>> PAGE 7
NEWS: CORECIVIC MAKES MILLIONS VIA ICE CONTRACTS. WALL
STREET WANTS MORE.
>> PAGE 34
PAGE 8
The who, what, when, where and why of Bonnaroo, CMA Fest and more
WITNESS HISTORY
From the exhibit Clint Black: The Hard Way on Purpose
Platinum-selling recording artist Clint Black, an accomplished harmonica player, has used these two harmonicas—a Lee Oskar and a Hohner Special 20—onstage. He stores them in a custom leather case made by a fan.
RESERVE TODAY
artifact: Courtesy of Clint Black artifact photo: Bob Delevante
Five Points Sees Changing of the Guard
As Margot says goodbye, Party Fowl moves in — and the neighborhood’s high rent prevents small business entry
BY HANNAH HERNER
Pith in the Wind
This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog CoreCivic Has Nearly Doubled Its ICE Revenue. Wall Street Wants More. Analyst to CoreCivic CEO: ‘Congrats on the quarter’ BY NICK PIPITONE
Leaving MAGA’s Billboard Campaign Targets Nashville
Founder Rich Logis is giving Trump doubters a place to turn BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
COVER PACKAGE: FESTIVAL FRENZY Fest-ering Concerns
Getting perspective on the broader festival landscape from a megafan and a historian BY SEAN L. MALONEY
Your Bonnaroo 2026 Field Guide
We run down our favorite acts of the festival, from headliners to up-and-comers playing the campgrounds
BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
That Festive Feeling
From 615 Week to Nashville Pride and beyond, put this slew of local music fests on your calendar BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
Taking Space
MORGXN gears up for his CMA Fest debut BY BEE DELORES
Speak Up and Sing
Talking with Bryan Andrews ahead of his CMA Fest debut about speaking truth to power in country music BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
Bonnaroo Bingo
Play along!
ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX LEVIN
CRITICS’ PICKS
Jill Scott, Manual Cinema’s The 4th Witch Rocknite Nashville, Big K.R.I.T., STRUT Nashville Pride Month Kickoff and more
AND DRINK
Summer Goals You Can Eat
Talking to local experts at Bad Luck Burger Club, The Fox and more about perfecting a smashburger, cocktail or dreamy bowl of ice cream BY DANNY BONVISSUTO
ART
This Is This
Demetrius Wilson brings his Next New Formalism to Red Arrow BY JOE NOLAN
FILM
Tree of Life
Silent Friend is a hypnotic journey through the secret life of plants BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
The Name She Gave Was Caroline Carolina Caroline is a sleek modern update to the lovers-on-the-run genre BY LOGAN BUTTS
MOVIES IN THE PARK RETURNS The 32nd annual Movies in the Park returns to Elmington Park every Thursday in June with free screenings of favorite films. Learn more at fwpublishingevents.com/ movies-in-the-park.
CHECK BACK HERE WEEKLY TO LEARN ABOUT LOCAL PROMOTIONS, PARTNERSHIPS AND EVENTS EVENTS WE’RE INTO LOOKING AHEAD
NASHVILLE PRIDE KICKOFF PARTY
Nashville Pride will host a kickoff party June 23 at 6 p.m. at the Virgin Hotel. Enjoy an evening of live entertainment, a cash bar and a chance to celebrate Pride weekend. Buy your tickets today at nashvillepride.org.
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In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016
June 4 - 7
Come together to celebrate and explore all weekend long at Cheekwood’s annual Community Celebration festival. Discover American art in the Mansion & Museum, the blockbuster America the Beautiful train exhibit, daytime and evening concerts highlighting American musical traditions and gardens in full bloom.
Half-price daytime admission. Reserve tickets at cheekwood.org.
FIVE POINTS SEES CHANGING OF THE GUARD
As Margot says goodbye, Party Fowl moves in — and the neighborhood’s high rent prevents small business entry
BY HANNAH HERNER
BAR AND RESTAURANT owners in East Nashville’s Five Points neighborhood are just happy to see 1016 Woodland St. occupied — even if it’s with local hot chicken chain Party Fowl.
In a cosmic changing of the guard, Party Fowl opened on May 11 as part of its post-bankruptcy run of new locations — and this weekend, right across the street, beloved independent restaurant Margot Café & Bar will close after 25 years in business.
“I’m glad to have something in there,” says Sara Nelson when asked about the Party Fowl space. She’s the owner of nearby Five Points bar Duke’s, which opened in 2015. “I hate all of those empty storefronts. It’s a bummer. I always say the best thing to happen to a bar is for another bar to open next door.”
The space sat empty following the closure of restaurant and bar Tenn Sixteen in 2019. Next door, the former home of 3 Crow Bar at 1024 Woodland St. still sits vacant after 3 Crow’s replacement, Buds & Brews, closed in June 2025. The company behind the THC-infused-drink establishment bought the space in September 2023 for $5.2 million, and the business — which opened in July 2024 — survived for just one year.
In 2005, the to-be owners of 3 Crow bought the site for $375,000. Today, rent is $19,900 per month Even if 3 Crow had survived the toxic mix of an upheaval over ownership changes and a post-pandemic decline in business, it still might not be around today. That’s according to Coral Smith, bar manager at bar and venue The 5 Spot and a former 3 Crow bartender.
“East Nashville is just not what it used to be,” Smith says. “It used to be cool and artsy. Now with Party Fowl and BoomBozz Pizza — those things are not cool. They’re super mainstream. The reason places that were cool and small businesses came to East Nashville is because it was
affordable, and it’s not anymore.”
The 5 Spot owner Todd Sherwood paints a picture of the glory days of the neighborhood: Wednesday night at 3 Crow, 100 people between the ages of 21 and 40 show up for 2-for-1 drink specials. Most of them are in bands, and they show up for each other’s shows at The 5 Spot, perhaps ending the night with a Beyond the Edge quesadilla. The nostalgia is potent.
“People used to hang out and then go to the gas station at 3 a.m. and buy a case of beer and keep on hanging out all night,” Sherwood says. “Not that it’s healthy or whatever, but I think people were happier and socializing more and enjoying every single night, rather than going home and staying at home.”
Perhaps what Five Points used to offer has migrated to other parts of town, Sherwood observes. The circuit of Vinyl Tap and the 2023-opened Schulman’s Neighborhood Bar a bit further north seems to be thriving, as is a bar-hop on Woodland Street between Lakeside Lounge, Ernie’s Boondock and Lowbar, among others.
Sherwood admits he’s still trying to figure out what people who come to Five Points desire today. He didn’t think East Nashvillians would embrace things like Whataburger, 7 Brew or a New York-bred outpost like Skinny Dennis.
“Being cool is what will eventually kill it off,” he says of Five Points. “People with a lot of money try to be cool too, and they’re not cool, and their money ends up ruining it, because they raise the prices on everything. They fix things up too much.”
Nelson adds, “This neighborhood has changed a lot, but it’s really tenacious. People like what they like. They really want things that feel local and not overly curated. People want something that feels like their neighborhood and not a neighborhood that you could find anywhere.”
Five Points staple Cumberland Hardware
was already beating the odds back in 2009 when late Scene editor Jim Ridley wrote about the importance of supporting small businesses Earlier this year, owners John and Sheila Varallo told WKRN that the lack of free parking in the area is “killing them,” but the store remains in operation. Five Points Pizza is holding onto its mainstay status too.
As for the Margot space at 1017 Woodland St., owner Margot McCormack did veto at least a couple of “stupid ideas” for her space after she departs. But the sale of Margot is her retirement, she tells the Scene, and she has to get as much money as she can from it. She had the rare opportunity to buy the site from her landlord for $730,000 in 2015, according to Metro records.
McCormack remembers a time when she saw headlights coming down the road and knew people must be coming to her restaurant — they were the only ones there. She also recalls the days of describing her location as “10 blocks east of Nissan Stadium.”
McCormack likens the early days of Margot and other small businesses to childhood friends playing in the sandbox together. She doesn’t know the owners of the newcomers like Party Fowl, or Edley’s Bar-B-Que and Bartaco nearby. They haven’t reached out to her, and she hasn’t reached out to them.
“Now the sandbox is different,” McCormack says. “The people are different. We don’t have as much in common, I don’t think, even though we’re all entrepreneurs.”
She continues: “We’re getting those kinds of crowds which are very touristy, and they don’t care who they’re supporting. They’re just here to have a good time, and sometimes their good time is too much of a good time for me. I definitely don’t want the neighborhood to go in that direction, but when you lose all your local flavor, that’s kind of what happens.” ▼
Tony Carruthers returned to death row last month after surviving the state’s failed attempt to execute him by lethal injection on May 21 After the public failure by the Tennessee Department of Correction, defense attorneys are calling on Gov. Bill Lee to pause all executions, citing poor state planning, an unqualified state physician and constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Carruthers has maintained his innocence for decades and is still seeking a court review of DNA evidence related to his sentence for a February 1994 triple murder in Shelby County. Public defenders have contested the state’s lethal injection protocol — published in 2025 — for reducing, removing or obscuring various aspects of previous executions. Three executions are scheduled to take place before the term-limited governor leaves office in January.
State Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) is facing punishment for her act of protest on the Senate floor during the Tennessee General Assembly’s special session redrawing the state’s congressional maps and eliminating the state’s only majority-Black district. Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) who presides over the Senate, sent Oliver a letter last week saying she is reassigned from a Senate committee and will not receive per diem pay unless the General Assembly is in session or she is attending a standing committee. These punishments come as a result of Oliver’s actions on the final day of the special session, when she stood on her desk and unfurled a sheet reading “No Jim Crow 2.0” and “Stop the TN Steal” and sang. In the letter, which Oliver posted on social media, her first name is misspelled as “Charlene.” Oliver responded by saying, “Next time, spell my name right.”
“Everyone knows that there’s an economic crisis in Nashville that doesn’t easily map onto conventional metrics,” writes Scene opinion columnist Betsy Phillips. “On paper, we are booming. We’re attracting business. We’re getting a Super Bowl Buildings keep going up. But as we all know, the people who make Nashville Nashville can’t afford to live here.” Phillips writes that, while a proposed grocery tax cut is swell and all, the real problem is that the people who make Nashville great are receiving low wages and being priced out of the city. “You know how restaurants have to pass health inspections and post their scores?” she asks. “What if all businesses in town had to pass a basic ‘Are you paying everyone who works for you?’ inspection every so often?”
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CORECIVIC HAS NEARLY DOUBLED ITS ICE REVENUE. WALL STREET WANTS MORE.
Analyst to CoreCivic CEO: ‘Congrats on the quarter’
BY NICK PIPITONE
BRENTWOOD-BASED CORECIVIC reported its first-quarter 2026 earnings on May 7. If you’re an investor in the massive private prison operator, the staggering revenue growth is a cause to celebrate. If you’re virtually anyone else, the finer details of the earnings call might nauseate you. Revenue from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the company’s largest government client, grew roughly 96 percent year over year and was $261.3 million compared with $133.2 million during the first quarter of 2025. CoreCivic attributes this increase to the activation of four previously idle prison facilities and the acquisition of the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia.
The company restarted operations at the 2,400-bed Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas in the first quarter of 2025. CoreCivic also received new contract awards to reactivate the 600-bed West Tennessee Detention Facility; the 2,560-bed California City Detention Facility; and the 2,160-bed Diamondback Correctional Facility in Oklahoma. As of March 31, 2026, CoreCivic’s leaders reported in the earnings release filed with the SEC that they “cared for” 1,817 individuals at the California City Detention Facility and 735 individuals at the Diamondback Correctional Facility.
