You Either Love Nashville…Or Your Wrong!
- Nov 25, 2022
- 6 min read
Hoping everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Kathy was looking forward to Nashville for months and was not disappointed. The town rocks...literally. This blog is chock-full-of-pics. We spent a week here so we got a lot done. If your in a hurry, break this one up into two sessions but we will tell you it will be worth the price of admission. And for you, Free! The first half day we got there we drove down to Broadway. Traffic sucked but once we were there, we didn't care.
The bright lights and Honky-Tonks were exhilarating and the streets were packed! After finding a pretty convenient $24 place to park, our first stop, was Kid Rock's Honky Tonk. Four floors of fun with a different band on every floor and the acoustics were so good you couldn't hear any music other than the musicians on that one floor. The first floor was jam-packed so we started up top on the 4th and worked our way down.
No cover charge at any bars but you pay $8-9 for a beer and $12-$15 for a drink. It's worth it though...and there's no drink minimums so you could just drink a water if you wanted to and listen to the music. Of course we didn't. Our second stop was one block up the street at Jasen Aldean's Kitchen and Rooftop.
We put our name in for a table and went to the bar as we waited. The first floor live music was kicking. We had a cocktail before we decided to have something to eat at the bar instead of waiting for a table. The place was hopping, the bar was busy, and, we were sitting pretty close to the band. Digging it! After eating, we went up to the rooftop. They had a DJ spinning tunes with a packed dance floor hopping with kids dancing and jamming to the tunes. We watched, dug the vibe, and moved on.
Last stop on Broadway was the Valentine. It was a smaller joint than the two stops prior. One floor, two bands, that were just changing over. The music was cool, the place was dumpier in comparison to our first two stops. The bartender overcharged us for our drinks! Pissed Brad off but not enough for him to say something...or was it the prior cocktails that stymied him? We stayed for both bands and then hit the road back to our campground.
On our first full day we drove to the Grand Ole Opry which was less than ten minutes from our RV park. We toured the outside, the store, and then went to pickup some tickets. The ticket guy was from Harrisburg Pa. so him and Brad were bonding over Phillies baseball talk. We purchased tickets for the next night.
Wow, wow, wow! What a great show. Compared to any concert venue we've ever been to. he acoustics were the best ever. Flawless! They had an Opry radio host mc the event from a lectern and she was very-very good. She engaged the audience, did a nice job killing time in between acts and did a couple nice interviews. She was a pro and very well-spoke. The show consisted of 8 music acts and a comic. What an awesome lineup they put together. It was a great combination of old-timers, a newbie, two hot male contemporary artists, bluegrass, and two young female country singers. We liked them all. It was great variety of talents. Our favorites were the two contemporary acts we listen to on the Highway on Sirius/XM, Nate Smith and Chris Janson. They both killed especially Chris Janson who was the closer.
Chris Jansen did some Billy Joel, Journey, played an awesome harmonica and did an wonderful version of his hit "Take a Drunk Girl Home" (Below:).
We have to give a shout out to comedian John Cross. The dude killed it! He was clean, animated, high-energy, hugely likeable and had an awesome set. First live comedy act we've seen in years. Ha! Ha!
The next day we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. The place was huge and it was also very busy. Three floors of gold records, guitars, costumes, videos, stories, cars, movies a memorabilia. They featured old-timers plus contemporary country stars of the 80's through today. It was fun and very well done.
Across the street from the Hall of Fame is the Country Walk of Fame Park. It surprised us to see Jimmi Hendrix, Little Richard, and the likes of Kid Rock honored on the walk. Evidently, they didn't limit there honorees to just country acts. Below were some of our other favorites.
That late afternoon plan was to head to Margaritaville and hang out with Buzz Brainard as he hosts the Sirius/Xm Highway Music Row Happy Hour there. We weren't up for standing in line with the possibility of getting in so we split and started north on Broadway for our own Happy Hour. The street was popping along with most places we visited or just passed by. The town has a great energy day or night. First stop, was the Lucky Bastard Saloon. Why not? Every place we went to had live music and we learned that you can't be ripped off if you order beer. So that's what we did. The next two stops were the rooftop of The Stage then Rippy's Honky Tonk where we grabbed a bite and a beer. Our last party place was The Crossroads where we both agreed that the band there was the best of the day.
