Nashville Music Blog

Looks like we're not the only ones that could have used an editor this weekend...

Oh criminy, does my back hurt. Between sleeping on the floor, carrying a heavy-ass man purse and walking for 15 hours at a time, my spine is ready to shit the bed. I should have gotten a free massage while I was backstage, but making another human being touch the my putrid, grime-caked body just seemed mean. Plus, it's hard to drink free booze with your head in a massage chair. But that is one of my few regrets--the others mostly involve our duck, or the lack thereof. It was a serious, serious bummer.

Sunday was pretty low-key, as everybody nursed some degree of hangover and started packing up their campsites. Mike Farris made for great background music as we made preparations to rejoin the real world. Dillinger Escape Plan were incredible and their fiery, spastic tech-metal was the just the thing I need after an admittedly awesome weekend of smooth grooves and pop spectacle. Erykah Badu was running late, which sucked because her tardiness meant I had to miss most of her performance--my ride had a work emergency that required us to split ahead of schedule. What I did catch was spine-tingling artistry, a performance of exquisite, mind-bending soul. She also had a badass flute player, and I love me a good flautist.

Over all it was an incredible weekend of music, mud and grifted liquor. Highlights and pics after the jump.

Jonelle Monae and the ghost of Ike Turner circa 2009. It was the very first set I caught and one of the weekend's best.

* I shared a picnic table with The Low Anthem while they rehearsed. The only way the performance could have been more intimate was if they sat on my lap. It gave me goosebumps. Go buy their record Oh My God Charlie Darwin right now.

* Wayne Federman dropping into a verse of Janis Ian's "At Seventeen" in the Comedy Sweet.

* BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!!!!!!!!!!111111oneonenonenone

* Spotting Drew Barrymore, Justin Long and Cameron Diaz before Heather Byrd did.

Look at that hot piece of meat! Just look at it!

* Sitting second row center for Jimmy Fallon playing "You Spit When You Talk," which from as far as I can tell, he doesn't.

* Discovering that people wear suspenders with draw string shorts. Huh?

* From Keith Lowen on Sunday: "I smelled a girl earlier today that smelled worse than the port-a-potties."

* Santigold's live band. I was already a super-fan but her new live band takes it to the next-next-next level

Robots on golf carts - it's an internet meme that needs to happen.

* Watching Dillinger Escape Plan from the side stage while various Protomen freaked the fuck out.

* A sparser-than-it-should-have-been set from King Sunny Ade. It would have been cool if there were more people to catch one of the festival's most jaw-dropping displays of awesomeness, but I can't complain about having a modicum of personal space.

* Not catching "Bonnarhea," which is the disease you get from the porta-potties in general camping. Also, learning that if you shit in a porta-potty urinal, that's called "sidelining" and if you poop on the potty seat that's called "offsides." Both are flagrant fouls.

The Cream's D. Patrick Rodgers, hard at work. Well, maybe not hard at work...but close.

* Watching all the Nashville bands play at the Mercy Lounge. Oh wait...I mean the Budweiser Troo Music Lounge. Drew was at the bar, not behind it. Duh.

* Zac Brown Band covering "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." I don't really remember watching him but I did write something completely unintelligible on my arm with Sharpie during the set, so I guess I liked it.

Backstage with Those Darlins, Steve Cross and Dave Paulson's calves.

* Hanging out with Those Darlins for approximately 20 minutes. (More on that soon)

* Getting hilarious text messages from intoxicated pals.

* Returning relatively unscathed to my wife and cat after a whirlwind weekend of debauchery and dope music.

* And most importantly, Raphael Saadiq cover the Stooges "Search & Destroy" which might have been the greatest moment in my almost-30 years on this planet.