Nashville Boogie – Nashville TN

RATING: ♦♦

The Nashville Boogie billed itself as a celebration of Mid-Century American music, culture and style. 90 acts on 5 stages over 4 days at 3 venues. Sounded like fun, but for us it was a major disappointment.

The main venues were in the Gaylord Opryland Resort. We were unfamiliar with most of the bands, and it was hard to tell if we liked them or not because the sound in the hotel ballrooms was atrocious. Acoustics were terrible and the sound systems were just painfully loud. The crowd was much smaller than we thought it would be. Perhaps they knew something we didn’t. 

We eventually left the hotel and went down the street to the second venue at the Nashville Palace, which was just a honky-tonk bar. We weren’t expecting much, but we were pleasantly surprised. The sound was a lot better, and we enjoyed the music there. 

We decided we were probably misfits for this festival. Those who were enjoying it the most were young people covered with tattoos and dressed in 1950’s western wear.

Besides the music, the event included a large indoor car show, a western fashion show, and vintage vendor market at the hotel’s convention center. We saw a yellow 1966 VW Beetle that was nearly identical to one Becky owned back in the day. We met the owners, who were a young couple into vintage stuff.

On the plus side, we were greatly impressed by the Opryland Hotel (other than the acoustics in the ballrooms). It was pretty amazing. One of the largest hotels in the world, and reportedly the largest in the U.S. not connected to a casino.

Nashville Boogie