Despite the recent revenue growth, on a Feb. 12 earnings call covering the fourth quarter of 2025, some Wall Street analysts had a complaint: ICE wasn’t arresting enough people. “One of the big questions or concerns for investors out there has been the pace of detention by ICE, which has been below what the investors had thought was going to be,” Joe Gomez, analyst at Noble Capital,
said on the call. “I think people thought we’d be at that 100,000 level. We’re at a little over 70,000. What is your kind of viewpoint here? What are you seeing in terms of the pace of detention?”
CoreCivic’s president and CEO, Patrick Swindle, responded to Gomez’s question by answering through “a couple of lenses.”
“When you’re looking at the way that ICE approaches enforcement action, nothing occurs immediately, and I think, maybe you or someone else noted, the organization had not fully ramped up its team until really the end of last year,” Swindle replied. He went on to reassure Gomez that “it does take time because it is a very complex ecosystem, and as that ecosystem grows, it’s going to result in additional bed demand.”
“It has been slower than I think some thought might occur,” Swindle continued. “But certainly when you look at, take a step back at the 30,000foot level and look at the magnitude of scale that’s already increased, as well as the timing of when the additional enforcement infrastructure was put in place, one can reasonably expect you would see continued growth.” After the reassurance from Swindle, Gomez thanked him and said, “Congrats on the quarter.”
At the time of that call — a little shy of four months ago — ICE detention populations were roughly 68,000 nationally across 425 active facilities, according to Vera, a national organization that advocates for prison reform. Using data from the Data Deportation Project, Vera has tracked the growth of ICE detention populations from October 2008 through March 10, 2026. ICE detention reached a peak of about 70,000 in late January 2026 — well above
the previous high set during the first Trump administration, when detention numbers hit roughly 55,000 in 2019. When Trump took office in January 2025, roughly 40,000 people were being held in immigrant detention. By the end of 2025, that number had increased by 70 percent, with more than 68,000 people held in ICE detention, according to the American Immigration Council. In late 2024, Tom Homan — whom Trump appointed as his “border czar” — told CNN that the administration would need a minimum of 100,000 beds to detain undocumented immigrants. That’s the same number Gomez, the analyst at Noble Capital, referred to on the CoreCivic earnings call.
CoreCivic did not respond to the Scene’s request for comment.
Bianca Tylek is the founder and executive director of Worth Rises, a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to dismantling the prison industry. While some people may be shocked by the private prison industry’s callousness and their close ties to the Trump administration, Tylek says she is no longer surprised by it.
“In the moment we are in our nation’s history, it just seems like corruption is part of the game,” Tylek tells the Scene. “I would say there are probably some people who would say there’s always been corruption, and there’s some truth to that. But I think the brazenness of it is what has changed. So nothing feels out-ofbounds at this point.”
“These corporations are full of people who are making decisions every single day to destroy the lives of others,” says Tylek. “And they are in your community.” ▼
LEAVING MAGA’S BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN TARGETS NASHVILLE
Founder
COMMUTERS ON I-24 may have noticed a new billboard offering to help people extricate themselves from the Make America Great Again movement. “Having Doubts? You Are Not Alone,” reads the ad for Leaving MAGA, which went up on May 18. The organization was founded by Florida resident Rich Logis, a former Trump supporter who knows how isolating it can be to exit Donald Trump’s zealous cult of personality. He wanted to give other doubters a destination and support network.
“Depending on how deep one is in [MAGA], it will be really, excruciatingly difficult for some people to leave,” Logis tells the Scene in a web call. But he’s proof it can happen.
Logis himself was deep in the MAGA movement. As a political independent disillusioned with democracy, he says, he was attracted to Trump’s “outsider status as someone without any political, military or government experience.” Logis was a grassroots campaigner, and after the 2016 election he used his own money to produce a Trump-boosting podcast and penned articles in conservative media.
“It was my belief back in 2016 that the way to save democracy was to destroy it,” says Logis. “I was wrong about that. And I realized that it’s much easier to tear something down than it is to build it back up.”
Logis thinks frustrations about the economy helped fuel Trump’s rise and electoral success in 2016 and 2024. The president also validated those frustrations, which earned followers’ fealty, says Logis. “I don’t defend anyone’s ignorance — mine or anyone else’s — but I do think that all of us are susceptible to being influenced,” he says.
Logis began to harbor doubts about the movement after Florida’s MAGA-affiliated Gov. Ron DeSantis rebuffed vaccine mandates in 2021. The governor’s policy shift — he previously promoted the COVID vaccine — coincided with a surge in the highly transmissible Delta strain of the coronavirus, which infected many children. Logis, a parent of two small kids, was troubled by the development. So he did “something that sounds very simple, but was profoundly life-altering and -changing for me”: He diversified his news sources.
“I spent the next year really struggling with the reality that so much of what I had believed turned out to be false,” says Logis. That included grasping the severity of the Jan. 6 insurrection — a violent raid on the U.S. Capitol that Logis previously believed, thanks to right-wing media, Democrats and mainstream outlets had exaggerated.
Logis is blunt about the prominent role conspiracy theories have within the MAGA movement. There was always a “they,” he says, who were out to abridge American rights or replace white people with brown immigrants. “I came to realize that there was no ‘they,’ and that I was addicted to rage and fear for the seven years that I was in
BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
“
“I ALWAYS BELIEVED THAT THERE WAS SOME DEVILISH LIBERAL OR DEMOCRAT BEHIND EVERY TREE. AND I REALIZED THAT ACTUALLY ISN’T TRUE.”
— RICH LOGIS
MAGA,” he says. “I always believed that there was some devilish liberal or Democrat behind every tree. And I realized that actually isn’t true.”
Logis left the movement in 2022 after the Uvalde school shooting, which resulted in the killing of 19 students and two teachers. His exit was quiet, but he later issued a public mea culpa, renouncing the movement. He founded Leaving MAGA in 2024 and sees it as a way to continue making amends.
“It’s my opinion that the GOP and Trump made acceptable avoidable death, suffering and trauma,” says Logis. “Whether we’re talking about the pandemic, anti-vaccine sentiment, January 6th, Uvalde in particular, and mass shootings more specifically. … And as a parent, I knew that children were victims in that acceptance.”
Logis hasn’t swung all the way to the left — he now identifies as a centrist — but other members of Leaving MAGA became involved with the Democratic party. Logis himself chaired a Republicans for Kamala Harris chapter in Florida during the 2024 election.
Trump maintains a stranglehold on Republicans from the federal level down (despite occasional fits from the congressional GOP caucus). Tennessee’s supermajority is all-in: State Republicans worked with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — a proponent of white
nationalism — on rigid immigration laws and kickstarted the gerrymandering of Memphis following calls from Trump and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a MAGA loyalist.
Logis says MAGA may be the most powerful voting bloc in the GOP, but he expects an exodus as midterms approach — and as Trump fails to deliver on campaign promises.
The president’s approval rating and consumer-sentiment numbers hit all-time lows across several polls in May.
If Trump voters do jump ship, Leaving MAGA is there to offer support. The organization has 34 members — Logis calls them his fellow leaders — and the website provides information about support groups for those who have left MAGA or have loved ones involved in the movement. In addition to Nashville, the group also set up billboards in 20 cities including Austin, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; and Tallahassee, Fla.; attracting local and national media coverage. The campaign has so far targeted red and purple states, and Logis says thanks to billboards, the organization has “more people than ever reaching out.”
“We want them to know that it’s OK to have doubts,” says Logis. “It’s OK to be afraid. And it’s OK to change your mind, and that they’re not alone.” ▼
JUNE 4, 5 & 6
BMI BLOCK PARTY
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC LIVE MUSIC, OUTDOOR BAR + MORE
JUNE 12, 13 & 14
JOHN MULANEY
JUNE 12 & 13 SOLD OUT / JUNE 14 ADDED SHOW
JUNE 26 & 27
NASHVILLE
THE ENCORE TOUR
JUNE 26 SOLD OUT / JUNE 27 ADDED SHOW
JULY 11
AIR SUPPLY
AUGUST 15
MAREN MORRIS ON SALE JUNE 12 AT 10 AM
SEPTEMBER 23
BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE
ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM
NOVEMBER 15 2ND SHOW ADDED
JIM GAFFIGAN ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM
The who, what, when, where and why of Bonnaroo, CMA Fest and more
SUMMER IS RAPIDLY approaching in Middle Tennessee, which means festival season is well underway. And that means it’s time for our annual Festival Frenzy issue, with coverage of the two major music fests that mark this time in Music City: CMA Fest (taking over Lower Broadway and Nissan Stadium June 4 through 7) and Bonnaroo (at The Bonnaroo Farm in Manchester, June 11 through 14).
We have a conversation with Bryan Andrews, who brings staunchly outspoken progressive politics to the ostensibly apolitical environment of CMA Fest. And we catch up with Nashville’s own MORGXN, one of few openly LGBTQ performers booked for CMA Fest this year.
We also ask a festival mega-fan and a historian for their perspective on the current landscape of big music festivals. We run down our favorite sets of the weekend at Bonnaroo, and we’re delighted to bring you Bonnaroo Bingo once again. And because festivals abound in the vicinity of Music City, we’ve got a look at some more to look forward to, including 615 Week and Nashville Pride.
Top off that reusable water bottle, make sure the cap’s tight on your SPF-50 and check that fit: It’s about to get real festive in here.
STEPHEN TRAGESER, MUSIC EDITOR
FEST-ERING CONCERNS
Getting perspective on the broader festival landscape from a megafan and a historian
BY SEAN L. MALONEY
TO BE COMPLETELY HONEST, I did not have a good feeling about the state of music festivals going into this article. Between last summer’s epic weather bummer at Bonnaroo and this winter’s rather high count of events that have been paused, pushed back or canceled outright, it just seemed like maybe music festivals have had their moment. But the more I poked around, the more it seemed like those contractions were natural, the changes a sign of a healthy industry and my worries unfounded. I was confused to say the least.
So I reached out to two folks who could help me sort this out: Gina Arnold, author of Half a Million Strong: Crowds and Power From Woodstock to Coachella, and Sara Minton, a Nashville homie who loves festivals more than anybody I know. What I discovered was that despite over-corporatization, natural disasters and ever-escalting costs for the consumer, the primal human need to listen to music in large groups is still winning.
“If I’m not working, I’m at a show or outside, so I feel like I go back and forth,” says Minton, who is on a walk when we get in touch. In the
week before our call, her dance card included shows at Harken Hall, Marathon Music Works and Exit/In, and she has tickets in hand for Bonnaroo next week, as well as two September fests she’ll travel to — Bourbon & Beyond in Louisville and Shaky Knees in Atlanta. She’s also a veteran of erstwhile Gulf Shores fest Hangout (rebranded last year as Morgan Wallen’s Sand in My Boots Festival), Hulaween in Live Oak, Fla., and Franklin’s Pilgrimage (which is set to skip 2026 and return next year). Hell, she’s even got tattoos of the logos for Shaky Knees and ’Roo. “[Festivals are] the best of both worlds, being outside and music — all I need.”
And while Minton’s enthusiasm for the events hasn’t dulled, this year the constraints of the adult world have her scaling back from full-blast, all-weekend music binges. She’s invested in single-day passes and hotel rooms instead of camping in dusty lots where the wooks roam free.
