Drivers, Start Your Engines

The next big thing for Nashville is an Indycar race through the downtown streets with Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Jon Pardi and others performing in the off hours. Getting Nashville ready for the race is going to be chaotic. Traffic is already terrible, but this one is going to be a doozy!

The pandemic paused Nashville, but as you could tell for the 350,000 attending the 4th of July events downtown, the pent up fan energy is there.

Handling 350,000 people at an event is a New York City kind of thing. One hundred thousand has happened before in Nashville, not 350,000. Thirteen arrests? No bad for a crowd of that size. CNN ran footage of some of it, and there were feature pieces on MSNBC and everywhere else. Nashville was ready, headliner Brad Paisley was ready and the city looked great.

The state of Tennessee is ramrodding a new campaign to get more people to vacation in the state -- Elvis Presley to the West, Dolly Parton to the East, and Loretta Lynn and the Grand Ole Opry in between. The music business is open and the stars are jumping out of their seats to play. Jimmy Buffett brought the parrotheads to town after the 4th. Downtown is party music central.

Poor Mark Chesnutt has back surgery coming and has cancelled the next 10 weeks’ worth of shows. Jon Pardi is back from vocal rest. Cody Johnson was still silent.

Garth Brooks is in Vegas restarting his stadium shows, with a new one planned for October at the New England Patriots’ stadium. Brooks has never played that place. Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift sure have!

It’s too soon to get feedback on live music, but after this weekend we should. Do fans have any safety concerns or is it three sheets in the wind, let’s just do it? I think it’s the latter.

So is Morgan Wallen back on the radio or not? At some stations yes, and he is charting again. How long is enough time out?

Streaming just keeps growing. TV apps just keep going. Who is fighting the fight to keep traditional radio in the cars and on the minds of the listener? Anyone? Is anyone trying to get radios into other places? Cell phones?

Time marches on for AM radio for sure, post Rush Limbaugh. Now FM. What is being done to keep it healthy? We are post-pandemic. Get everyone back in the studios. Corporate ideas and local ideas clash sometimes. We may need to re-train the audience. Got to face technology not run from it.