Skip to content
Whats up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone had a good weekend. Last Sunday, I travelled back to Nashville for a quick trip to go to a Billy Strings show (no shocker there). Believe it or not though, this one was different. He was playing a one-off show with Bryan Sutton at the American Legion Post 82 in Nashville, essentially a tiny dive bar, and tickets were sold in a raffle system and to be picked up at will call with a matching ID to prevent any chance of reselling. For once, I was lucky enough to win the raffle and score two tickets to the show (for reference, I heard around 15,000 people entered the raffle and only about 200 tickets were sold, take that info with a grain of salt.) This show was only announced two weeks before it happened and emails sent out if you got tickets a week before. I signed up as a Hail Mary and said I’d say what the hell and make the drive to Nashville if I got em and lo and behold. I hit up my brother who lives in Nashville and asked if I could stay with him and if he wanted my extra ticket to go to the show, which he was happy to oblige. Road tripping by yourself is pretty fun cause you can do all the stupid detours no one else would wanna do, like cruise down the Andy Griffith Parkway and visit Mayberry. I was a couple hours outside of Nashville and my brother called me up and informed me the venue the show was at was around the corner a block away from his apartment. Everything was falling into place. He planned to go pick up some beers and pizza for my arrival before the show. I got in about 6PM, doors were at 7 and the show was at 8, so we hung out for about an hour and we decided since I’d come so far for a show we might as well get there early at the doors. A quick cut through the Cookout and Popeyes parking lot and we were at the show. We had to go through about three separate sets of people with a list and show our IDs. We get inside and pass thru the bar to a back room where we’re greeted by a tiny stage with a few rows of foldout chairs mere feet from the stage. Holy shit. I’m used to seeing Billy in arenas full of thousands of people, so to be in a tiny back room of a dive bar sitting probably about 10 feet away from my favorite musician just pickin on the guitar felt like a fever dream. My brother turned to me and I could tell he realized the absurdity of this historical show we were about to witness. Since we got there early, we had some time before the show, so I went over to the bar to grab us some beers. Getting asked to start a tab while at a Billy show also felt otherworldly, since I’m used to getting hawked for $16 beers at arenas. Everyone who was there was so happy to be there. I kept hearing people saying they couldn’t believe they were actually there. A lady I talked to was a school teacher who said she started crying in the middle of class when she got the email that she won the tickets and her students had to ask what was wrong. She was telling me she brought her dad with her and I told her I brought my brother with me and another guy chimed in and said he brought his brother with him as well, It just felt like a real family affair and everyone had a smile from ear to ear. I sat back down and shortly after, Billy and Bryan came walking in thru the side door, right thru the crowd basically and walked right on to that tiny stage and took a seat and we were off to the races. This show was completely made up of just timeless bluegrass and folk staples which, if you know me, is my ideal set list. I got to hear more Doc Watson tunes than you could shake a stick at, including my favorite song of all time, Shady Grove. I loved every single song. It was just classic after classic after classic. I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing and seeing. Like I said, I could only compare the feeling to being in a fever dream.
Getting to hear/be a part of the banter in between the songs felt like I was placed smack dab into one of my old live bluegrass records from the 60s that I’m always writing about. One of my favorite songs from the evening is when they played the Norman Blake song Randall Collins. I wasn’t familiar with it before, but I sure as hell am now. It was an instant earworm, and I probably listened to it about 20 times on my drive home. Just a cool as hell song. After probably what were two of the greatest hours I’ve spent on this earth, they closed the show with Let the Cocaine Be, a song I’d wanted to hear live since I first got sucked down the bluegrass rabbit hole. After the show, Billy just took a step down off the stage and took the time to say hello and take a picture and talk to everyone that was lucky enough to be in attendance, a real class act. I’m terrible in these situations and never know what to say, but I shook his hand and told him thanks for all the music and everything, and also gave him a copy of that cassette I wrote about months ago, Who’s This Living in My Soul?, a compilation of old rare folk and gospel songs from across the south. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll get to hear Billy play a cover from that? Afterwards, me and my brother went to Dino’s to end the evening with some fries and a few more cold ones. While sitting there, there was only one word we could come up with to sum up the night: legendary. Getting to experience this intimate performance made me realize how thankful for music I am and how powerful it can be. I know this is a memory I’ll get to carry on for the rest of my life of seeing my favorite artist with my brother in the backroom of a bar in Nashville and for that I’d like to say, thank you Bill, it’s been a thrill.