Safety is a bigger concern for Minton since she watched Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy, the Netflix documentary about the crowd crush
10 dead and more than 300 injured. While she’s also bummed out by the admittedly less-serious issue of overzealous security confiscating snacks at the gate, the floods at last year’s Bonnaroo are top of mind, and she’s thinking about evacuation plans and staying connected to her group in the event of an emergency.
“I’m always trying to see as many acts as I can,” says Minton. “But the number one thing that everybody always says [keeps them from going to festivals] is the price is going up.”
The cost of live music for those consuming it and those creating it has skyrocketed over the past few years. Festivals have not escaped the effects of inflation and a buy-the-dip administration hell-bent on the enshittification of everything we know. This shit is expensive, y’all — no matter how you cut it. During the past two decades, festivals were the all-you-can-eat buffet that complemented fans’ daily bread of club and arena shows. But for many, festivals are now the main course.
“I think that young people today go to festivals because they see themselves as paying, yes, a giant price like $500, but seeing tons and tons of acts,” explains Arnold, who teaches at the University of San Francisco in addition to writing and editing. “And what they don’t want to do is pay $300 to see one act or $100 to see one act.”
Is the shift from ordering à la carte to a more
“Golden Corral or GTFO” model having a deleterious effect on club, theater and arena tours?
With the exasperated touring industry scoffing at “blue dot fever” — a term coined to describe concert tours that get canceled because of poor advance sales plainly visible on ticket sites, which some executives deny is an issue with the conviction of Marco Rubio pretending those shoes are the right size — it’s easy to blame festivals. They are the biggest, most obvious boogeyman. But they are also squeezed by the larger economic forces at play, as the recent wave of cancellations and postponements makes clear. (See the aforementioned Hangout and Pilgrimage, or just skim the feed of anonymous festival news channel The Festive Owl.)
“I mean, they’re still standing,” says Arnold. “The big ones are still standing, and it must make economic sense to someone. People are always saying to me, ‘Why are tickets so high?’ Because people pay it. If you didn’t pay it, they wouldn’t do it.”
And while programming at major festivals has entered a very creative phase — Kesha in charge of the Bonnaroo Superjam is inspired booking, y’all — and audiences are still in love with the experience of music festivals, this is an industry built on cheap gas and political stability. How many seasons of forever war can we endure before the fun gets too far out of reach for average music fans? ▼
at Travis Scott’s 2021 festival in Houston that left
YOUR BONNAROO 2026
FIELD GUIDE
We run down our favorite acts of the festival, from headliners to up-and-comers playing the campgrounds
BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
EVEN FOR SOMEONE who’s been multiple times, Bonnaroo can be a little overwhelming when you first get in the middle of it. With that in mind, we’ve assembled a field guide to help you get your bearings.
There are some changeups in the site layout, but the basic idea will be mostly familiar to ’Roo frequent flyers. One large field houses the main What Stage at one end, and this year That Tent has moved from Centeroo to the opposite end of that field, along the perimeter with The Arch entrance. A pair of broad pathways provide access to a second large field that makes up Centeroo, which features the second-largest Which Stage on one side, with This Tent and the electronic-centric The Other Stage and Where Stage on the other side. In the middle there’s Snake & Jake’s Love Shack, the How Stage (which hosts educational programming) and tons of vendors and branded pop-ups. Per the notes released after the 2025 rain-out, areas of the campgrounds that got the worst flooding will not be used. But there will still
be stages dotted around GA camping: Why at Plaza 2, When at Plaza 3, Groop at Plaza 5 (in the Groop Camping area, naturally), and The Grove at Plaza 7, while Plaza 9 houses the Silent Disco
When Bonnaroo expanded to four days of official programming years ago, standard procedure was to have shows at the Centeroo stages on Thursday and then open up What Stage for the weekend on Friday. Organizers flipped that script for 2026, as part of the aforementioned post-flood changes, and Thursday is basically one big concert at What Stage. Rockers Spiritual Cramp kick it off at 5:30 p.m., singer and rapper Vince Staples goes on at 7, electronic producer Four Tet plays at 8:30 and headlining producer-DJ and wacky-haired 2010s EDM poster child Skrillex goes on at 10:30.
Here’s something cool about how the festival is tapping into the Nashville music ecosystem: Local promoters are a bit more visibly involved. Bummeroo, which has hosted its own alternative to ’Roo over the past few years, is presenting the lineup on the Groop stage in the afternoon
on Thursday, with locals like Meadowglade and Disappearing Teeth Trick. Rocknite Nashville (a local exponent of a group that also books shows in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Chicago and New York) hosts a recurring show at Skinny Dennis, and they’re in charge of the Friday late-night and Saturday evening lineups at Groop, with Music City faves like book NOT brooke, Total Wife, VEAUX and massie99
Friday is when Bonnaroo gets under full steam, and the addition of That Tent to the What Stage field could really come in handy if you’re a rock and punk fan. That Tent highlights include North Carolina rawk gawds Wednesday (2:30 p.m.), snarly Aussies The Chats (4 p.m.) and wildly popular indie rockers Geese (7:45 p.m.).
There’s also some can’t-miss rock right around the corner on the second-largest Which Stage, with Lambrini Girls (1:15 p.m.), Wet Leg (6 p.m.) and Turnstile (12:30 a.m.). Dev Hynes’ futuristic R&B project Blood Orange at That Tent (10 p.m.) is a good bet for teeing up Aughts punk kings The Strokes’ headlining set on What Stage (11 p.m.). The creaking of my knees amplifies when I realize that Julian Casablancas and company
qualify as this year’s legacy headliner. If you’re up for a grab bag, you could just park at What Stage for Irish folksters Amble (3:15 p.m.), ’90s folk-rock-jam outfit Blues Traveler (4:45 p.m.), slangy and theatrically inclined English pop weirdo YUNGBLUD (6:45 p.m.) and producer-DJ Griz (8:45 p.m.). There’s more standout R&B and hip-hop to enjoy at This Tent, from Pawpaw Rod (1:30 p.m.) and Smino (7:45 p.m.) to king of crunk Lil Jon shutting down That Tent (12:15 a.m.). The dance music cranks up with Jackie Hollander (4 p.m.) taking The Other for its maiden voyage of the year, and it keeps going through Inzo’s sunrise set (4:15 to 5:30 a.m.); there’s a full lineup at Where Stage as well, including the producer with the best stage name in dance music right now, Mary Droppinz (2:15 a.m.).
On Saturday, more Nashville talent takes the big stages, with soul powerhouse Alabama Shakes at What Stage (6:45 p.m.) and multifaceted pop rockers Rainbow Kitten Surprise at Which Stage (7:45 p.m.). Nashville’s own Kesha is leading this year’s Superjâm Esotérica: The Alchemy of Pop at This Tent (8:45 p.m.), while Oklahoma transplant and rising country star
TOTAL WIFE MASSIE99
THE STROKES
Wyatt Flores is at That Tent (5:45 p.m.). There’s also an Aussie undercurrent this day, with delightful electropop oddballs Confidence Man at That Tent (2:30 p.m.), punk firebrands Amyl and the Sniffers at Which Stage (5:45 p.m.) and electronic group Rüfüs Du Sol headlining at What Stage (11:10 p.m.).
Songsmith, DJ and drag queen supreme Trixie Mattel reigns at That Tent (4 p.m.), The Runarounds bring their better-than-madefor-TV indie-rock party to This Tent (5 p.m.), and well-tatted R&B shouter Teddy Swims hits Which Stage (9:45 p.m.). For your late night, the cartoon-goblin-voiced punk champion John Dwyer and his Osees play This Tent (12:30 a.m.), hard-hitting hip-hop dream team Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist are at That Tent (12:50 a.m.) and “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Bigger and Weirder Saturday Late Night Rooview comes to Which Stage (12:40 a.m.). There’ll still be lots of electronic acts on Sunday, but the dance party reaches a fever pitch Saturday night with Gorgon City playing The Other till sunrise (2:15-5:15 a.m.) and the final sets of the weekend at Where Stage, wrapped up by Effin (5:45-6:30 a.m.).
Sunday is the homestretch, but the party takes its time to wind down. Kentucky bluesman Nat Myers warms up This Tent (12:30 p.m.), while top-notch sisterly Kentucky rock duo Girl Tones sets the, uh, tone for rocking songsmith Sabrina Teitelbaum’s Blondshell at That Tent (1:30 and 3 p.m., respectively). If it isn’t against some rule to have a festival without Trombone Shorty, maybe it should be; thankfully, he’s here at What Stage (3:45 p.m.), and you’ve also got the soulful blues rock of Tedeschi Trucks Band at What (5:30 p.m).
A three-in-a-row lineup of very different bangers closes out Which Stage for the weekend, with thoughtfully rocking Japanese Breakfast (4:30
p.m.), reunited hip-hop aces Clipse (6:30 p.m.) and a regular set from the aforementioned pop maestro Kesha herself (8:30 p.m.).
Pacific Northwest rock stalwarts Modest Mouse close out This Tent (8:15 p.m.), stellar R&B songsmith Mariah the Scientist plays the farewell set at That Tent (8:30 p.m.) and LSZEE, a meeting of the minds of dance-music duo LSDream and producer Clozee, shuts down The Other (8:15 p.m.). With his new LP The Great Divide hot off the presses, folk-mericana star Noah Kahan is your final headliner at What Stage (9:30 p.m.) And in true Bonnaroo fashion, if that’s not your speed, NOLA-based, clown-themed LCD Soundsystem tribute LSD Clownsystem has a special performance called Lovefool happening simultaneously over at Centeroo inside Snake & Jake’s (9 p.m.). ▼
BONNAROO, JUNE 11-14 AT THE BONNAROO FARM
THAT FESTIVE FEELING
From 615 Week to Nashville Pride and beyond, put this
slew of local music fests on your calendar
BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
WHILE CMA FEST and Bonnaroo are two enormous happenings that mark festival season kicking into high gear, music fests tend to pop up like thistles after a summer shower around Music City. Here are a few more you’ll want to have on your calendar throughout the season.
The National Museum of African American Music’s Black Music Month programming runs all month long and will include appearances from PJ Morton, Summer Joy and Rissi Palmer. The Equity Alliance’s Black on Buchanan party will take over the burgeoning arts district on Buchanan Street on June 13 with food, arts vendors and lots more. Nashville OG MC Young Buck headlines the music lineup.
Two years ago, Nashville hip-hop collective Six One Trïbe launched 615 Day, crystallizing a loose tradition of celebrating around the day that matches up with the city’s longtime area code to spotlight a wide array of local underground talent. This year, the event has expanded into 615 Week, with a slew of events June 15 through 20. The party starts with a June 15 concert at Aura Events Center (2020 Lindell Ave.) featuring members of the ever-evolving Trïbe, R&B singer-songwriter Kyleigh (coming off her stellar forward-leaning November EP Almost Everything) and many others. Events showcasing a broad swath of creative folks continue through the week, including the Raised by the Rhythm event June 18 at The Outfield (410 Chestnut St.) and the June 20 pool party at Drift Hotel (10 Interstate Drive).
Nashville’s official Juneteenth615 event on June 19 typically includes live music. While this year’s lineup wasn’t announced at the time of writing, the party is set for Centennial Park and culminates in a fireworks celebration.
