Nashville 3.0 (August 26, 2024 )

My third visit to Music City was just a few months ago, in April 2024. Just like my second trip there (for context, you may want to read Travel Challenge Month 8: Nashville, TN and Nashville 2.0) I booked tickets for Matt and I but told anyone who asked about the trip, the more the merrier. And in the same way that it happened during my second trip, two people in my life decided to book an overlapping trip, my aunt Diane and my cousin Jillisa. Apparently Nashville is the place everyone wants to visit! It’d be a quick trip this time around for Matt and I staying just two nights, so we were ready to get zero sleep and make every moment count. After checking into our hotel in the Music Row District (a new hotel this time, the Comfort Inn) we met Diane and Jillisa, who had arrived the day prior, at FGL House. I don’t see my family all that often, they live anywhere from two-four hours away depending on the member. So we spent the day hanging out on Broadway Street, enjoying the music and each other’s company. Eric Church opened a bar called Chief’s on Broadway since I’d been to Nashville last. He actually did a series of small concerts at the bar during the first several weeks after it opened. He’d be doing a few shows the next day, we missed out on tickets before they sold out though. Nevertheless, we had to check out the bar. Diane is the kind of person who makes friends everywhere she goes, so it wasn’t long before we were chatting with a group of people on the roof, also from Minnesota, and also staying at the same place Matt and I were. From Chief’s we hit up Tootsie’s and Friends in Low Places and Diane ran into some more folks from back home that she knew. Matt and I were getting snacky so we snuck over to a nearby bar, Rippy’s Honky Tonk, which had an awesome band playing (John Brazile, Ahren Liston). Unintentionally, Rippy’s seemed to become a bit of a home base for Matt and I on this trip, we kept finding ourselves navigating back there. By the time Diane and Jillisa caught up to us, one band was finishing up and we stayed long enough for them to eat as well and to catch the first several songs of the new band, who were also great. Next door to Rippy’s is AJ’s Good Time Bar which had a more mellow vibe, at least up on the roof where we chose to sit. Having had a full day the day prior, Diane and Jillisa decided to head back to where they were staying, in Printer’s Alley, but not before we all had a photo shoot on Broadway Street. We could see from the roof at AJ’s that the street was closed (due to the ongoing Predator’s game- Nashville’s hockey team) and it was fun to snag some photos while there were less people and no traffic. Crossing the street, Matt and I continued on our own to the rooftop at Second Fiddle. We were one of two groups on the roof at the time, so it felt like we got our own private show. We couldn’t leave Broadway for the night without checking in on our favorite dive bar, Doc Holliday’s, and were happy to find that it hadn’t changed a bit. We enjoyed a pleasant walk back to the hotel where our friends from back home (that we met at Chief’s) were hanging out under a lighted gazebo, also enjoying the fresh spring night.

I “Woke up in Nashville” staying almost directly across from the cute coffee shop, Just Love, that I had found during my first trip. I grabbed a cup solo and enjoyed it sitting at the same gazebo our friends were hanging at the night before. Matt and I decided to spend the morning exploring a nearby neighborhood called The Gulch. Having gone through serious neglect during WWII, The Gulch is now a vibrant community, focused on rebuilding and connectivity both to other neighborhoods (via public transit) and each other. Home to several beautiful murals, we got our steps in that morning trying to track down one (that we later learned was on the side of a parking ramp that was under construction, which we walked past a dozen times BTW), but did eventually find another called Hear That Nashville. We stopped to buy Willie some dog treats at Pet Wants and I wished we had our pup with us because they had an angel wings mural for dogs just like the ones I had taken pictures at on my previous two trips to Nashville. Our next stop was at Carter Vintage Guitars and if you play guitar at all reader, this is a must stop! The shop features a large showroom filled with vintage fretted instruments as well as some new pieces, most of which are available to pick up and play. I decided we better leave before I ended up with another boot store experience (see Travel Challenge Month 8: Nashville, TN). We met up with Diane and Jillisa at Big Machine Distillery. It was still late morning so I got a coffee drink and it was SO dang tasty! Diane wanted to have lunch at Kid Rock’s so we went there next. And it doesn’t matter if it’s Monday at 1:00PM, the band at Kid Rock’s is always bumpin’ (Emma Gullo/Way Up South). Jillisa and Diane were heading home that evening and we couldn’t let them leave town without seeing Doc Holliday’s. We added a dollar to the ceiling like so many others before us. Jillisa wanted to make her last stop at Coyote Ugly. I had been to Coyote Ugly once before in the Las Vegas location. That was Vegas at 10:00PM though. This was Nashville at 3:00PM on a Monday. The vibes were different. That didn’t stop the bartenders from working the “crowd” though. We even got Diane up on the bar dancing. We said goodbye to my family and stopped into a bar that we hadn’t yet been to during any of our trips to Nashville, Cerveza Jack’s. The musician there was doing something unique for the Monday crowd and calling on each group sitting (both around the bar and at tables) and asking them to make a song request. He rocked every single song (Josh Hughett). We were close by Chief’s and while we didn’t have tickets for any of Eric Church’s shows, we knew he would be playing soon so we figured they’d have some things going on. Sure enough, they had some drink specials, and we were there early enough before the show that we were able to still get a table and also enjoy the top-notch preshow performers (Michael Leatherman, Carter Smith, Skyelor Anderson). The duo we saw first clearly did not play together routinely and yet still sounded amazing together. I was yet again in awe of the talent. Per tradition, we had tickets to The Listening Room (TLR) that evening, so we set out on our walk to get there once Chief’s started filling up with concert goers. We bopped into FGL House on the way just to see who was playing and it was actually a musician we’d seen elsewhere the day prior (Dominique Hutchinson, I actually don’t think that’d happened yet in the three times I’d been to Nashville). We enjoyed some dry rub wings while catching another writer’s round at TLR. This show, there were only three songwriters. Marc Oriet was the natural funny guy who is unapologetically himself. Lexie Hayden was the sweet girl next door who co-wrote a song by one of Matt’s celebrity girlfriends, Priscilla Block. And Luke Stevens had a big crowd in the audience that night as it was his first time performing at TLR after having worked there as a server. When the show was over we weren’t ready for our time in Music City to end so we headed back to Broadway despite the fact that it was misting outside. We found ourselves back at Rippy’s where even on a Monday night the band was dancing on the bar. Sitting there at nearly midnight, I don’t know what I was feeling more down about, the impending mile long walk back in the now pouring rain, or knowing I’d be getting up in three hours to leave a city I love, not knowing when I’d be going back.