Sturgill Simpson plays exclusive 200-person popup in Nashville

This past Wednesday, I experienced a miracle. I was looking down at my phone, browsing Instagram while waiting for a meeting to start, and I saw something I could hardly believe — Johnny Blue Skies (aka, Sturgill Simpson) was playing at the Cobra Nashville?! I clicked on their website to see if this was a real post and it said the venue was closed for the day.

Was I dreaming? There’s no way he would be playing in such a small space… right? Then, about five minutes later, they posted on Instagram that Johnny Blue Skies would be playing and that doors opened at 7:30pm. My heart instantly sank, because it was already 6:30 and I knew that, because of my meeting, I probably wouldn’t get there until close to 7pm.

Instead of giving up, I decided to test my luck.

As my Uber dropped me off in front of the venue, a wave of discouragement and sadness hit me like a ton of bricks: there must’ve been at least 500 people in line and I knew there was no hope of me getting into this 200-person venue. For a brief moment, I considered paying somebody to let me skip the line, but then I thought that would be unfair to everyone who had hustled faster than I could to get there. As I started walking toward the back of the line, I bumped into one of my friends who bartends at the Cobra. I shoot local bands at this venue all the time, so I’m pretty familiar with the staff. I jokingly asked her what she thought my chances were of actually getting in and she said:

“Probably pretty bad… but why don’t you come with me?”

She led me in through the side door and my heart almost exploded with joy as I realized I’d be at the front of the stage for one of my top musical icons. For someone like me, this is nothing short of a miracle.

The venue was hot and cramped as Sturgill Simpson took the stage. I couldn’t really wrap my head around the fact that he was playing this dive bar… a venue I frequent for local bands almost every week! It felt surreal as he threw his metal horns up in the air and asked the crowd how they were doing. For the next three hours, he played an unbelievable number of songs and absolutely rocked that small crowd. I’ve never felt that kind of electricity at any concert, at any point in my life.

I was so happy throughout the show that I felt genuinely sad for everyone who didn’t get in; I consider it a miracle that I made it into that venue at all. He played a lot of songs off his last two albums, Passage du Desir and Mutiny After Midnight. He even threw in a couple of amazing covers, “Party All the Time” and Prince‘s “Purple Rain”, among them. I honestly feel like I’ve never seen him happier onstage. I’ve personally been to three of his shows and at none of them was he smiling and vibing with the audience like this.

This was hands down the best concert I’ve ever been to.

Even writing this is bringing me back to that feeling of being crammed into one of the smallest dive venues in Nashville, sweating alongside 200 strangers. Thank you to Cobra Nashville for coordinating such an unreal experience!

Photography by Derek Jones

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