Meanwhile, Nashville Pride Festival is happening just one day this year — June 27
at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park — but it’s going to be a doozy of a day with a big focus on hometown talent. Country phenom Fancy Hagood tops the music lineup. He’s set to bring a passel of his friends along with him, and they’ll be supported by rising pop diva Molly Grace, multitalented songsmith Saaneah, a lineup organized by the folks at Gay Ole Opry Nashville and more. RNBW Queer Music Collective’s Rainbow Stage is coming back, as is the Stonewall Stage with drag performances all day long. On the campus of Fisk University, the annual Fisk Food & Jazz Music Festival is also set for June 27. The fest is organized via the university’s radio station WFSK Jazzy 88, which this spring received digitized copies of nearly 400 hours of archival broadcast audio from the HBCU Radio Preservation Project. The lineup focuses on top talent in the smooth jazz world, and this year includes guitarist Adam Hawley and flutist Ragan Whiteside.
Further out on the calendar, East Nashville’s beloved Tomato Art Fest returns to Five Points Aug. 7 and 8, though the music lineup has not been announced as of this writing. AmericanaFest is back again Sept. 15 through 19, featuring a massive number of performances from legends like Melissa Etheridge and the McCrary Sisters as well as rising stars like Katie Pruitt and Courtney Marie Andrews. While festival season traditionally ends with summer, CaveFest at Pelham, Tenn.’s The Caverns is happening Oct. 10 and 11 and will be headlined by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
And the likelihood is strong that there’ll be more. Case in point: While this is not exactly a fest per se, NPR music discovery station WNXP announced its Summer Line Series of concerts at Ascension St. Thomas Landing at Nashville Yards as I was writing this. The series begins June 26 and features Devon Gilfillian, Bully and others. ▼
GIRL TONES
RÜFÜS DU SOL
NASHVILLE PRIDE
Photo by Katie Doyle
Photo by Mike Ledford
TAKING SPACE
BY BEE DELORES
MORGXN WAS BORN and raised in Nashville, and his first job was singing at Tootsie’s downtown. He enjoyed covering Rascal Flatts and couldn’t imagine a better place. He made his way into the world of pop and folk-pop music, which he explored on his 2024 standout Beacon. But he leaned into his roots for last year’s country-andpop-informed Heartland, a record propelled by emotionally vulnerable ballads like the Katie Pruitt collab “Talk About It.” This year, he takes the Wrangler Remix Stage at CMA Fest and can hardly contain his excitement when I catch him mid-rehearsal over Zoom.
“I’m still the kid who was bullied for being different — I’m just now louder,” MORGXN says. “I plan to be louder, especially in spaces like CMA Fest.”
MORGXN is one of three openly queer artists playing an official CMA Fest show this year. Ty Herndon and Angie K round out the LGBTQ
of their support for Trump. Carrie Underwood sang at the inauguration of Trump’s second presidency, and Parker McCollum tackled Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)” at the Commander-in-Chief Ball.
MORGXN responds to those stats, saying what we’re all thinking.
“That’s not enough,” he says. “It is Pride Month, and it doesn’t have to be a Pride stage to be equal. It’s just seeing more people represented all across the board. That’s the thing I’m fighting for.”
At least from the perspective of its business community, Nashville is feeling like a far less welcoming place for the queer community today. Following several sponsors dropping out last year — a list that includes big names like Dollar General, Nissan, Jack Daniel’s and Vanderbilt University Medical Center — Nashville Pride suffered a major financial setback, and this year’s event is significantly shorter. The state legislature has continued to openly attempt shoving the LGBTQ community toward the fringes. Gov. Bill Lee recently signed a resolution declaring June “Nuclear Family Month,” a move that might not have as much of an impact as laws limiting trans healthcare, but one that stings nonetheless.
“There’s no point in that,” MORGXN says. “It’s just pure meanness. What I want to bring to the stage is love — like, pure love. I also have a non-cis male band. It is important to me that representation happens, not just through me, but through everyone that I have onstage.”
While preaching nothing but love from the stage, he doesn’t fear for himself so much as one person in his life: his mother. “She is sitting there worrying that something might happen to her son,” he says. “That makes me emotional.”
Cracks are appearing in the MAGA firmament (see: former staunch MAGA Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene turning on the administration). When the movement eventually falls apart, MORGXN believes it’s going to take a lot of work on the part of country artists and people who used to believe in Trump policies to come back from the damage done.
SPEAK UP AND SING
Talking with Bryan Andrews ahead of his CMA Fest debut about speaking truth to power in country music
BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
IN OCTOBER, as ICE continued ramping up its aggressive tactics across U.S. cities, using violence against citizens and making arrests without judicial warrants, country singer Bryan Andrews made a video. Donning a camo hoodie and a cap emblazoned with a deer skull, Andrews unleashed a fiery rebuke of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“I would rather my label call me up right after posting this video and drop me — and have no career at all — than live in a world where what is happening right now is happening and I don’t say a thing, like most of these artists do,” Andrews said. “I want it to be crystal fucking clear what side of history I’m on.”
The video, which racked up more than a million views, is one of many impassioned, F-bomb-laden speeches calling out ICE, corporate greed and the MAGA movement that can be found on Andrews’ social media pages. In another post in the weeks leading up to CMA Fest, Andrews addressed whether he’d “tone down” his political views for the massive four-day country music gathering taking over downtown Nashville June 4 through 7. His response? A photo of himself holding up a guitar with “This Machine Kills Fascists” painted on the soundboard in an homage to Woody Guthrie, accompanied by his two word reply: “Fuck no.”
lineup with respective sets scheduled for the Dr Pepper Amp Stage and Fan Fair X. A fourth — acclaimed songwriter Shane McAnally — isn’t billed as an official CMA Fest performer but will play a double bill with Ashley Gorley as part of CMA’s The Songwriters Behind Country’s Biggest Hits inside Fan Fair X; similarly, heartland rocker extraordinaire Melissa Etheridge will appear in conversation with country singer Gretchen Wilson.
That meager representation is about on par with last year’s messy, stripped-back showing, suggesting a continued desire to play it safe — or perhaps court the MAGA crowd. That’s par for the course when you consider the cataclysmic divide that’s happened in country music over the past 18 months. Artists like Maren Morris and Charley Crockett continued to blast the president on social media, while many of country music’s heavy-hitters showed public displays
“It’s hard for me to look at the redemption tour that Marjorie is on,” he says, after a pause. “You’ve hurt us. But I see you waking up. You have apologizing to do. You have hurt a lot of people … just for sport.”
For now, MORGXN beams when talking about CMA Fest and what he has planned for his set.
“We just started rehearsal, so I’m only like 10 minutes into it. Getting to play these songs in downtown Nashville at CMA Fest … I grew up singing at a bar two blocks away. I wrote a song about the heartland that I believe in. And that’s what I’m gonna sing about. That feels important to me.” ▼
Playing 2:20 p.m. Sunday, June 7, at Wrangler Remix Stage
“It’s going to be an antifascist party,” Andrews tells the Scene of his CMA Fest set, scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday, June 4, at the Good Molecules Reverb Stage outside Bridgestone Arena.
Raised in the small town of Carrollton, Mo., Andrews spent his early 20s working as a welder. He began writing songs in hotel rooms while traveling for construction work. While he cultivated a sound that leans toward the harder rock side of contemporary country, he’s often found lyrical inspiration in his own blue-collar background.
“When I look at the blue-collar community, and I see so many people voting against their own best interests and voting for people who are taking advantage of them,” he says, “and telling them, ‘Hey, I’m for you,’ and then turn right around and steal even more money from their pocket — it pisses me off.”
The 29-year-old readily admits he’s not the first country artist to speak out against the status quo. He points to legends such as Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash — “When I think about who I want to be masculine like, it’s my father and Johnny Cash,” he says
MORGXN gears up for his CMA Fest debut
Live Music
at ON
BROADWAY
From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground , household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is committed to bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway.
JUNE LINEUP
6.3 Ashley McBryde Trybe Fan Club Party 2026 SOLD OUT
6.4 Quartz Hill Music Group Takeover: 2 Lane Summer, Matt Cooper, Ben Gallaher, Spencer Hatcher, Lakelin Lemmings, Stevie Woodward, Special Guest Adam Sanders
6.5 Nashville Cats Takeover: Ryan Kinder, Tyra Madison, Landon Parker, Cooper Ramsey, Adam Warner
6.6 The Kirby OrganizationTakeover: Callie Twisselman, Sundance Head, Jenna Paulette, Thomas Gabriel, Lou Ridley
6.10 Caitlynne Curtis, Special Guest: Tristan Roberson
6.12 Aaron Nichols & The TravellersChris Stapleton Tribute
6.13 Strait Country TributeThe Ultimate George Strait Tribute
6.14 Larry Gatlin, Rachel Thibodeau
6.16 Buddy’s Place Writer’s Round w/ Janelle Arthur, Smithfield, Chuck Wicks
6.17 Shotgun Granny featuring Dan Tyminski, Kevin MaC
6.18 William Michael Morgan
6.20 Julie Roberts - 20th Anniversary of Men & Mascara
6.24 Uncle B’s Damned Ole Opry Takes on Alabama - The Band Not The State w/ Drake White, Reid Haughton, Thad Cockrell, Dee White + Special Guests!
6.27 David Cook
6.28 Wayne “The Train” Hancock, Special Guest: Scott Southworth
The Honky Tonk Anonymous Band &
— and outspoken contemporary artists like Maren Morris, Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell as musicians who “broke the walls down” in country music. But he does stand in stark contrast to a slew of mainstream country artists such as Carrie Underwood, who took the stage to sing at Trump’s second inauguration, and Jason Aldean, a vocal supporter of the president who was photographed sitting in the VIP section with Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention. Even country artists who’ve steered clear of Donald Trump seem hell-bent on staying mum on his policies.
“I really love country music,” Andrews says. “I love what it stood for, and I love what it still does stand for. I hate to see it be adopted by this whole bootlicking mindset that if you’re not down with this shit, then you can’t listen to country music.”
In his barn burner “YeeHaw,” Andrews calls out so-called rebels who posture as outlaws but stay silent as their rights are stripped away.
“They’re serving up our daughters, they’re shipping off our sons,” Andrews sings. “Next thing you know / They’ll skip the vote and come for all your guns.”
“Outlaw country is leftist country,” Andrews says. “Some of these newer artists get onstage and throw these beer cans and act like they’re some kind of outlaw, but then they get right down and kiss the ring and put on that MAGA hat every chance they get. I really don’t think they listen to the music, because if they did, they’d know that [Cash’s song] ‘Man in Black’ is about standing in solidarity with the working class and the working man and the marginalized communities of that time period. I just have a hard time believing that Johnny Cash would be dick-riding for Donald Trump.”
In April, Andrews launched his ICE Out of My Country Damn Music Protest Tour, with stops in Kansas City, Minneapolis, Chicago and Des Moines. With help from Andrews’ tourmate, fellow singer-songwriter and activist Lou Ridley, the four-date run raised money for Human Rights First, which provides pro bono legal representation to refugees seeking asylum.
“We chose some of the cities that had been personally affected by ICE in a major way on a public level,” says Andrews. “I was like, ‘Hey, if we’re going to do this, let’s make it relevant to something that we’ve seen because I want these shows to feel like rallies.’ And they did.”
Ahead of his first CMA Fest set, Andrews is already prepared for the chorus of “shut up and sing” from naysayers who don’t want politics at their carefree, sun-soaked country music festival. As always, he doesn’t hold back with his response.
