Hey loves!

First I want to say a massive welcome!  I have thought about starting a music blog for a long time now, and finally just decided to go ahead and do the proverbial leap.  I have always been a person that keeps up with music, and generally I will listen to anything.  If you don't believe me you can just ask my friends and family.  They really don't like to listen to my Pandora station on shuffle (it will take you on a tour from Fleetwood Mac, to Eric Church, right into some Frank Sinatra, and all the way over to a little Eminem).  Currently I have nearly an hour commute to and from work so I spend a ton of time jamming out in my car (just think James Corden level of Carpool Karaoke here).  I'm also a person that really enjoys writing, so I thought I could go ahead and share my thoughts with you guys!


If you take a look at my upcoming concert list I'm sure you can figure out another reason why I decided to start this blog.  I went a little ham buying up some tickets to shows, especially in the fall.  I'm going to do my best to keep this list up to date along with a separate list of albums, and singles that I will be chatting about.  Hopefully all of my reviews of new releases and concerts won't be too belated; however, don't scream at me if they are a little behind!  If you have any suggestions for me to listen to, or go see be sure to share that with me!   You can find me on Instagram at southernblackbird, on twitter at SoBlackbird, and of course you can just shoot me an email at southernblackbirdblog@gmail.com.

Now on to the main event!


I had the pleasure of finally seeing Bastille in concert Friday May 5 at the Ascend Amphitheater in Nashville, Tennessee.  As you can see this was fairly close to the end of the North American leg of the tour, so I am really happy I caught them.  I literally found out they were going to be in Nashville through a Ticketmaster email two days before the show, and my friends and I immediately started planning.  Now I have to add that I was already driving up to Nashville for the Luke Bryan show on Saturday, but I was so excited about Bastille that we made the two hour trek north through Friday afternoon traffic, and drove the two hours back home.  My fiancee and his sister both accompanied me on the journey, and his sister was obviously more excited than he was.   Jon has of course heard some of Bastille's tunes from my various playlists; however, they aren't a band that he will seek out on his own.  Brittany on the other hand listens to this type of music frequently, and when I asked if she wanted to tag along her first thought was "you mean the show isn't sold out?"

For those who aren't aware, Bastille is classified as a British Indie-Pop band, and have a bit of an electronica sound to their tunes.  The first song I can recall hearing from this band in the states was Pompeii (see the video link below).  To be completely honest I don't tend to keep up with the radio stations in town, so I don't know if or when they started to really branch out here.  The first time I heard Pompeii was in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is obviously a much larger city than Chattanooga, Tennessee.

We arrived to Ascend about half way through Mondo Cozmo's set unfortunately.  The traffic was terrible getting from Chattanooga to Nashville, and we were delayed slightly.  Going into the adventure I knew we would be cutting it close to make it by the 7 o'clock showtime, but I knew for certain that we would make it before Bastille.  Mondo Cozmo wasn't entirely familiar to me upon arrival; however, I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the band's sound.  The final song of their set was Shine which coincidentally I had heard and it is still bothering me that I have no idea where I had previously heard it.

The song is incredibly catchy, and almost has the feel of one of Eric Church's or Bob Dylan's tunes mixed with a bit of gospel if that makes any sense.  Since the show I have found that I have had the chorus to Shine stuck in my head.  Something about the way the lyrics "Let them get high, Let them get stoned, Everything will be alright if you let it go" just flow so well.  Be sure to check out Mondo Cozmo if you are at Hangout Fest this week.  They will be down on Friday May 19th.  If you are in my area they will be at Bonaroo on June 8th, and of course they are on Spotify.



The two screens on either side of the stage began showing a clip that was meant to be a news anchor preparing for his show while the crew worked on switching out the stage.  If you actually paid attention the clips were rather cheeky with the boys of Bastille occasionally making their way around the set.  Just before showtime the anchor says that there will be an important broadcast and stay tuned, and the energy of the crowd began to grow.  Send Them Off! began the set with the "news anchor" on the screens behind the band stating the opening clip of the song (if you have heard the song, you know what I'm talking about.)   The two side screens kept the entire theme of a news broadcast with a ticker scrolling along the bottom of the screens with a phrase in several languages.

I have to say that listening to Bastille in the car after seeing them in person is just disappointing.  I mean that in the best way possible too!  The energy that exists between the band and the crowd is incredible.  We positioned ourselves at the back of the front section of the crowd so we would be able to see the stage and the crowd at the same time.  The pounding of their music just cannot be matched in the car, or at home.  Plus Dan's voice live is absolutely amazing even through all of the jumping and running around he does through the show.  This alone is truly baffling to me because I was winded after a few hops (talk about needing to hit the gym some more).


By the third song in the show, Dan ended up walking through the crowd jumping and dancing with as many as he can.  Judging by other concert videos I have seen this happens quite frequently so don't be alarmed if he is in the crowd during your show.  At Ascend they had a secondary platform set up set up right by the sound board in the middle of the crowd, and his path to that platform was rather simple the first pass since there is a walkway right up the middle of the crowd.

For our show he made his way through the crowd during Flaws, and finished off the song from the platform before running right behind where we were standing, all the way down the side of the amphitheater to the stage.   I was incredibly impressed that the very next song was Oblivion which for all intents and purposes is a ballad, and Dan's voice never wavered despite having just run around the crowd.  

One of the best moments of the show was during Of The Night.  Dan gets the entire crowd to jump along with him and it was one of the most fun things I have done in a long time.  Just know that you will get a workout with your ticket purchase, because I felt like I ended up doing a bit of a jazzercise move through quite a bit of the show.  I'm going to put a video of this in below from Reading 2015 because I was too busy dancing and jumping to capture it myself.  During the Nashville show, this was the second song that Dan sang from the secondary stage, and if you have been listening to Bastille for a long time you will know this song.  

Another of my favorite moments was during Glory.  Honestly I hadn't heard this song prior to the concert, but since it has become one of my favorites.  Dan pointed out two wire mannequins that had been perched on top of two speakers on the stage and proceeded to tell us that the video that would be playing through the song was about the making of the album cover.  I honestly found myself watching the video as it showed city skylines and bustling city streets.  Now I picture scenes from the video as I listen to the song while I listen to the song, and I just can't help but smile.

The incredible energy that permeated the crowd never left, and I can only imagine how amazing it must be at sold out shows.  Dan generally kept the interaction with fans between songs concise which I personally didn't mind.  I feel like if he had done a lot of talking between songs the flow would have been thrown off, and the spell over the crowd could have been broken.  I did appreciate that he joked about the encore, because encores are a thing I have never understood.  We all know that you save your most popular songs for last, so of course we know you are coming back out if you haven't performed it.  During this show, they moved Dan back out to the smaller stage to start the encore with Two Evils, and the band continued right into Icarus as the boys made their way back to the main stage.  The show concluded with the song most people know, Pompeii.  For this one they brought out Mondo Cozmo one last time for a final party anthem.  



I have to say that I was so happy that I made the last second decision to see these boys.  I almost went to their last show last Friday night in Raleigh since we happened to be in town as well.  They are back overseas (if you are in the States) currently, and will be at Radio 1's Big Weekend 2017 on May 27th and a few other festivals through the summer.  They have also announced five new dates in the States:

• September 9 - Pittsburgh, PA
• September 10 - Norfolk, VA
• September 12 - Albany, NY
• September 13 - Providence, RI
• September 14 - Philadelphia, PA

If you can't catch them at a show this summer, you can always listen to their stuff on Spotify.  Obviously I highly recommend catching Bastille, and even Mondo Cozmo live if you can!  Great set boys, I can't wait until I get to see you guys again!