Now/It's: Live On the Green 2018 - Week Four

In the past week or so, I spent an inordinate amount of time binging on HBO’s black comedy/dramedy Succession. The show’s premise revolves around the aging patriarch Logan Roy, founder of the massive media conglomerate Waystar Royco, and his ever loosening grasp of control on the business in his age. Meanwhile, Roy’s four children wait in the wings like vultures for carrion, jockeying for position to as the best suited child to pick up the family mantle, all in their own vaguely hilarious manner….

Maybe that logline doesn’t sound too terribly exciting on paper (see: screen), but there’s so much to dive into in every episode- The Big Short’s Adam Mckay and Will Ferrell are executive producers, there’s a Culkin (Kieran), witty repartee, pettiness galore, warehouse parties, massive sums of wealth and opulence, New York City, parallels to reality. Simply put, Succession might actually be the best show of 2018 (with all due respect to Atlanta and Killing Eve). And I binged the entire first season within the span of a week, watching on the Stairmaster at the gym and continuing at home.

So with all that being said, we’re led to the real reason you’re here: not to catch up on HBO’s latest block of program offerings, but rather, the end of another great binge-worthy (in a certain sense) season of entertainment, Live On the Green 2018.

Admittedly, complete and total coverage of each and every performer was somewhat middling on Now/It’s’ part, a fact we can chalk up to the previously mentioned event attendance wars that vie for the hearts of Nashville’s entertainment-needy each and every day. Nevertheless we still managed to make it out to each and every week of the 2018 season, and what a season it was. Reparations were made for 2017 force majeure cancellations of Dispatch, uber-indieness with Car Seat Headrest and Cold War Kids, a fine attempt at challenging Beyonce with Trampled by Turtles, and most recently, the all out local music blitz that is Live On the Green’s final weekend.

Way back in week one, we covered the prophesized metamorphosis that led to Live On the Green’s current format - the three week one-offs and a final three day “festival” - but something we didn’t necessarily pontificate on was just how locally centric the final weekend is. More so this year than in years passed, the final weekend of Live On the Green was predominantly local, whether or not that was on purpose or some sort of course correct?

We’ll never know. That being said, it does prove that Lightning 100 may have finally found its stride in booking the festival. Rather than try to entice with larger touring acts (there were still plenty of those: Dr. Dog, Jimmy Eat World) that may or may not translate into being of interest to the Nashville audience, they filled out the weekend with local acts. Paul McDonald, Elliot Root, Republican Hair, Natalie Prass (who said she’s moving back here), Jackson Bruck & The Dukes of Hume, Rayland Baxter, Mikky Ekko, Larkin Poe, The Foxies, Roots of a Rebellion, LUTHI, Savannah Conley, The New Respects, and Waker.

That’s well over sixty percent of the final weekend’s lineup consisting of local acts. That’s a beautiful thing. The type of thing that keeps us coming back for more, year in and year out. It’s the proverbial “binge” of local music for any and all who come out to Live On the Green, and much like completing a season long binge of a show, we have an entire year of jonesing for more. Until next year, Live On the Green.