A few weekends ago, on a whim, my friend and I decided to book a cabin in Erwin, Tennessee for the weekend. Just thirty minutes outside of Asheville, Erwin is a small country town, where once an elephant was hanged, facing the death sentence after conviction for murdering his owner. We did not know this information upon arrival.
At the cabin, it was imperative that we turned off our phones. Besides giving my mother the landline to our quaint creekside cabin, I wanted to be entirely disconnected, noting that almost all my mood fluctuations stem from the information that finds its way onto the tiny glass screen of my cellular device. Text messages, floods of emails, and social media notifications separate me from my present surroundings, and cause me to have severely uninhibited emotional reactions at inopportune times. Phones should be outlawed for the emotionally volatile.
Of course, I was secretly expecting that when I turned back on my phone, three days later, there would be an onslaught of voicemails and text messages from my beloved friends and family begging me to return to the world. In reality, all I missed was a reminder from my dear mother that the Jewish High Holidays were near approaching.
Tonight, our friends over at the East Nashville Underground are taking the “no-phones” concept to a place where it is most apt to cut off service; the concert venue. Think for a minute about how many times you’ve hid behind the water cooler at Mercy Lounge, checking to see if the love of your life texted you, or sneaking a photo of your arch enemy on the other side of the stage. Now imagine how peaceful it would be, if for the duration of an entire two hours, you turned it off, and just listened to the music, and maybe, just maybe, even danced a little. Who knows what might happen? You might be the lucky recipient of a high holiday reminder, too.
Tonight’s event takes place at the High Watt, and features local favorites Penicillin Baby, Machines Are People Too, and Diamond Carter, all of whom deserve your undivided attention. Your ex can wait until after the show.
Lockeland Springsteen 