November 18, 2010
We headed out to our beloved Ryman Auditorium tonight for our last scheduled show of 2010 on our calendar that we know of. We have a couple of shows in December that we are looking at, but haven't committed to yet. This time it was NEEDTOBREATHE, a fairly, new rock band out of South Carolina. They have had a couple of hits on the radio airwaves over the last couple of years and are really starting to get noticed. We saw them recently open for Train in Memphis and we missed another show of theirs at Bonnaroo this year thanks to traffic snarls getting in (see previous blogs on both events). The show in Memphis wasn't so great since their sound was a bit off and never really got adjusted in the short opening set. We were hoping for better results now that they were the headliner. Opening for them was a 3-man rock band called The Daylights who were pretty good albeit nothing too memorable overall.
NEEDTOBREATHE (N2B) took to the stage like gangbusters and the Ryman seemed to fill up magically by the time their first song was complete and they thanked the loud, approving crowd for a sold-out show. That's pretty impressive for such a young band. The sound again was not pitch-perfect from the start (sounds like someone needs to hire a new engineer). It steadily improved as the show went on. N2B is an interesting phenomenon in the current music world. They and their music have been rabidly adopted by contemporary Christians thanks to the uplifting messages in their songs. But these same songs are not blatantly reflective in one religion or set of beliefs which also makes them universally popular. There are no sermons given from the five-piece band headed by lead singer, Bear Rinehart, and his brother on lead guitar, Bo, nor any direct indication of their own beliefs at least in their performances that we have seen. They are just a good rock-n-roll band whose positive and inspiring music can be enjoyed by everyone.
They closed the somewhat short show (just over an hour) with a nice acoustic encore that sounded as clear as a bell in the hallowed Ryman. They plugged the amps back in for their last song, "The Outsiders" which is the title track of their third album and their current radio hit on mostly independent stations.
Thanks to our friends Casey and Ryan for attending with us as well to dinner at the always yummy Urban Flats downtown in The Gulch.
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