Posted by Brian Waters
Photographed by Daina Goodwin
"How much cake do you think it would take to feed an audience of 500?", with original plans to feed our fans at the Lightning 100 18th birthday bash, an executive decision was made to instead serve inexpensive Miller Light and provide a killer lineup. The correct decision was made could later be agreed upon by employees and fans alike. Being that this is the first time we have been able to rock out legal, Lightning 100 wanted to do this show right. In selecting the lineup, we made sure to pick out artist that have been feature on air early in their careers at on Lightning 100. We were able to book artists for the show such as Griffin House, Katie Herzig, Dave Barnes, The Gabe Dixon Band, and Trent Dabbs.
Griffin House was the first artist in the Lightning 100 birthday installment. Griffin had a chance to come in for an interview with Lt. Dan the day of our birthday show to tell about his on going tour, his new house in Nashville, and play a few songs off his new album "Flying Upside Down" available in stores the 29th. In the misted of tour, Griffin House took time off to kick off the show at the Mercy Lounge. Griffin went from easygoing country riffs in the song "Better Than Love" to an upbeat folk styled song "Never Again" were he invited the crowed to dance on stage.
Griffin House would provide a much needed warm up stretch for the night, giving the audience a chance to loosen up their calves and hamstrings would be needed when followed up by Katie Herzig energetic performance. Coming to Nashville from Boulder Colorado, Katie proves the fact that you can still rock out with an acoustical guitar while wearing snow boots. By the time Katie proceeded to play her second song, the audience had packed themselves into the Mercy Lounge leaving no room for venture. This provided a problem for the intern whose jobs entailed video recording, photography, backstage runs, and the occasional locating of people in a crowd of five hundred people. I do apologize to anyone that I bumped while maneuvering through the crowd.
The middle of the birthday show was a very important artist selection to make. By the midpoint in the show, normally people will go grab another beer or retreat to the back to play pool. Dave Barnes was able to turn them around, normally after getting beer, to come back to the stage to listen. Shifting though the crowded to get a few pictures, I noticed that the first three rows of fans were predominate girls. Later after talking with a friend the night later, he told me that he "Didn’t like the way his girl friend looked at Dave Barnes during the show". They are still together though, so no damage was done by Dave during the Lightning 100 birthday show. Dave later thanked Lightning 100 by stating, "It's always been a dream of mine to be on Lightning 100, ever since I started listening to you guys in college. Thank you for supporting local artist.” Performing with two thirds of the Gabe Dixon Band, you could tell anyone on stage was enjoying themselves during the set.
While playing with Dave Barnes, Gabe Dixon’s backup vocals were enough to get me excited for the next set. One advantage of playing backup during a show, you have more room for quick improv runs up and occasionally down the piano. If the Lightning 100 birthday show was lacking one piece to the puzzle, it was supplied by The Gabe Dixon Band. Gabe Dixon’s vocals could only be complimented by his clean energetic piano style with a band to add a rock feel to back him. After The Gabe Dixon Band, I was asked to throw t-shirts out into the crowd. After thinking that the entire audience hated me for my inconvenient trips across the Mercy Lounge, now I am able to give a little back. As an attempt to apologize to the audience, I singled out a few people while throwing shirts that I remembered saying “excuse me” to when cutting through the crowd. One guy even called out “Brian” so I would throw him a shirt. It was a good feeling after believe that the audience hated the intern with three cameras attached to him.
It was a long stretch for some DJs at Lightning 100, being at the station since 5:30 a.m., they still held their own to watch the last performing artist Trent Dabbs. Near the end of Trent’s set, I ran out of memory on two cameras and an HD camcorder. At this point, it was Brian the intern chance to just enjoy the last set with anymore responsibilities. Playing songs off his new record “What’s Golden Above Ground” coming out March 28, Trent’s organic sound had enough energy to captivate the ground for the last show. Make sure to check out Trent Dabbs at 3rd and Lindsley on April 6th for Lightning 100’s Nashville Sunday Night.
Lightning 100 could not have had a better 18th birthday and we would like to thank the artist, employees at Mercy Lounge, and the fans. We hope you enjoyed it as much as the people who put it on did. Check out pictures from the show on our myspace and join our facebook fan site to check out the audience pictures. Shows like this encourage us to put on more in the future, so stay tuned and keep on listening.
For more photos of the show go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wrltlightning100/show/
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