Kings Come Home

This show needs little introduction for some. I'll keep my back story on this one to a minimum. I've been a Kings of Leon fan for less than a year. I wan introduced through a friend soon after giving them a try I was hooked. I started consuming all things Kings of Leon related the whole catalog, every article, magazine spread, and any and every interview on YouTube. I snatched up a ticket to the LA show I had previously passed up and made plans to see them at Lollapalloza too. Both of the shows were great but after hearing about the Nashville date I couldn't resist. It was going to be the last show of an unbelievable tour in the boys hometown no less also a town I have significant ties to (by significant ties I mean a city I'm in love with)!

After months of watching the tour crisscross the globe and talking about this show with fellow KoL fans it was time to depart to Nashville. I arrived in Nashville Friday morning technically since it was after 12:00am, I woke up excited with my normal preshow mania. I had previously decided that we (me and my ex-boyfriend William who bought the tickets for us) should do a drive by at around noon to assess the line situation but before that I was already tipped of by Carrie that there were people already waiting in line at 10:00am! We get ready and have to make a few stops which include me buying gym shoes since I seem to have lost the only pair that I owned. We grab some fast food and hit the highway which is where I was when I got Nathan's second tweet about hot cocoa. I was already too excited to eat my fast food and his tweets were NOT helping! We got to downtown Nashville and I was immediately hit with an overwhelming flood of memories. I have missed this city!

We park around the corner from the venue and walk to entrance to meet up with the others I spot Carrie almost immediately and she points out the other HA'ers to me. There was lots of waiting in the cold and after a while William and I decided to go across the street to a cafe to get him some hot cocoa since there weren't many people in line anyway. While we were lingering taking advantage of being out of the cold I see a man in work clothes talking to the people who were lined up I tell William and he says he has brought them cocoa in shock I yell "He did not!" and he says "YES he did" I couldn't believe it but once again I feel reassured of my decision that Nathan is THEE best ever! We commence to waiting in line again and a while passes when people at the doors hear Frontier City being sound checked. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself but I feel like this has to mean our pleading has worked.

We wait wait wait until a guy come out and starts giving us instructions for entrance once the doors open at 6:30. I along with many other couldn't hear and the only problem with this is I had never been to and was not familiar the Sommet Center (formerly known as Gaylord Entertainment Center known around town as The Gec). I was worried that I wouldn't have a clear idea of where to go and I would waste precious seconds getting to the floor because it didn't seem they were going to do a lot to control the crowd or the running so I was preparing for mass hysteria. I put together what bit and pieces I heard and figured there were two entrances to the floor that were labeled and any other route would get us lost so I planned to go to the left entrance so I would be on Matt's side. As we inched closer and closer to 6:30 the crowd was clearly abuzz the minutes ticked past our deadline and everyone was antsy. Finally the doors opened and people started shoving but it didn't get terribly crazy. We got our tickets scanned and marked as well as our hands stamped and booked it to the floor where we were instructed to sit and I was quite glad for this.

I took in the Sommet Center it is quite a venue and chatted with people nearby. I stood up to look for other HA'ers we were all pretty close to the stage. We wait wait wait and then the lights go down and without any pomp Mother Father start their set. I was expecting the worst but they weren't too bad, they had a dark and moody sound but keep their set fairly short which I appreciated. Next up were the White Lies who I was looking forward to because I had heard god things about them. The did a pretty good job although some of their songs sounded a bit too much alike. I'll definitely give them another listen but I can't say the same for some of the audience members I was standing near. After several songs everyone was pretty anxious for them too get off stage and gave a loud cheer followed by a few groans after a song expected to be the last would end another would start. They were very gracious and thankful to the Kings and their staff and although they may have made a fan out of me I couldn't have been happier for them to end that set.


The lights go up and Nacho, Darrin and the rest of the crew get to work. Some fans call Nacho's name and he gave a wave and smile. I noticed there was a box of kleenex on Nate's drum riser and I hoped that Caleb was feeling better. We watched them work quickly on stage and eventually the lights went down and the crowd got crazy. It seems like it took a a long while but Lacrimosa came on and and the boys appeared!

The Setlist went as follows:

Closer
Crawl
Be Somebody
Taper Jean Girl
Molly's Chambers

Caleb gave a little speech about just playing whatever they wanted and I pretty much knew what that meant... then there was a bit of riffing before they went into
FRONTIER CITY!!!
And even though I had a feeling it was coming it took me off guard I couldn't believe they were playing MY song! I turned to tell William what was going on and I felt tears coming and my breath choking like I would hyperventilate. I pulled it together as to not miss the moment I'd been waiting so long for and recorded the whole thing despite being told previously that video recording want allowed. I did my best to stay in that moment and soak it up and it was awesome the concert could have ended there and I would have been on cloud nine thankfully for other people they continued on with:

Fans
Revelry
I Want You
My Party
Charmer
Four Kicks
The Bucket
Sex On Fire
Notion
Manhattan
On Call
Cold Desert
Slow Night So Long

The Encore included:

Knocked Up
Use Somebody
Black Thumbnail

Caleb made a few speeches through the night he couldn't believe they had packed the Sommett Center, he was happy their grandmother and come to her first KoL show although she wouldn't be back after hearing Sex on Fire and also gave his Nashville critics a few words.



