Christ on a cracker how many beyond amazing shows have I seen at The End? Hundreds. Remember guys….my Hank III family? Remember those shows? Yeah me too. I am in this 100% for the love of the music my friends. I am hoping Shelton sees this and knows I love him, and I wish he would return, but as a man I do respect that. But man, we aren’t kids anymore and my bones can understand it too. I miss those shows.
Another cool period of my life was when I first moved to Nashville in 1996, I used to hang out at Phonoluxe, and other record stores around town. I used to go down there to see Old 97’s and other bands play there and other venues too. But there was one band that I found at The End that stood out to me to this day.
I wandered in there one weekend and stumbled upon the Drive By Truckers. I tell you there is nothing like community and solidarity in local music, hell solidarity in mainstream music is equally splendid to me. I am just as happy to go down to Robert’s and watch Sarah Gayle Meech play or the Royal Hounds or….wow….
So recently The End just had a bad financial month and for the first time in decades of being open, they could not afford the rent. As a result , they set up a go fund me to help out with their financial needs and the public responded rapidly and loud. SO LOUD in fact that rumor around town is that ex Big Machine mad scientist Scott Borchetta donated the top tier of 2,500.
I am not a big fan of the big machine guy…that is my motto line.
But you know what? Business is business people and if he did indeed do that I have a lot of respect for him on that choice. Even the big corporate guys are hopefully seeing the relevance and outright need for the small clubs where they all started out. I can tell you the gravity of it to the public was severe enough that they reached their goal with fourteen hours of it beginning!
So hopefully now we can continue seeing shows at The End and maybe with Tin Pan South coming up there may be some nice songwriter rounds up there. I know I will stop in very soon after the snow flies !