“Everything is political. When [people are] like, ‘Oh, I don’t do politics,’ it’s like, great, well, politics is doing you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t care, because politics cares about you. Art is political. History will be told, and it’s going to be told through art, and I want to be a part of it. If they’re [at CMA Fest] to listen to some music about getting your heart broke or drinking beers in the back of your pickup or some shit like that, there’s probably 150 other artists there they can go see.” ▼
Playing CMA Fest’s Good Molecules Reverb Stage 5 p.m. Thursday, June 4
BRYAN ANDREWS
6.27 David cook
6.20 Julie Roberts -20th Anniversary of Men & Mascara
6.10 Caitlynne Curtis, Special Guest: Tristan Roberson
June 6 • 1 2–6 PM
WITNESS HISTORY
Saturday, June 6
SONGWRITER SESSION Byron Hill NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, June 7
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Charlie Worsham 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, June 13
SONGWRITER SESSION Carl Jackson NOON · FORD THEATER
Saturday, June 13
HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party
6:00 pm
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
Sunday, June 14
HATCH SHOW PRINT Family Block Party 10:00 am
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
Sunday, June 14
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Christian Sedelmyer 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, June 20
SONGWRITER SESSION Tenille Townes NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, June 21
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Charlie McCoy 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Locals Kids Always Visit Free Plan a trip to the Museum! Local youth 18 and under who are residents of Nashville-Davidson and bordering counties always visit free, plus 25% off admission for up to two accompanying adults.
Tomato Takeover: The
& Female
by Danae Hays & Bridgette Tatum with performances by Pam Tillis, Emma Zinck, SJ McDonald & Special guests!
WMOT Roots Radio Presents Finally Friday featuring Ted Russell Kamp, Adam Esrick & Andrew Sa
Pat McLaughlin Band featuring Kenny Greenberg, Greg Morrow & Steve Mackey
Backstage Nashville! Daytime Hit Songwriters Show featuring Gordie Sampson, Ed Hill, Jordan Dozzi, Tenille Townes + Gloria Anderson
Vinyl Radio!
High Fade: Twice as Nice Tour with Moga Family Band
Bluebird on 3rd featuring Gary Burr, Georgia Middleman, Dave Berg & DOLAN + Meagan Allen The Time Jumpers
Scotty Chapman with Loose Lips + Ivan Pulley Band Patrick Wolf: Tour of The Beast
TAYLOR PARTY: TAYLOR SWIFT NIGHT brian fallon & the painkillers w/ Emily Wolfe Brett Sheroky w/ Emma Zinck and special guests
city wrestling w/ omenbringer John Vincent III Presents: Blue June Music Fest w/ Phosphorescent, Ethan Regan, mxmtoon, and more the rock and roll playhouse: Grateful Dead
Royal & The Serpent w/ Snow Wife and Slush Puppy
Troy Doherty
TopOppgen w/ Aziedoesntexist
lunaly w/ saint lavender [7pm] quail p w/ anella [9pm]
bad bad luck, the sheaps, The pysches, & el siren [9pm]
los locos tristes w/ aprendiz [9pm] the strains w/ the glumlots and gross motor [9pm]
Sibyl Shaw, 1:1Soul and Tospacewego [9pm]
syd taylor [7pm]
billy king and the bad bad bad & more [9pm]
Kelsey Hickman [9pm]
The animeros w/ stephany medina & DJ Los [7pm]
imaginary baseball league w/ corrina bridget [7pm]
Holly and the nice lions w/ mickey sunshine [9pm] A thousand horses [7pm]
gay ole opry presents: Lilith Feral & more [9pm]
Laid Back Country Picker [7pm] the snares w/ FIN [9pm]
PLAY ALONG! When you spot any of the items below, let us know on social media. Don’t forget to tag it with the hashtag #BonnaroBingo and our handle @NashvilleScene.
LOBSTER BAKE MOLLY ZOMBIE
SHADE FIGHT PAINTED BREASTS BABY ENDANGERMENT
PEE BOTTLE
DRUM CIRCLE TOO MANY FEET
STRANGER CHEEKS TIKTOK DANCE
ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX LEVIN
Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
THURSDAY, JUNE 4
[MIGHTY REAL]
MUSIC
JILL SCOTT
In its heyday, which began about 30 years ago and lasted for a decade, neo-soul harkened back to a time when pop music drew from R&B and jazz. For Jill Scott, who was born in 1972 — around the time Gil Scott-Heron, Sly Stone, Miles Davis and many others were changing Black music — neo-soul has been a way of singing about basic values and self-identity without stinting on style. The lush textures of her 2004 album Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2 drew from the sounds of 1970s R&B and soul, and Scott’s smooth approach didn’t disguise the weirdness underneath. Beautifully Human and 2011’s The Light of the Sun describe Scott’s voyage of self-discovery, which includes her struggle to find the perfect relationship. Scott’s new To Whom This May Concern updates the neo-soul ingredients just a little, but it withstands comparison with her earlier work. At this fraught moment in history, Scott’s slightly abstract jazz-funk-soul and her narratives about getting by in a world that’s as tough as it can be — check out the album’s “Pressha”— sound mighty real to me. Thursday at the Ryman, Scott settles in for a three-night run that continues Friday and finishes on Sunday.
EDD HURT
JUNE 4, 5 & 7 AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
THURSDAY / 6.4
FILM
[CHOOSE LIFE]
TRAINSPOTTING
Coming hot on the heels of Danny Boyle’s debut — the low-key, blackhearted comic thriller Shallow Grave — 1996’s Trainspotting announced Boyle as a filmmaker to watch. The black dramedy centers on a group of heroin addicts and their acquaintances in Leith, a poor neighborhood in Edinburgh. Trainspotting is frank, bleak, disgusting (check out the infamous “Worst Toilet in Scotland” scene if you’re worried about stomaching the movie’s grosser elements) and extremely Scottish. The film was adapted from the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh, who grew up in Leith, lending the story its authenticity. With a rollicking soundtrack, genuine laugh-out-loud gags, a charming lead performance from Ewan McGregor and an ultimately uplifting message, Trainspotting became a major cult hit in the mid-’90s. It felt like every Hollywood Video or Movie Gallery had it displayed in its Staff Picks section. The movie remains extremely watchable today, and the sequel — T2 Trainspotting, also directed by Boyle — was better than it had any right to be, considering it arrived more than two decades later. LOGAN BUTTS
JUNE 4 & 7 AT THE BELCOURT
2102 BELCOURT AVE.
MUSIC [GOIN’ WEST]
LIVE FROM LAUREL CANYON: SONGS AND STORIES OF AMERICAN FOLK ROCK
There comes a point in nearly everyone’s life when you must enter your “Laurel Canyon Phase.” This may include one or all of the following: becoming completely enamored with Linda Ronstadt, Judee Sill and Carole King; making a pilgrimage to Joni Mitchell’s house on Lookout Mountain while listening to “Ladies of the Canyon” on repeat; and watching the three-hour documentary on the Eagles so many times you could write a dissertation on the band. For those of us not fortunate
enough to attend one of Mama Cass’ legendary parties and witness the birth of Crosby, Stills & Nash, the next-best thing is headed to Harken Hall. Live From Laurel Canyon: Songs and Stories of American Folk Rock will celebrate one of the most significant and influential eras in American music. The evening also promises an immersive experience; as artists perform the music of The Mamas & the Papas, Joni Mitchell, The Doors and more, vintage photos and video projections will fill the stage, transporting the audience to ’60s and ’70s Los Angeles BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
7 P.M. AT HARKEN HALL
514 MADISON STATION BLVD., MADISON
[DOUBLE, DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE]
MANUAL CINEMA’S THE 4TH WITCH
There’s something quite magical about Manual Cinema. This Chicago-based performance collective, design studio and film/video production company pulls together shadow puppetry and other striking visuals, innovative sound and live music to create an unusual hybrid of theater and film. It’s a unique, almost intoxicating approach to storytelling. And half the fun is watching the artists scurry about the stage — adjusting acetate figures on old-school projectors, inserting their own silhouettes into various scenes — all while a remarkably engaging film is projected overhead in real time. Local audiences will remember the company’s sold-out run of Frankenstein, which stopped at OZ Arts in 2019. Manual
He’s also written songs for Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley and Stevie Nicks, Garth Brooks, Peter Frampton and Bruce Hornsby, among many others. In addition, Kennedy has distinguished himself as a guitarist and producer. He’s played on records by an array of artists across multiple genres, including Frampton, Henley, Brooks, Jewel, Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. He won a Grammy as a producer in the Best Pop Instrumental Album category for Frampton’s 2006 album Fingerprints. Kennedy will bring his songs and the entertaining stories behind them to the stage at Fox & Locke in Franklin on Friday night. He’ll play acoustic guitar and will be accompanied at times by Blair Masters on keys and his son Dylan Kennedy on mandolin. “I’ll do Clapton and Bonnie Raitt, and songs from movies that I’ve written for,” Kennedy tells the Scene. “Ninety-five percent of what I’m going to do is [from] my catalog.”
8 P.M. AT FOX & LOCKE
Cinema is back at OZ this weekend with its latest production, a thoughtful “inversion” of Shakespeare’s Macbeth titled The 4th Witch Presented in partnership with Nashville Shakespeare Festival, the piece follows a young girl, “orphaned by war and later rescued by three witches, who agree to take her on as an apprentice on the condition that she must never use her powers for revenge.” There’s no spoken dialogue, but the live score is richly evocative. A post-show discussion is set for Friday night, and audiences are invited onstage after performances to check out the puppets, projectors, etc. Touching on themes of grief, war and generational conflict, The 4th Witch is recommended for ages 12 and up. But it’s a perfect night out for anyone who appreciates daring, imaginative storytelling. AMY STUMPFL
JUNE 4-6 AT OZ ARTS
6172 COCKRILL BEND CIRCLE
FRIDAY / 6.5
[NASHVILLE CAT]
MUSIC
GORDON KENNEDY
The son of legendary guitarist, producer and label chief Jerry Kennedy, Gordon Kennedy has made quite a name for himself as a secondgeneration Nashville musician and songwriter. He is probably best-known as the co-writer of “Change the World,” which was a worldwide hit for Eric Clapton and earned Kennedy and his cowriters a Grammy for Song of the Year in 1996.
was named the greatest adult alternative song of all time in 2021 by Billboard. The band’s current lineup is Dylan (lead vocals, rhythm and lead guitars), Chris Masterson (guitars, backing vocals), Ben Peeler (guitars, backing vocals), Whynot Jansveld (bass, backing vocals), Aaron Embry (keyboards, backing vocals) and Mark Stepro (drums, backing vocals). Singersongwriter Early James will open the show.
DARYL SANDERS
8 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL 925 THIRD AVE. N.