Once again Cameron Matthew Followill got the gold star from me. There is just something about that kid on stage he just exudes rockstar badassness and I love it! The show was great, the boys were on the crowd was quite good although I feel like LA was a bit better. Everyone around me seemed to be singing along to everything one problem Nashville seemed to have an inordinate amount of annoying people from girls asking sing to trade places with you, people faking trying to get security to get to the front, guys getting physical with girls and people getting bitched out everywhere you turned there was a lot of hostility in the crowd.

At the end the lights came up and I felt great I had a smile plastered to my face and was hoping for a souvenir of some kind. Darrin collected the setlists and shoved them in his pockets. Some girls already had Caleb's cups in their hands but not sure how they had got them. Darrin pulled up one more setlist and pointed out someone who he wanted security to give it to and that was it. I made my way out and headed to the merch table I got my cherry shirt that I had been eying and I was done for the night.

It's been a long road to this date but it couldn't have gone much better. I was in a city I loved listening to a band I love and that's as much as I could ask for. I haven't really thought about how long I'm going to have to go before seeing them again I'm just holding on to what happened that night for as long as I can while dreaming about album number five.

Great Lake Swimmers

I was very much looking forward to the Great Lake Swimmers show. I had just recently discovered them via Jessie Baylin. She was doing some self promotion and said one of her fave music blogs just did a little piece on her, and it included a live music session with her that made me fall in love with her music. I checked the website out some more and then one day I came upon the sessions for Great Lake Swimmers I was immediately hooked! The songs from their session were so raw but smooth and beautiful but brutal I loved it! Upon adding them to the iLike application on FB I started watching for shows in my area but nothing was coming up. After a while and out of the blue an LA show sprang up and I was all too ready to gobble up a ticket. From raving on Twitter I connected with some of their other fans one of them being none other than Mrs. Feliciana Warren. We made plans to go and all that was left was the wait.

The day finally came but with it bad news Feli was still suffering from a long lasting cough and wouldn’t be able to make it, I’d have to fly solo. I never did a real concert alone so that gave me some anxiety (silly I know, I can be full of silly anxiety at times) but I knew Great Lake Swimmers would be worth it. The El Rey theater is right down the street from my day job (I pass it often when I walk to various places for lunch or on errands) so I move my car down the street and got a perfect spot right across Wilshire Blvd directly in front of the theater. I read in my car for an hour because no one is there yet (something I not accustomed to after KoL shows).

After a couple chapters I make my way inside and take in the beauty of the El Rey. The whole venue is general admission. The walls seemed to be covered in red velvety material that was draped in bunches that hung from the ceilings. There were three massive chandeliers coming down the center of the rectangular room and half chandelier sconces hung on the walls.




There was a row of chairs lined along each of the walls and nothing but open space between them. I look around for a while then grabbed a drink at the bar at the front of the house near the entrance. Before heading to a seat I stopped off at the merch table.



After picking up a GLS tshirt


I head to the floor to claim a spot. There are two small steps to get down to the main floor and I saw others taking advantage of this as a seat so I joined. There were people spread out sparsely throughout the venue I was happy people were sitting because I felt this band was much more of a lay in a grassy field under the summer sun type band not so much a stand packed in like sardines band. But seeing as how this was an indoor concert on an October night I had actually been wondering would people really be standing. I took my seat and waited.

There were two opening acts first Laura Gibson and two gentleman who called them selves the Laura Gibson’s. She did a fine job with her interesting voice and her band mate’s wide variety of instruments. The Wooden Birds went on next hailing from Austin, Texas. They were very entertaining and fun and they closed with one song I particularly liked.



Finally Great Lake Swimmers were up, they went right into their set list and their lead singers voice was just a beautiful and serene as on their albums. They were very thankful to the crowd and congratulatory to their openers. The room wasn’t packed so many people were still strewn about the floor and sitting on the steps (which I appreciated) a small group had gathered right at the edge of the stage but the crowd was pretty relaxed. GLS played song after song with perfection that made me not regret coming out that night. I was just a tad bummed they didn’t play Various Stages which is a little obsession of mine. The audience did get a good collection of their four studio albums.
With songs like Pulling on a line, Let’s Trade Skins, Palmistry, and one of the standouts of their catalog to me Your Rocky Spine.



The show ended just after midnight (way past my bedtime for a Monday night). I would implore you to check out the Great Lake Swimmers their beautiful melodies and harmonies along with intriguing lyrics are crushingly beautiful songs and with that I leave you with a clip from their Laudromatinee Sessions which is a must see.

Great Lake Swimmers - Various Stages from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

Also if you haven’t seen Jessie Baylin's, or Bon Iver’s sessions check those out too!