Play it again, Mat....and Bear and Bo et. al....and Casey et. al

Inside a recent 3-week period, we saw three shows from artists we have seen before and love:

Thursday, October 20, 2011 - The Cannery - Nashville



SOLD OUT SHOW!  Nashville resident, Mat Kearney, returned home to The Cannery and  performed all his fan favorites, plus lots of songs off his new album, Young Love, the cover of which is pictured above.  He also did a surprisingly good cover version of a fairly new song "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People.

Friday, October 28, 2011 - Track 29 - Chattanooga

We attended the more than SOLD OUT SHOW for NEEDTOBREATHE at Track 29 in Chattanooga tonight.   There were 1.700 people in attendance once they had pushed back the stage and added 200 more tickets to the sold out show.  This was our first time at this fairly new live music venue located in the back of the famous Chattanooga Choo Choo property, and we were very impressed.   It is large in size with good sight lines and great acoustics.  Nashville singer/songwriter,  Ben Rector, opened with a good set that included a band member breaking out the always-funky "keytar" on their last song of the night.  We haven't seen that since Stevie Wonder played at Bonnaroo.  NTB were excellent as the headliner.  Led by lead singer and big brother, Bear Rinehart, and little brother, Bo, on lead guitar,  they played a lot of stuff off their new album The Reckoning  plus many of their older tunes including some of our favs off their previous album, The Outsiders, whose cover is shown above.  This is our third time seeing them and I swear they get better as a band every time we do.  Keep up the good work, guys!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - Exit/In - Nashville



.We were back at the Exit/In in Nashville tonight to catch a show by one of our favorite new-to-us live artists, Alpha Rev, out of Austin, Texas.  We first saw them on the VH1 Best Cruise Ever earlier this year and they completely blew us away.  This was supposed to be a co-headline show with the band, Carbon Leaf, but they pulled out of this date for some reason.  Filling in were openers, Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes from here in Nashville  followed by Atlanta, GA, artist, Nic Cowan.  Both of these acts were great and we really enjoyed their sets.  Alpha Rev took the stage a bit stripped down from the usual line-up.  Their cello player did not make the trip and they were minus their great fiddle player, Brian Batch, who has temporarily - we hope - left the band. Despite the two missing members and instruments, the remaining quintet blazed through an hour and half set that was still fantastic.   They played several new songs and some select cuts from their masterful 2010 album,  New Morning, the cover of which is shown above.   The crowd was much smaller than the previous two shows we attended, but this didn't deter the band from putting on a great performance.  And, we were able to see it all from the front row! 

After the show we picked up the band's latest EP, City Farm: Roots, which was produced entirely from fan donations since they currently don't have a record label. We were able to chat with bassist, Alex Dunlap,  for a few minutes.  He informed us that the reason Carbon Leaf couldn't make this leg of the tour was because their lead singer had won a role in a new Daniel Day-Lewis movie about Abraham Lincoln.  Pretty cool.  We also got to say hello to lead singer/songwriter and founder of Alpha Rev, Casey McPherson, who was kind enough to have his picture taken with Ashlee (above).