[ROCK ON]
MUSIC
ROCKNITE NASHVILLE FEAT. CAGE THE ELEPHANT, WILLA MAE & MORE
DARYL SANDERS
4142 OLD HILLSBORO ROAD, FRANKLIN
DANCE
[TWO-STEP] AN EVENING WITH NASHVILLE BALLET 2
You’re more than likely familiar with Nashville Ballet. But if you can’t make it to one of their shows at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center — or if you’re a dance fan in Williamson County — you’re in luck: The Nashville Ballet’s Second Company is headed to the Turner Theater at The Factory at Franklin this week. The show will feature the company members performing six pieces that highlight their talent and versatility. The Second Company — sometimes called NB2 — is designed to give dancers the opportunity to train, perform and further develop their technique. These rising professional dancers bring life to the stage through storytelling and emotion, and with pieces ranging from classical to contemporary styles, the show will have something for a diverse array of fans. This is an event designed to bring dance closer to communities that may not have access in other settings. EMMA PICKETT
JUNE 5-7 AT TURNER THEATER AT THE FACTORY AT FRANKLIN
230 FRANKLIN ROAD, FRANKLIN
MUSIC
[THE DIFFERENCE]
THE WALLFLOWERS
The Wallflowers’ current tour, which makes a stop at Brooklyn Bowl Friday night, celebrates the 30th anniversary of their 1996 album Bringing Down the Horse. The band will perform the album in its entirety, in sequence. They also will perform Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1982 album Long After Dark in its entirety. “We wanted to do something special for the 30th anniversary of Bringing Down the Horse,” bandleader Jakob Dylan explains. “We decided to play what seems to be our fans’ favorite Wallflowers album, and for us, we wanted to play one of our favorite Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers records.” Bringing Down the Horse sold more than 4 million copies worldwide and earned the group a pair of Grammys — Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group and Best Rock Song for “One Headlight.” “One Headlight”
Rocknite Nashville is uprooting its once-amonth lineup of East Nashville DIY rock artists and planting in the middle of Broadway for an alternative takeover at Jon Bon Jovi’s during CMA Fest. If you’ve ever been to a Rocknite show, you’ve probably witnessed the crowdsurfing rockers, long-haired guitar players climbing up to the rafters and slamming bodies of high-intensity mosh pits. It’s sweaty, loud and the epitome of rock ’n’ noll. Rocknite is a celebration of the diverse, and a creative scene of independent artists who show up for one another. There’s a strong sense of community among stellar artists like Willa Mae, Pressure Heaven, Flight Attendant, Edgehill, Connor Kelly & The Time Warp and others at the core of the East Side’s thriving DIY scene. Music starts early on Friday, with a lengthy lineup of some of my favorite East Nash rockers (including all of the aforementioned) opening for headliners Dexter and the Moonrocks and Cage the Elephant GRACE BRASWELL
11:30 A.M. AT JBJ’S NASHVILLE
405 BROADWAY
MUSIC [CADILLACTICA]
BIG K.R.I.T.
Mississippi MC Big K.R.I.T. makes it look so easy: beats full of bass, rhymes and hooks full of soul, all pulled from a deep knowledge of Southern rap and its musical forebears. The winning, trunk-rattling formula continued on 2025’s Dedicated to Cadalee Biarritz, loosely fashioned by short skits as a Cadillac-devoted radio station. K.R.I.T. bounces from harmonizing to talking shit to obligatory odes to his sub. (“The Everliving Sub Knocker” seems to expand the six-part “My Sub” series.) Cadalee received a deluxe release and a chopped-and-screwed remix this year, giving Krizzle even more to work with on tour. Atlanta rapper Scotty ATL supports at Friday’s show. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
8 P.M. AT EASTSIDE BOWL
1508 GALLATIN PIKE S., MADISON
SATURDAY / 6.6
THEATER
[YOU HAVE BEWITCHED ME] PRIDE & PREJUDICE: AN ARDENT NEW MUSICAL
Lauren Gunderson has been widely recognized as one of the nation’s most produced
THE 4TH WITCH
playwrights, and she’s celebrated for clever, fastpaced works like Silent Sky, The Revolutionists and The Book of Will. You can check out her latest project this weekend as Nashville Rep’s Ingram New Works Project presents the first public reading of Pride & Prejudice: An Ardent New Musical. Billed as “a sexy, sweeping, theatrical explosion of yearning, wit and romantic defiance,” this new adaptation features a book by Gunderson, with music and lyrics by Kira Stone — a versatile artist known for pushing the boundaries of pop music with more theatrical storytelling. Directed by Sarah Rasmussen (an award-winning director, and artistic director at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, N.J.), the cast features both Broadway and local talent — including Gabrielle Carrubba (Just in Time; Dear Evan Hansen) and Will Blum (Beetlejuice; School of Rock), along with Katie Boeck, Geoffrey Davin, Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva, Haley Putnam, Aleia Eagleton and Harrison Hall. It’s an exciting opportunity for local audiences to explore the process of bringing new works to life, while experiencing Jane Austen’s timeless tale in a whole new way. AMY STUMPFL
7:30 P.M. AT W.O. SMITH MUSIC SCHOOL
1125 EIGHTH AVE. S.
[PUSH IT ALONG]
SPORT
SAKURA CUP
Middle Tennessee’s premier sumo tournament enters its third year. The Tennessee Sumo Association brings the Sakura Cup back to Music City Fit Expo and offers the chance for men, women and youth to compete. Sumo is a surprisingly fast sport: Matches can end in a minute or less with the right push, flip or trip. And the ceremony is as important as the physicality. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience that might just get its hooks into you (and then throw you onto your side).
ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
8 A.M. AT THE FAIRGROUNDS NASHVILLE 401 WINGROVE ST.
[REMEMBER ROCK ’N’ ROLL RADIO]
MUSIC
WXNA 10TH BIRTHDAY BASH
It’s hard to imagine Nashville without community radio station WXNA. What city with an incredibly diverse population of musicians and music fans doesn’t need dozens of volunteers lovingly curating their favorite sounds for you every week? But it has been just 10 years since the station officially signed on following an intense period of hard work and fundraising. WXNA is a nice thing we get to keep, even in this rough time, because of the enthusiasm of volunteers and the generosity of underwriters and station members (or others who make one-off donations). Saturday’s anniversary throwdown reflects the station’s purpose to share ideas and welcome neighbors. Topping the bill is Pylon Reenactment Society, the contemporary version of pioneering Athens, Ga., post-punk ensemble Pylon — a beacon of the weird Southern underground for the past half-century — featuring original vocalist Vanessa Briscoe Hay. Local Ramones tribute Marco Blitz and the Brats (including members
of The Serpenteens, Maanta Raay and Wesley & The Boys) will play the slab of punk bedrock that is 1976’s Ramones in full, and members of the Kurdish Culture and Music Association will share traditional music from this rich immigrant community that calls Nashville home. You’ve also got drag star Vivica Steele, comedian Cortney Warner and DJ Housequake on deck, alongside a flash tattoo booth, a silent auction and Out of Print, a pop-up gallery from photographer Theresa Kereakes and artist Nathan Webber featuring punk photos and memorabilia. STEPHEN TRAGESER
6 P.M. AT EASTSIDE BOWL
1508 GALLATIN PIKE S., MADISON
[STRUT YOUR STUFF]
COMMUNITY
STRUT NASHVILLE PRIDE MONTH KICKOFF
Pride Month is officially here, and Nashville has tons of places to celebrate — but it’s not every day Sasha Colby comes to town. The stunning, versatile and fashion-forward Season 15 winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race will make her way to East Nashville as part of STRUT, a queer cultural series with events in more than 15 cities. Set to run from 2 until 9 p.m., Nashville’s daytime lineup is absolutely stacked. STRUT will also feature performances from local drag performers including Blush, Fay Ludes and Stevie Dicks as well as a live performance from the Nashville Opera. In addition, country trio The Cowgays will take the stage, DJ Afrosheen and Aaron Monty will deliver DJ sets, and At-Large Metro Councilmember Olivia Hill will speak. What these varied acts all have in common is something to celebrate for Pride Month and a moment in the spotlight under the backyard disco ball at Rosemary & Beauty Queen. HANNAH HERNER
2 P.M. AT ROSEMARY & BEAUTY QUEEN 1102 FOREST AVE.
SUNDAY / 6.7
FILM [WE ARE FAMILY] PATIO MOVIE NIGHTS: THE BIRDCAGE
The best movies for outdoor screenings are familiar films you can dip in and out of, wandering away from a conversation or a $1 slice of Strega pizza with hot honey. You can drop into any part of The Birdcage and immediately start laughing. The 1996 film was written by Elaine May, was directed by Mike Nichols and starred … oh, just about everyone. Deserved praise goes to Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as gay drag club owners pretending to be straight — not to mention Hank Azaria and Christine Baranski. But let’s note, in contrast, Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest’s brilliantly subtle performances as the conservative in-laws. Hackman’s never been funnier, especially when this performance is viewed as a send-up of the authority figures (lawyers, cops, politicians) he spent decades perfecting. There’s also production designer Bo Welch’s candy-colored South Beach sets for our
eyes to feast upon. Look at how much care and craft we used to put into mainstream box office comedies. We used to be a proper country!
TOBY ROSE
7 P.M. AT STREGA
1405 GALLATIN AVE.
TUESDAY / 6.9
FILM
[BABA BOOEY] STAFF PICKS: PRIVATE PARTS
I don’t have the word count to explain why I became fixated on Howard Stern last year, or why I spent weeks of my one wild and precious life reading his seminal 1993 memoir Private Parts. The book is terrible. Do not read it. What you should do instead is watch the movie adaptation they made out of the only good parts of the book — the parts where he’s learning how to be a disc jockey, going from city to city and station to station, fighting with his bosses and ultimately becoming the radio behemoth he became. If you ignore some of the more problematic parts of his comedy, you can almost be inspired. If you’re someone who enjoys ’90s pop culture or would like to see Paul Giamatti in the role of a lifetime as someone called “Pig Vomit,” or if you just wonder if there’s someone you can blame for how many men have podcasts, this is the movie for you. Bonus points if you notice all the celebrity cameos. Edie Falco was a real surprise. KIM BALDWIN
8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
WEDNESDAY
/ 6.10
FILM
[THE POWER IS YOURS] ‘HOW TO HEAL THE PLANET’
Did you miss the sold-out premiere last month of “How to Heal the Planet”? That’s the new short documentary about hydroponics and Nashville’s sustainable food
scene featuring Margot McCormack, Jeremy Barlow, Tyler Brown and others. No worries, there’s a second chance. Patagonia Nashville is hosting another screening followed by a Q&A and panel discussion with director Davis Watson. Representatives from Brooklyn Heights Community Garden, Bells Bend Farms, The Nashville Food Project, Urban Green Lab and Compost Nashville will be on site to talk about how you can get involved in supporting the local sustainable food scene. Light bites and nonalcoholic drinks will be served. Tickets are free, but advance online registration is required and you will be encouraged to think about how you can work with one of the partnering organizations to support a more equitable and resilient Nashville. Don’t let the short-doc format fool you: Watson’s film packs a lot of info and pathos into its 25-minute run time. MARGARET LITTMAN 6:45 P.M. AT PATAGONIA NASHVILLE 601 OVERTON ST.
FILM [IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM] INDIANA JONES DOUBLE FEATURE
Now that summer weather is upon us once again, the best drive-in in Middle Tennessee is hitting its stride for 2026. Watertown’s Stardust Drive-In Theatre (about 45 minutes east of town) is the best and often most affordable place to check out a movie during the warmer months, with every ticket coming in at $10 or less and covering a full double feature. The beloved Retro Wednesdays are back at the Stardust, and fans of the iconic Steven Spielberg are in for a treat on June 10. A double-feature of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade kicks off at sundown, giving you as much adventure as you can handle in one of the best possible environments to enjoy a throwback blockbuster. As a bonus treat, the Spielberg excitement continues a week later, with Jurassic Park and Jaws providing the Retro Wednesday double on June 17.
CHARLIE RIDGELY
SUNSET AT STARDUST DRIVE-IN THEATRE 310 PURPLE TIGER DRIVE, WATERTOWN
SUMMER GOALS YOU CAN EAT
Talking to local experts at Bad Luck Burger Club, The Fox and more about perfecting a smashburger, cocktail or dreamy bowl of ice cream
BY DANNY BONVISSUTO
THIS IS MY SUMMER of fried: Once I’ve dialed in my copycat Raising Cane’s sauce recipe (I’m close), I’ll take on their chicken fingers. After that, it’s Fried Pickle City. Even though I no longer get three months off every year, I’ve learned that summer is a cool time to up the game on a method or recipe I’ve wanted to shift from “just all right” to “awesome.”
