Hopefully you didn’t already make plans for your Halloween night in Nashville, because modern rock legends Foo Fighters have just figured out the concert-going
equivalent of pulling a Beyonce, announcing a Friday night show at The Ryman just days prior. Tickets go on sale at 10am tomorrow morning (Wednesday, October 29th), and cost a shockingly low twenty bucks.
In case you haven’t been keeping up with the band’s release cycle for their newest album Sonic Highways, there is a reason these guys are stopping through town on such short notice. For the record (which sees its release on November 10th), Dave Grohl and company visited eight major hubs for American music – Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Seattle, Washington D.C. and of course, Nashville.
The first two tracks on the album, recorded in Chicago and D.C. respectively, have been premiered at shows in both towns the past two Friday nights. The third song on the album, titled “Congregation,” was recorded at local country star Zac Brown’s Southern Ground studios, and Grohl himself even played an intimate acoustic set at The Bluebird Cafe in Green Hills this past summer.
The band’s show at The Ryman is not only promotion for the new album, but for the HBO documentary that was filmed in conjunction with its recording. Prior to the band’s 11pm stage time, there will be a screening of the Nashville-centric episode, one which promises to feature everyone from Dolly Parton to Carrie Underwood. There’s no indication that the show might make note of the city’s bubbling local rock scene, but here’s hoping that Grohl had his ear to the streets when he was recording this past spring.
Either way, the opportunity to see one of the world’s biggest rock bands play one of the world’s most storied live music venues (for the first time in their entire 20-year history nonetheless) is one that shouldn’t be missed out on. My only word of advice: make sure your Internet connection is solid and that you’re good at clicking the refresh button on your browser, because these tickets will be gone by 10:01.
by Kevin Brown
Lockeland Springsteen 