Nashville’s version of the famed Austin music festival South by SouthWest (SXSW) is right around the corner. While on a smaller scale, the 4 day, 11 venue, 100 artist festival will take Nashville by storm starting on September 21st with a kickoff performance by Jonny Corndawg, Dawes, and M. Ward at the War Memorial Auditorium. While the line up is still filling out, 70 confirmed acts have been slated, and the initial schedule has been published. My hats off to the Next Big Nashville team for putting together a great festival at an unbelievable price. Single show tickets are a modest $25, while the “all music wristbands” are still available for $55 (the price will jump to $65 once the advance stock sells out & $75 for walkup wristband buyers). VIP badges are also available for $150 for some VIP viewing privileges, VIP entrances, and other goodies.
My personal excitement lies in:
September 21: M. Ward & Dawes
September 22: Cults, Foster The People, Carl Broemel, Ben Sollee, Low Anthem, & Ghostland Observatory
September 23: By Lightning!, Keegan Dewitt, Chance Warhol, Justin Townes Earle, & The Ettes
September 24: JEFF The Brotherhood, Cheer Up Charley Daniels, The Kingston Springs, The Watson Twins, & Paper Route.
Of course, scheduling conflict decisions will have to be made, beer lines will push me in different directions, and smaller, less familiar bands will kick ass and grab my attention; but, hey man, that is what festivals are all about.
You can head over to Soundlands website to create a customized schedule to help you get started. If you need help deciding, here are 10 things you should know about Soundland bands. Some time ago, we did a post discussing some of the first 35 bands on the card. I’ve included the player from that post below to help you get to know some of the bigger acts. If you want to listen to more, you should head over to the browse the artists at the Soundland website where they have more players set up for your listening pleasure.
Don’t miss out on this. It’s a special thing for Nashville, and hopefully will continue to flourish in the years to come!
Get out and see some great live music.
Reminder, not all of these tracks are safe for work, so be careful.
[gigya src="http://grooveshark.com/widget.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" flashvars="hostname=cowbell.grooveshark.com&playlistID=57612437&bbg=000000&bth=000000&pfg=000000&lfg=000000&bt=ffffff&pbg=ffffff&pfgh=ffffff&si=ffffff&lbg=ffffff&lfgh=ffffff&sb=ffffff&bfg=666666&pbgh=666666&lbgh=666666&sbh=666666&p=0" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="window"]