightning 100, began this week with an interesting line-up of local singer/song-writers.  The headliner, K.S. Rhoads, was to be accompanied by The Nashville Symphony and that made it worth it to us to grab some VIP tickets to get up close to check out the show.

The event takes place in the innovative Public Square Park where grass has been planted on top of a multilevel underground parking garage (aka "The Green") in front of the Metro Courthouse.



First up was Nashville native, Will Hoge.  We have been wanting to see him for a long time and have heard his live shows are worth a look.  This was an accurate report as he and his band put on a lively guitar-driven show.




While originally slated not to come on until 9 PM, the headlining show was forced to start at 7:30 due to cooler-than-expected outdoor  temperatures.  Evidently, the symphony cannot play at temperatures below 65 degrees (something to do with the woodwind performance I suppose).  We had not seen K.S. Rhoads before, but like Will Hoge, had heard good things about him and his live shows.  He's definitely a very interesting and cool cat, that's for sure.  His music reminds you of Coldplay in some ways while still with its own uniqueness.  His songs are symphonic in nature and teaming up with The Nashville Symphony seemed logical and came off very nicely.   Rhoads and the symphony also added in a few cover songs in their set including the quite-unexpected, "Teenage Dream" by  Katie Perry.  It was fun to see the casually-dressed symphony members cracking smiles while playing this bubble-gum pop diddy.   We really enjoyed the show as did our friend, Eileen, who was in town from Philadelphia  for a business conference.  We also got delicious all-we-could-eat food and four adult beverages with our VIP tickets.  With the temps lower than usual for late summer, it was a very pleasant evening and well worth attending.

We will be back to Live on the Green  in a few weeks hopefully to catch one of our favorite regional bands, The Dirty Guv'nahs, as they open for headliner, Robert Randolph & the Family Band; and in Week 5 for one of our favorite performers, Brett Dennen, who we are also cruising with in a couple of weeks.