GRIDDLE A BADASS SMASHBURGER
“The perfect fat ratio for a smashburger is 80/20 beef.” That’s according to Andy Atkins, whose backyard-burger pandemic project — which he started with his friend Cody Driggers — grew into two Bad Luck Burger Club locations and a mobile truck. “Any leaner than 80/20 and you won’t get the super crispy Maillard chemical reaction” — that’s the chemical reaction between amino acids that makes browned food taste so good.
Form 2-ounce patties of grocery store beef — you don’t have to get fancy — while your flattop griddle or cast-iron skillet heats to 400 degrees. Set the patties on the dry cooktop and use a large, heavyweight spatula (BLBC uses a Sasquash press from Burger Iron) for a one-time smash.
“If you keep smashing, you’re gonna smash all the juice out,” says Atkins, the former lead vocalist for metalcore band A Plea for Purging. He uses a swirling motion to work his way to the outside of the patty, pressing the edges down so they adhere to the cooking surface so much he has to scrape up the crispy, lacy edges.
“It’s not a chip all the way through,” he says. “It’s still juicy in the center.”
Now season the patties. If you do it beforehand, Atkins says the seasoning breaks down the fat. Then flip and add two slices of cheese.
“I get it — you like cheddar or Havarti or whatever,” Atkins says. “But if we’re talking a classic smashburger, it’s two slices of American cheese.”
Layer two of those patties on a potato roll that you’ve brushed with oil or butter and toasted for texture. Add your toppings — dill pickles, diced caramelized onion, whatever — and your own special sauce.
“You gotta make a burger sauce, dude,” Atkins tells me. “Most everybody’s sauce uses yellow, red and white. This is where you can get creative. Every single bite you take, you want a little bit of the patty, cheese, bun, onion, pickle and sauce.”
MIX YOUR OWN DRINK OF SUMMER
“Drinking is such a time-and-place thing,” says Ryan Barrentine, beverage director of The Fox Bar & Cocktail Club, when I ask if the drink of summer is a myth. “If you’re on the coast, it might be a spritz. If you’re in southern Spain, maybe vermouth on ice. The drink of summer is personal, but most people lean on whatever is
light and easy drinking.”
Take a cue from The Fox and approach your own drink of summer through a culinary lens, work in a local element, and name it something that sounds relaxing or mysterious — like the Dreamgirl, which has a “light, spritzy, vermouth and aperitif vibe with a subtle cherry note.”
Barrentine suggests building the cocktail in a tall, slim glass like a Collins. Use whatever you have at home or search out cool glassware from a thrift store or locally owned shop like Thunder Moon Collective
The Fox version starts with Carpano Bianco vermouth infused with fresh cherries for 24 hours, plus a light and bitter aperitif like Aperitivo Cappelletti — about an ounce of each. Can’t wait? Mix a quarter-ounce of the syrup from Luxardo cherries with vermouth right in the glass — using a jigger or shot glass to measure. Add a hefty splash of hop water from Nashville small-batch sparkling water brand Maypop and top with ice. No shaking or stirring needed. Garnish with a few vermouth-soaked cherries on a skewer or a lemon-wheel-plus-cherry combo.
“Drinks like this are perfect for summer, because you can throttle them for the time of day,” Barrentine says. “Keep it low ABV if it’s lunch, or add an ounce of gin if it’s later in the evening.”
MAKE AT-HOME CEVICHE LESS INTIMIDATING
I have no problem buying raw fish at the grocery store and cooking it at home, but ceviche feels different. I’ve long considered it a restaurant-only dish because the fish is cured with citrus and not cooked with heat — I don’t trust big-box fish for that kind of thing.
Jennifer Cline and her husband Jerry created Aloha Fish Company to cure Nashville’s frozen-fish phobia.
“Fresh fish eases people’s minds,” says Cline, who missed having access to it after moving from Hawaii to Nashville. “Restaurants can have fresh fish flown in, but normal folks can’t. If I didn’t know the origin of the fish and when it was caught, I wouldn’t make ceviche from frozen fish that’s been defrosted.”
Start by squeezing enough lemons and limes to submerge the fish in. Then dice ono (wahoo), shutome (Hawaiian swordfish), halibut or a combination — Cline says lean white fish works best — into half-inch cubes, allowing for 4 to 6 ounces per person for an appetizer, and mix in the citrus juice. This is when the acid in the citrus tightens the proteins in the fish, making it opaque and firm.
“Let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes or an hour, but not overnight — otherwise the fish ends up getting too tough,” Cline says.
Now calibrate the ceviche to your taste: Dice or thinly slice vegetables and fruit (sweet on-
BRAND N E W MERCH
ions, cucumbers, jalapeños, tomatoes, mango, pineapple), add minced garlic, salt and pepper, and serve with tortilla or plantain chips. Want more sweet than tang? Use Cara Cara oranges or grapefruit to cure the fish, or throw in diced avocado or a little sugar to finish.
CREATE PRO-LEVEL ICE CREAM
At work, executive pastry chef Katie Fair makes Butcher & Bee’s “seasonal scoop” — currently strawberry sorbet with balsamic blueberries and shredded halva — on industrial equipment. At home, a countertop Cuisinart ice cream machine does the trick for a dessert she admits is both simple and temperamental.
For a deep dive into the science behind sugar and fat, Fair recommends the cookbook Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream by Dana Cree. For a basic but thorough approach, use popular recipe outlets like Bon Appetit and NYT Cooking
For the base of Philadelphia-style ice cream — as opposed to a custard, which has egg yolks — buy quality milk, cream, sugar and milk powder, an emulsifier you can find at the grocery store. For a nice texture, Fair recommends inverted sugars like corn syrup or glucose syrup, which is similar to corn syrup but has less water and is available for purchase online. Using both granulated and inverted sugar results in the best final product.
Heat the dairy, add the sugar and emulsifier and heat again. Add flavor — maybe citrus zest, tea or cinnamon — then strain and chill it.
“Chilling can make or break an ice cream,” Fair says. “After you make it, cool it down as fast as possible and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The flavor will improve, the texture will improve, everything will be better.”
When you remove the base from the fridge, Fair advises having a sense of urgency.
“Don’t let anything melt or warm up. It’s super important for the final texture of your ice cream.
If your base is warm, the emulsion will split, meaning the fat and water will separate. It’ll feel broken on your tongue, like icy or fatty bits.”
Churn the base, adding mix-ins like chocolate chips, biscuit pieces or peaches at the end of the cycle, or when you’re transferring it to an airtight container.
“Once you get the hang of it, get creative with your base,” Fair says. “Infuse your dairy with popcorn. Ice cream has limitless possibilities.”
HOST A LOW-KEY GATHERING
You want to have people over but the house isn’t in tip-top shape. Or you can’t afford food and drinks. Or you don’t have the time to make that dessert you saw on Insta — the one where you turn brownie bites and Mike and Ikes into a miniature edible grill.
No one cares. Just set a table.
“Sometimes I’ll put folding chairs and a table in my front yard and set it with a red-and-white tablecloth,” says Kristen Cudd, director of Hester & Cook’s Nashville retail shops. “When my neighbors see it, they know that at 6 p.m. they’re welcome to bring their dinner over and eat with my husband and me. The first time two people came. The next time it was a full table. I didn’t spend a dime.”
Something as simple as a table runner and matching placemats creates a story on the table that inspires guests to sit and stay awhile.
Themes make it easy to focus your efforts: Buy tomato sauce in pretty cans at the grocery, use them to make a big bowl of pasta and turn the cans into centerpiece vases with herbs or fresh flowers.
“I love the layered bean dip from a restaurant near my house, but it doesn’t transfer well from takeout container to serving bowl, so I took a Pyrex dish and asked them to build the dip in that,” Cudd says. “You’re not cheating because you didn’t make everything on the table.”
BUTCHER & BEE’S STRAWBERRY SORBET WITH BALSAMIC BLUEBERRIES AND SHREDDED HALVA
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@williamsonscene
THE CONTEMPORARY RESURGENCE of content-forward art started with the politically charged 1993 Whitney Biennial. The art in the show tackled the AIDS crisis and served as a protest against attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts. Suddenly, an artwork wasn’t a thing unto itself anymore. After the ’93 Biennial, artworks needed to be about something. Content — and the figures and narratives it most often relies on — ruled. But it seems that’s all over now.
A growing appetite for formal abstraction is overtaking representational art, and ideological messaging is giving way to emotions, sensations and musings stirred by color, shapes and expressive marks. The change hasn’t come with a bang or a whimper, but with a growing conversation in arts reporting that has collectors speculating, museums programming and artists finding new opportunities for work that might have been overlooked only a few years ago. Art & Object magazine covered the shift as early as February 2025, and in April of last year ARTnews editor Alex Greenberger announced that after a decade of figurative art dominating the New York gallery scene, abstract art was making a dynamic comeback. By May, Art in America’s New Talent issue was focused on a trending crop of abstract artists.
Demetrius Wilson is a New York-based artist with an internationally established résumé, but Aftershadow at Red Arrow is his first solo exhibition in Nashville. He is emblematic of a new insurgency of abstract artists — a movement I’m calling Next New Formalism — at the forefront of the swinging cultural/market pendulum. He’s also a Black artist whose work doesn’t overtly point to the signs and signifiers of contemporary Black art, insisting that Black art and artists cannot be contained by ill-fitting reductionist identity categories. Wilson makes paintings about paint, and viewers will also find a blush of emotional content reflected in the artist’s titles and palette. This is a display that upsets expectations, even as it reaffirms bedrock truths about artists and artmaking.
The COVID pandemic echoed the Spanish Flu of the early 20th century, and new global military tensions recall the World War years. I’ve been tracking the shift toward abstraction in these pages since 2023, noting that 21st-century American painting resonates with the work of the early Modernist painters of the first half of the 20th century. For a variety of reasons, we currently find ourselves retesting the trials of the past century, and you can see it in the painting.
Many of the early American Modernists were landscape painters who adopted new ideas coming from Europe, resulting in works that pictured mountains, trees and streams in suggestive gestures, loose brushwork and unreal palettes. In the first half of the 20th century,
THIS IS THIS
Demetrius
Wilson brings his Next New Formalism to Red Arrow
BY JOE NOLAN
painters like Arthur Dove and Charles Burchfield painted the kinds of natural and agrarian subjects that had always been popular in American painting, but their renderings were stripped down and stylized by Dove and imbued with hallucinatory imaginings by Burchfield.
Wilson’s works read like landscapes. Amid overlapping swatches of orange, brown, white, blue and green, viewers see trees and mountains, frozen ice and farmers’ fields. All of Wilson’s compositions are strong, and the mostly dark palettes bring a pleasantly solemn mood to the show. The sweet spots in Wilson’s oil paintings on canvas are the rough, instinctive brushwork and the interplay among his colored layers.
Close observation of these works pays dividends and leads viewers to Wilson’s titles, which
often reveal that these paintings about paint are also about the painter and emotions. One of the standout works in the show looks like an abstract take on a sunset in a mountain valley, but Wilson calls that painting “Paranoia Taking Over Me.”
My favorite work in the show is called “Put Your Name on It.” It features a luscious profusion of pink, yellow and orange, and it’s like diving face-first into a springtime flower garden. Wilson is a dedicated formalist, and his work demonstrates how abstract painting can still be a vehicle for content, even when it’s not emphasized.
As abstract imagery reasserts itself in studios and galleries, we’re watching figures, narratives and content fade and hush into the background.