Good times on Broadway!
We often drive around a town to check-out different landmarks and neighborhoods and Nashville was no different. We drove Music Row which is the studio,marketing, representation, business side of Nashville. Brad loves the behind the scenes part of the entertainment business and that was what this was. Then we went to the Parthenon, which is an Art Museum and part of Centennial Park which had a pretty pond and surrounding shrubbery and forestry . If we went to every Art Museum in every town we've been in we would had done over 100 of them. We didn't go in. Then we stopped at the Belmont Mansion which is part of Belmont University. It also was pretty but we didn't go in. This was a drive-by tour. Next stop was Union Station thanks to Brad's buddy Mark Rheiner for recommending it. It was an old train depot made into a lovely hotel (eighth pic in). Brad was wearing one of his Phillies jersey and this dude we were passing said "Go Phillies" and gave Brad knuckles. As we were getting ready to pass him he goes "check this out" and he pulls up his shirt and has the big Phillies tattoo inside a catcher's mitt on his huge shoulder. Ha, Ha, Good times! Then we went to a Farmers Market which was closing down but we walked the whole thing without buying anything but across the street was a park so we went to check it out. It was the Tennessee Bicentennial Capital Mall State Park. It was awesome! Besides a great view of the state capitol, the park had an amphitheater, and, dated markers with over two hundred years of history detailed throughout. Often times, these drive-bys are a great way to explore and see surprising stuff not neccessarily in our plan. This was one! Oh yeh, we ran into the bronze Musica Statue below which was at the Music Row Roundabout.
Sunday we went to the Party Fowl to watch the Eagles beat the Steelers 35-13 and chow-boned on some hot chicken and drank some brewskis. We met some cool kids at the bar. One was a Cowboys fan, the other a Nashville native, and the third a Mystic Connecticut transplant. They had a really updated, cool, and almost hands-free beer tap system that our new friends explained the interworking of to us. Good times! Killer Win!
On Monday we went to the Capitol. We didn't even know Nashville was the capitol of Tennessee until we started our drive there. We parked on the street level and it must have had two hundred steps to get to the complex and Kathy moaned about walking on about a hundred and fifty of them. Haha! Tennessee had three United States presidents, Andrew Johnson, Andrew Jackson and James Polk. All three were predominantly featured throughout the Capitol. James Polk is buried on the property.
The day before we were leaving we went to the Andrew Jackson Hermitage. Andrew Jackson was our 7th President of the United States. This was his first home with his wife Rachael, kids, and extended family. It was a splendid 1100 acre estate and farm with a wonderful history. Andrew Jackson was known as "the Peoples President". He was a decorated general of the war of 1812, a businessman and slave owner. At one point he owned 150 slaves because of course it was before the Civil War. They had his original home on the property and also his mansion which had extensive damage from a fire at one time. As he became more successful he added on a couple wings to the house. Unfortunately, his wife died very soon after building the big hose. Both the president, his wife, children and extended family were all buried there.
Ewe closed that visit with a wine tasting of some local wines which was conveniently located right in the complex.
If you don't love Nashville...you're wrong. It is a wonderful-wonderful town. We'll be back for sure. Again, we hope you and your families had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Thanks for reading down this far. Much Love, Kathy and Brad
this blog is a perfect example of how much more you see on here of all the places you hit than what we get to talk about on the phone. all these roof top bars with live music look so cool and although the mountain states leading up to this we’re beautiful, I’m glad you landed on some real community! I’m sure you’ll go back thru Tennessee, you seemed to love it! My favorite pics were Mom with the angel wings and Brad, you flippin us off with Johnny Cash!! 😎 ❤️
I AM SO JEALOUS!
I think this post solidified the fact that we need to visit. Driven through it, think I stayed overnight in my way out to CO. “We didn’t even know it was the state capital” <— gave me a good chuckle . that Parthenon building is crazy - looks like a perfect classical replica of times gone by (a long long time ago).
forgot to mention in your Memphis post that being one who grew up in NC and still loves his eastern NC bbq, the ribs looks mouthwatering but it was that sausage that pushed me over the edge. I’m salivating in the barber shop while my son gets his hair cut!