DAVE BARNES : 04.25.2014

this particular friday night was a night of nashville music. steve moakler played on the same night katie herzig and amy stroup played on the same night dave barnes and andy davis played. i went to the dave barnes + andy davis show for a few reasons, but mainly because of the freeness of my tickets.

my friend tab and i went downtown to the new cma theater where they were playing and quickly found out that the description that this new theater is inside the country music hall of fame is vastly misleading in that it is not and we laughed at ourselves for living here but coming very close to asking for directions. but i guess it's not so far off base, considering we don't spend a lot of time downtown because we live here. on the way over, as we were discussing that neither of us knew exactly where we were going, she said, "i have been to the country music hall of fame! ...once." me too! ...but that doesn't (didn't) help us know where this new theater was located.

we did find it, eventually, and it's actually not all that hard to find but it was down that new little side street that we were just discussing neither of us had ever been down since they ...built it? created it? lined buildings up and down either side of it? (what is the proper way to say that?) the theater itself is rather neat. it has the usual stage opposite the audience setup, but it's smaller and more intimate and circular in a way where there are seats directly to the left and right of the stage that you would normally think aren't very good seats, but it actually kind of works.

andy davis played first and while i've seen him before, i have completely fallen off the andy davis fan train. i forgot how incredible and smooth his voice sounds. and how funny he is on stage, in that way where you can tell it's not about the crowd but that he just loves being up there. because, nashville crowds can be awkward sometimes. (i will maybe write about this at some point, because it was one of the most surprising things i learned after moving.) but, my point is that he brushed it off and usually made a comment under his breath but into the microphone that had me dying (because, why are nashville crowds so awkward though) and now i want to know what it's like to be in a room with andy and dave at the same time. i imagine it would be the perfect situation to just pull up a chair with some popcorn and enjoy the entertainment.

anyway, dave played next and i don't even know. it's not like he prepares mini comedy routines for the space between each song, he just starts talking and everything that comes out is funny. and sometimes what he says catches him off guard, or causes his band to react in a way where even he's laughing, because what even? and that makes it funnier, at least to me, because there's something funny about the way other people crack themselves up.

comedy show aside, he played a great set and even sang my personal favorite, "someday sarah." if you asked me, that song probably wouldn't make it into my top five favorite dave songs. maybe it has something to do with how weird it is to sit at home and jam out to a song that has your own name in it? but when he plays it live? well, i recorded a small segment (30 seconds) of it, but then i ended up recording the entire rest of the song because i couldn't help myself.

i instagrammed my favorite part below. (also, i learned how to embed an instagram video! look at me go.)