Demetrius Wilson’s paintings aren’t about identity or sociopolitical commentary. They’re not
diary entries, and they’re not about pop culture. They’re about paint. In the Next New Formalism — as in every old formalism — a painting isn’t about something. It is something. Wilson’s separation of identity and art is an important reminder that census categories and demographic data don’t make art — sacred, unique, individual people do. ▼
Demetrius Wilson: Aftershadow Through June 27 at Red Arrow
“PARANOIA TAKING OVER ME,” DEMETRIUS WILSON
TREE OF LIFE
Silent Friend is a hypnotic journey through the secret life of plants
BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
SILENT FRIEND IS two-and-half hours of a centuries-old tree soaking up other people’s bullshit. Tell me you don’t relate to that.
I’m quite certain Hungarian writer-director Ildikó Enyedi (On Body and Soul) had a mission in mind that was more profound and less profane than my summary when she made this time-bouncing, dreamlike salute to nature and all its wonders. The tree in question is a female ginkgo biloba that’s been around since the 1800s, in a botanical garden near Marburg University in Germany.
The tree catches the attention of several soft-spoken introverts throughout the decades. There’s Dr. Tony Wong (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a Hong Kong neurologist who gets stuck on campus during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally there to conduct research on newborn brain activity, he shifts his focus to engaging neurologically with the ginkgo, getting help via video calls from a fetching French botanist (Léa Seydoux, naturally) and quietly pissing off the groundskeeper (Sylvester Groth, who played Goebbels in Inglourious Basterds).
We shift from digital to black-and-white 35 mm to meet Grete (Luna Wedler), a young woman who becomes the university’s first female student in 1908. Immediately hit with scorn and snide, sexist remarks from both the faculty and the student body (it appears German people didn’t care for smart, independent women back in the day), she does find a couple of male allies in a helpful, easy-on-the-eyes adviser (Johannes Hegemann) and a senior portrait photographer
(Martin Wuttke, who played Hitler in Basterds) who takes her under his wing. She often slips away to the garden, where she and other ladies participate in some liberating, early-morning frolicking around that ever-present ginkgo.
We then go 16 mm and the early 1970s, when we see country-boy student Hannes (Enzo Brumm) trying to relax in the garden while his fellow students talk of revolution and sit-ins. He begins a will-they-won’t-they relationship with flirtatious student Gundula (Marlene Burow), who lives in the same boarding house as Hannes and studies interactions between plants and humans via a geranium houseplant that’s connected to an activity sensor. While Gundula’s away on a trip, temporary caretaker Hannes begins to have a better relationship with the geranium, even giving the flowering plant the ability to mechanically open the front gate when he needs it.
As the kids would say, Silent Friend is a mood. Once Enyedi introduces the main players, she spends most of the movie fluidly flowing in and out of their stories, presenting each one in a visually distinctive fashion. She uses a lot of stark, static, barely populated shots in Wong’s story, while she shoots most of Grete’s story in tight close-ups, making viewers feel just as tense and anxious as she is. As Enyedi and cinematographer Gergely Pálos craft spellbinding sequences in which we get to the roots (sorry, I had to do it!) of that tree and other sources of plant life, you might get the feeling the director cares more about living things that come from the ground
than those who walk the earth. (I can’t help thinking this movie would kill at those IMAX theaters located inside science museums.)
But she does have a sympathetic soft spot for her gentle-soul protagonists, a trio of people who get along with vegetation more than humans. It is great seeing Hong Kong icon Leung — who already mastered the art of playing lonely guys when he did movies for John Woo and Wong Kar-wai back in the day — once again working that cozy charisma of his as the
THE NAME SHE GAVE WAS CAROLINE
Carolina Caroline is a sleek modern update to the lovers-on-the-run genre
BY LOGAN BUTTS
TWO OF AMERICAN cinema’s most fruitful periods — the New Hollywood era of the 1960s and ’70s and the Sundance-fueled independent movement of the ’90s — featured an outsized number of lovers-on-the-run movies. Of course, these sorts of films have been around for ages (check out Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 spy thriller The 39 Steps for a fun early entry), but for some reason, they pop up more often during revolutionary phases of filmmaking in the U.S. Directors can’t help but be intoxicated by the concept of crossing brutal violence with genuine, heartfelt romance. The ultimate example is 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde the flash-bang that set off the New Hollywood movement.
That landmark film is an obvious influence on Adam Carter Rehmeier’s Carolina Caroline, which stars Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner as a pair of lovers named Caroline and Oliver on a perilous journey from Texas to South Carolina. But this iteration also takes major inspiration from 1973’s Badlands, the gorgeous feature-film debut from Terrence Malick starring Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen. Like Badlands, Carolina Caroline sees a young woman (Spacek in the former, Weaving in the latter) plucked from Podunk by a charismatic criminal (Sheen, Gallner) to go on a crime spree. For the formula to work, the young stars need to have believable chemistry — enough that we’re willing to ride with them through any violence that may occur. Weaving
introverted Wong. His character has gotten so used to being by himself, he doesn’t seem all that fazed that COVID-19 has forced everybody to stay indoors.
Part nature documentary, part visual tone poem and part meditation on finding connections during turbulent times, Silent Friend is a hypnotic journey through the secret life of plants — and the people who bond with them — starring a giving tree that would make Shel Silverstein proud. ▼
and Gallner’s chemistry is on display from the opening scene.
Weaving has become something of a genre movie queen since her breakout starring role in the gleeful 2019 horror-comedy Ready or Not. She has starred in 10 horror or thriller movies in the eight years since Ready or Not’s debut. I thought she was destined for A-list status following that performance, but she’s become somewhat overshadowed by fellow Aussie Margot Robbie’s ascension to mega-stardom. (Their similar looks were utilized brilliantly in my beloved Babylon.) She’s found her groove in downand-dirty thrillers like Carolina Caroline. The Southern accent is a bit spotty, but she’s right at home in the subject matter. Gallner has paved a similar lane for himself after compelling roles in grimy pictures like Strange Darling and The Passenger. Aside from a monstrous one-scene performance from Kyra Sedgwick, Weaving and Gallner do all the heavy lifting.
The romantic crime thriller is a departure from Rehmeier’s previous outing, the criminally underseen Snack Shack, a coming-of-age story centering on high school kids working at a summertime community pool. But what both movies have in common is a strong sense of place. Carolina Caroline was not filmed on a backlot in Atlanta. The dive bars, shitty motels and tiny town squares feel lived-in.
The film also features a killer soundtrack full of Nashville artists, with entries including a sublime use of Jason Isbell’s “Cover Me Up,” a bank-robbing montage set to Chris Stapleton’s “Parachute,” and a couple of old-school Music City needle-drops: Townes Van Zandt’s heart-wrenching “Tecumseh Valley” and Loretta Lynn’s version of “Before the Next Teardrop Falls.”
With a rollicking soundtrack, convincing atmosphere and a dedicated pair of leads, Carolina Caroline amounts to more than a sum of its influences to leave a lasting impression. ▼
Carolina Caroline NR, 105 minutes
Opening Friday, June 5, at the Belcourt and select Regal locations
Silent Friend NR, 147 minutes; in German with English subtitles
Opening Friday, June 5, at the Belcourt
Elmington Park
Fun
ACROSS
1 Grammy-winning singer who’s had both a “Farewell Tour” and a “Here We Go Again Tour”
5 Carry out orders
9 Some images carved in Egyptian tombs
13 Class that might be all play and no work?
14 “Seriously, dude …”
16 One robed in a kittel, maybe
17 Part of an evacuation plan
18 Former carrier over Mauna Kea
20 References as references
21 It ends “But the way of the ungodly shall perish”
22 Sin/cos
23 Billy goat’s cry
24 Vulpine
26 Revealing statement?
30 First movie to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
33 Telegram enders
35 Setting for “Biohackers” and “Bones”
36 Tag line
38 Mocking name for failed businesses of the early 2000s
40 Catch
41 What “R” might stand for on an envelope
43 Company named after a volcano
44 Loves of the past
46 Be left at a loss?
47 Objectivist Rand
48 Kind of rally
50 Hit list
55 “There it is!”
58 Seafood dish known as the King of Salads
59 Film angling for awards … or what’s depicted three times in this puzzle?
61 Utah’s ___ Canyon Waterfall
62 “Well, I never!”
63 Leaves the slip, perhaps
64 Comic ___
65 Some informal wear
66 Tonsillectomy specialists, for short
1 Vulgar
2 “___ español?”
3 Funeral home professional
4 Hotshot lawyer
5 Holder of a large bed
6 Least aerodynamic, maybe
7 Qatari title
8 “And ___, here we are”
9 Rub with oil
10 Graphic novels?
11 What am I, chopped liver?
12 Super Mario World console, in brief
13 Gen Z slang for awesome style
15 Largest of the dolphin family
19 ___ good turn
22 Toys for tots, perhaps
25 49er’s score
27 Heaps
28 Pulitzer-winning Kendrick Lamar album
29 1974 Eurovision winners
30 “Auld Lang ___”
31 Chess-playing Mechanical Turk of 1770, for one
32 Cartoonist and inventor Goldberg
33 Put away
34 Tour guide’s admonition
37 Company that bought out Applebee’s in 2007
39 Golf Hall-of-Famer who was honored with a 1953 ticker-tape parade in New York
42 Shortchange
45 Green icons on Rotten Tomatoes
47 Station announcement, in brief
49 Take in
51 Hall’s former partner
52 Fear for a launderer
53 Bank notes featuring the temple of Angkor Wat
54 Hamiltons
55 Exchanged words?
56 Org. in some company lawsuits
57 Little Engine’s belief
58 Word with giver or taker
60 “You ___!” (“I agree!”)
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Howard C. Gentry, Jr., Criminal Court Clerk
It is my privilege as your elected Criminal Court Clerk to notify all citizens of Davidson County, that relative to grand jury proceedings, it is the duty of your grand jurors to investigate any public offense which they know or have reason to believe has been committed and which is triable or indictable in Davidson County. In addition to cases presented to the grand jury by your District Attorney, any citizen may petition the foreperson (foreman) of the grand jury for permission to testify concerning any offense in Davidson County. This is subject to provisions set forth in Tennessee Code Annotated 40-12-105. Pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated 40-12-104 and 40-12105, the application to testify by any citizen must be accompanied by a sworn affidavit stating the facts or summarizing the proof which forms the basis of allegations contained in that application. Your grand jury foreperson is Alisha Haddock Their address is 222 Second Avenue North, Washington Square Building, Suite 510, Nashville, Tennessee 37201. The Grand Jury will convene at 8:15 AM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and begin at 8:30 AM. First meeting date is scheduled for Tuesday, July 7th 2026 in the Jury Room of the Historic Metro Courthouse and will meet for three months. Submission of an affidavit which the applicant knows to be false in material regard shall be punishable as perjury. Any citizen testifying before the grand jury as to any material fact known to that citizen to be false shall be punishable as perjury. For a request for accommodation, please contact 862-4260.
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NOTICE Danny Ray Parker: A Complaint For Divorce has been filed against you. You are hereby ORDERED to appear for hearing on that Complaint on June 16, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. at Dickson County Chancery Court, 500 Spring Street, Charlotte, Tennessee 37036 or to otherwise enter an appe arance in this matter. If you fail to do so, an order may be entered against you for the relief requested in the Complaint. You may view and obtain a copy of the Complaint and any other subsequently filed legal documents in the Chancery Court Clerk’s Off ice at the address shown above.
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